Under renovation

There's going to be a significant shift in style and focus with my blog from now on. I don't know how many people read it, but I know at least a few who do who may be disappointed to hear this. However, the old posts will always be there to take a look at and enjoy.

When I talk about this shift in style, what I mean is that instead of it being a traditional rant about some trivial crap each time, instead I'm going to write about whatever I want in whatever mood I want to write about it in. It's basically going to be a regular blog reflecting on my thoughts or siginificant moments in my life. If you're wondering why I'm easing off my idiosyncratic ranting style, it's simply because I can't sustain it for much longer. When I first started writing this, I wanted to have an angle to make myself stand out, and I did this through ranting. But it tires after a while, and in this case I'm the one that's tired perhaps before other people are. My output has been lessening over the last few months simply because I can't think of anything to rant about in such detail as before. If you want proof of my difficulty in sustaining this blog as it is, check out the atrocity that was my last entry.

I'm always going to moan about something though, and it will be a staple of my blog entries to come, just not as the sole purpose of it. If I can put in a few funny lines in each entry I'll be happy, but of course you'll be the judge of that. Hopefully people will still be interested in what I have to say, but if you only read it just to see me overreact and be an idiot in general, that's dead in the water now.

To kick start this off, I'll briefly discuss a holiday I had at the beginning of the month to the whisky paradise of Islay. Islay, for those of you who don't know, is the southernmost of the Inner Hebrides (Western Isles of Scotland). Its major claim to fame is that it has eight working distilleries on it, some of which produce what are considered the finest single malts in the world. On my short three or four days there I visited Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain were presumably closed or didn't have visitor centres, either way we didn't visit them on the tour.

Islay itself is a nice but not amazingly interesting island, bar a few celtic crosses and the seat of the Lord of the Isles at Finlaggan. However the weather was great most of the time and the distillery tours were always interesting. Lagavulin was the best though. We had a warehouse tasting session there, and I was lucky enough to try new make spirit, ten years old, fourteen years old, eighteen years old, double matured and a rare cask strength expression, all straight from the barrel. I even got to siphon the eighteen years old Laguvalin right from the barrel, to be poured for the rest of the visitors.

I'd love to say more about my Islay trip but I'm going on a bit with this entry. All I'll say is any whisky lover should book an Islay tour; you won't regret it. Next time, I'll say a few words about a sketch show I've been in involved in.