Desert Island Skinner

No, I'm not on holiday. (I'm Irish - I can't afford holidays any more.)

I've been compiling my 'Desert Island Discs' list. It was interesting fun actually, so I'm pleased to share the fruits of my labour. I'm also profoundly curious to know what would be on your list.

I've been listening to a lot of BBC radio recently. (Infinitely superior to Pravda.)

There is great current affairs and sport to be had from Radio Five Live. Six, which nearly got axed recently, is epic for quirky shows of interesting music presented by individualists. Three is the model upon which all classical music channels are based, but the original is still the best. One and Two are avoided like the plague.

Four is a personal favourite. I listen to it while driving for two reasons - firstly, its unashamed intellectualism makes me feel smarter than I actually am and distracts me from venting endless rage upon the blind and retarded people with whom I find myself sharing Irish roads, and secondly, because when Gardai stop you for whatever reason and hear you listening to a documentary about the King James Bible, or The Archers or even the Just a Minute quiz, their gruff bucolic heads become baffled, and they forget why they flagged you down, apologise, tug their forelock and wave you on with a jovial good day.

See? Even thinking about Radio Four makes your sentences longer and full of words like 'jovial' and 'bucolic'. What's not to love? Yet, like Six, it nearly got axed recently in the BBC cuts. Or rather, PC harridans wanted it dumbed down so that de yoof could like, get wot it woz all about, innit? Thankfully, the wiser heads seem to have prevailed.

I appear to have gone off track. What I really wanted to post about was my delight that Auntie Beeb has gone and archived the last 500 episodes of my personal favourite BBC radio programme in a searchable format online. Pay attention, Pravda - THIS is the sort of thing a licence fee is supposed to be for, not paying ridiculously inflated wages to stuttery eejits like Joe Duffy.

Anyhow, you just can't listen to Desert Island Discs without wondering what your own selections would be. This thought has strangely gripped me over the past little while, and as a result, I've finally closed in on my list of castaway music and items.

I would of course be happy to accept the gratis Collected Shakespeare and King James Bible that programme originator Roy Plomley kindly provided to castaways on the grounds that if he hadn't, the vast majority of guest would choose them as their book picks. Both, after all, are fine works of creative fiction, elegantly written.

So, after much aforethought, were I ever to come to Auntie Beeb's attention and be invited into the studio to imagine my stranding on a desert island, here are my eight pieces of music (in no particular order), book and luxury:

1. Motorcycle Emptiness - Manic Street Preachers



Probably the best band out of Britain in the past two or three decades. It was difficult to choose a single track from these lads. Tsunami, Everything Must Go, La Tristessa Durera - they're responsible for so many wonderful songs. I ended up edging for Motorcycle Emptiness because lyrically it expresses so much about what plagues the underclass and, amazingly, it was one of their first songs, from their stupendously good Generation Terrorists debut album. Anyone who loves rock music can't help but be impressed by the riffs dripping off this song.

2. Everyday is like Sunday - Morrissey



The high watermark of Morrissey - just coming out of the storm of the Smiths, before he got a bit lost in his own strange universe. You'd need to be inhuman not to relate to this a little, sometimes. We've all been there. A little, sometimes.

3. Here Comes The Night - Them



Yes, he may be a grumpy old cunt, but he always could and still can sing with the best of them. Throw in his undoubted talent for composition, and Van the Man remains a national treasure. You could frankly pick almost anything from his entire career, but I have a soft spot for this particular early performance when he was with Them, which comes complete with cringeworthy Jimmy Saville introduction. He's so young he's skinny here, looking disturbingly like Rory McIlroy the golfer, with it all ahead of him. Epic.

4. Hey - Pixies



The best song off the best album by a band who hundreds of other bands owe their careers to. Choppy, discordant, melodic, soft, loud, gentle, harrowing. And all in just over three minutes.

5. Then She Did - Jane's Addiction



Another groundbreaking band who never got the credit they ought to have. The album this comes from - Ritual de lo Habitual - is one of those rare beasts; a record with not one second of filler. Every song is a stone cold classic. No wonder they broke up afterwards. It couldn't be topped. This song is theirs and my favourite off the album, a paean to a dead mother written in Farrell's usual tangential manner with the band's trademark ocean-sized sound transiting through more movements than most operas.

6. Watching the Wheels - John Lennon



Lennon's comeback tirade against his many critics who had bemoaned everything from his marriage to his long weekend out of the game. Manages to shut them up with this simple, effective and moving testimony to the importance of what's important. Life, as someone once said, is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

7. Ya Na Ho - Jim Pepper



Pepper's career reads like that of a lot of jazzmen - he was innovative (one of the first people to mix jazz and rock into fusion) and a journeyman, playing sax in other people's bands for many years.
What sets him apart is his background - he was an American Indian, or what they call 'Native American' these days, of Kaw and Creek heritage. When he had the opportunity to do his own thing, often what he did was very different to the sax jazz he did for others or even his own fusion jazz releases.
Among his discography are a series of remarkable records from the Seventies, where he singlehandedly created a second new musical genre - part US folk, part Amerindian traditional chant, the songs are hypnotic, touching, simple and profound. In the end it was literally a coin-toss whether to pick this or Going to Muskogee. I like his classic Witchi Tai To as well, but I like this better.

