10 years of 24 hour drinking

So, it's the tenth anniversary of the changes to British licensing laws that saw '24 hour drinking' - as it was promoted at the time - introduced.

It was remarkable in that it was one of the few pieces of legislation from a Labour government with which I've completely agreed, and a rare moment of genuine liberalisation from that most authoritarian of parties.


It's also remarkable just how little it changed things. It wasn't the life-changing progressive development we thought and hoped it might be, was it?

How to destroy 12 countries in 83 paragraphs

Some time ago, I forget exactly when - probably around last Christmas, I set myself the slightly bonkers target of visiting 12 new countries during 2015.

Given that I'm reasonably well-traveled and had already been to something like 36 different countries, depending on what criteria one uses, this was a bit of a challenge. Especially as I also really like staying in England quite a lot. (We live in a fucking great country with a history and culture that shames the rest of the world and a thriving craft beer scene. Coventry are winning every week, and Steeleye Span are on tour. Who in their right mind wants to go off somewhere else in a fucking aeroplane?!?)

But with over 50 days still left in the year, I completed the mission relatively easily. Go me. (It's an even more impressive score for Mrs. B-V who hadn't been to Estonia or Belgium before and thus got 14 new countries!)

Some places were interesting from a food and drink perspective, some were not. Some I blogged about at the time*, others I wrote about elsewhere, and still others I didn't bother with as I considered them a waste of ink. Or keystrokes.