I am Curious, Oranj

Curiosity flop: Curious IPA slightly too
old to be worth bothering with

It's perhaps no real surprise that life seems chaotic as, when I find myself in times of trouble, it's not Mother Mary but Mark E Smith who comes to me. 

Spouting words so barely comprehensible as to make them sound about as far away from wisdom as is possible, the man about whom seemingly no article can be written without including the word 'curmudgeon' (see?) has nevertheless made me think maybe everything isn't so bad after all. And for a good few years.

I've currently got The Fall's 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace blaring out of the stereo. If you haven't heard it, I urge you to rectify that as soon as you can. It's something of a 'primer' for the band and will provoke a response whether you like it or not.

From the opening doom-laden dirge to the upbeat but relentless closing track, there's all walks of life here, including the mantra-like refrain of 'What you need; out of reach,' which smacks me in the face with its pertinence, and the utterly bizarre I Am Damo Suzuki, which just makes me stare blankly into space.

In keeping with the LP, it looks like today's going to be one of those when you're never really certain what's coming next. Could be explosive, might be fairly mellow, or maybe just downright weird. This is the kind of thing that's supposed to make life interesting, isn't it?

Course, it's all too easy to fall in to the trap of thinking there may be a theme or pattern emerging and because things have appeared to go badly then they'll continue to do that. When really there isn't. It's just stuff happening and I suspect it's how you react to them rather than the things themselves that determine whether they're bad or not.

Quite frankly, I haven't had a great week and what I thought was going to be a brilliant night out this evening is unlikely to be as good as I'd initially hoped. But I don't really know that, do I? What I have done this week is allow myself to fall into the trap I mentioned above and I honestly thought I'd grown out of that by now.

So no matter what stuff the rest of today, the week and even the year can throw at me, the only thing I can say for sure is that, as Cruisers Creek would have it, there'll be a party on down around here. Best have a beer, then.

Beer: Curious IPA
Strength: A relatively meek 5.6%
Colour: That glowing orange you get outside warm pubs when you're looking in from the cold on a chilly winter evening.
Smell: A thick carpet of post-death Christmas tree pine needles and stale Uncle Joe's Mintballs.
Tasting notes: Oh no, it's those orangey Indian sweets again (see here for more on that). I've had this a lot with IPAs, usually American ones which I generally put down to them not having travelled well (a myth, of course), but this one's only come from Kent so that myth just won't wash. So it seems the malts have taken over and imparted a sickly sweet faintly cheesy taste despite what the hops might have to say about it. Like an imbalanced marriage, while there is discussion, there's only ever going to be one winner. And we all know how badly that can end, don't we? (And if we don't, just read the calendar from two years ago).
Gut reaction: Despite the intense discussion going on in the glass, on the tummy front all feels calm.
Session factor: I'd have a crack at more if this were a bit fresher, but having been in the bottle too long, this is the first and last one I'm having.
Arbitrary score: 12