8. Cloudbusting - Kate Bush



I didn't mean for this list to be so short on women. I like a lot of female artists, probably more than male. Something about the tone of the voice, maybe. There were a lot of women just outside my top eight in the end. But this was always in there, as was a good few more of Kate Bush's unique songs.
This has everything, frankly - a song about experimental science from a child's point of view, complete with subversive critique of big government, heartaching expression of family life torn, and an epic video starring her as a little boy and Donald Sutherland as Dad.
She's got a new album coming out this year apparently. I'll be first in line as ever. She's an international treasure.

Oh, yeah. I get a book and a luxury item too.

I'd love to be pretentious and say something like Finnegans Wake, which would certainly keep you going for as many years as you might be stranded on a desert island, if not for many lifetimes. But the first time was a struggle, and it frankly isn't that much fun picking apart multilingual puns. I'm going to plump for an old favourite, a real blockbusting literary masterpiece - Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess.
Burgess wasn't just the author of nasty little shockers about violent kids who drink drugged milk and speak Russian. He could write - properly write - too, and this was his bona fide masterpiece.
Effectively it's like a tragic Zelig. It's the whole of the 20th century in a novel, told with gusto and brio. Everytime I read it, there's something new in it I didn't properly notice before, because it is absolutely brimming with ideas, set pieces and literary genius. It should have won the Booker Prize in 1981, but the best books never do win the Booker.

My luxury? Well, on a desert island you already have solitude, which is what I find luxurious these days - time to myself. Since that's a given, I'm rather torn as my choice would be dependent on the flora of the island I landed on. Is there any barley growing there? What other plants exist? One assumes food is available, but the words desert island imply sand not crops.
If there was barley, I'd go for a pot still as my luxury item. Assuming there are trees, I'd be able to make my own whiskey. A still would remain useful even if one was only distilling fruit though. Yummy fruit brandies are still better than no alcohol. But without barley and wood to mature my spirit in, it just wouldn't be the same. There's a reason why whiskey, an Irish invention, is adored worldwide and pineapple brandy is not.
So, if there was no barley, I'll take some feminised cannabis seeds and grow some weed instead.
Either way, on my desert island, it would be my rules, so no prohibition on either distilling your own or growing your own, and I frankly don't mind which, though I'd edge for the still if barley was available.

That's my list anyway. What's on yours?

Scotch at noon

She's got a day off and she's excited about it.

"I'm going to be so lazy," she promises. "I'm having the longest lie-in. You know what I don't have to do? I don't have to work."

She gets drunk on the freedom.

"I could have scotch at noon," she promises rashly.

"You want scotch at noon?" I ask, concerned as I am the only possessor of scotch in the building.

"Don't be silly," she says to my relief. "I'm going to sleep in way past noon!"

The definition of delayed gratification

Apparently, the oul fella, who has had a few run-ins healthwise in recent times, finally opened the bottle of rare and exceedingly expensive whiskey I bought him rather a long time ago indeed.

His verdict?

"The best I've had."

My response?

"Can I have some?"

His response?

"Get yer own!"

The Once In A Blue Moon

Recipe:

Take one bottle of traditionally illicit Antrim poitin, matured three months to six, and into it macerate some fresh seasonal blueberries for nine months.

Serve two fingers of the resulting fruit poitin in a Slim Jim with fresh mint leaves, muddled.

Add ice to the top, then dilute with quinine tonic water to the brim.

Citrus slice optional.

The best summer cocktail ever.

The unanswerables

At what point does just wanting to chill out in the house become clinical sociopathy?

How many nightly headaches are required for a diagnosis of brain tumour or loss of libido?

In a time of rising prices and recession, is installing a bar in the house a shockingly unnecessary luxury or a money-saving scheme?

Does food you buy in IKEA have to be assembled before eaten?

If you can't control your own currency, can you be said to manage your economy? And is that as relevant for people as countries?

Why does Coca-Cola need to take eight litres of water to make each litre of their toxic waste sugar drink? And why do they keep locating their bottling plants in drought regions of the Third World? And why do people still drink the stuff, anyway?

Where will they put all the unused aircraft currently parked in Nevada if it starts raining there?

Can whiskey ever really be considered an investment?

Would it be better to be spectacularly successful early in life and then spend the rest of your existence in a sort of afterlife, or would it be better to be moderately successful late in life, when you might appreciate it better and go out on a high?

Why doesn't democracy work? Would more work, or less? Do we really get the governments we deserve?

Why are the worst recreational drugs legal and the least addicting, least socially hurtful, least personally damaging ones prohibited?

What are we here for? What if we're not here for anything?

Jetlag makes me pensive. Time to crack open the duty-free, perhaps.

The Irish Whiskey Tasting Championships

This is what Mammy Skinner raised me for, I have no doubt.

Last night I achieved a podium finish in the Irish Whiskey Tasting Championships!

I came third, and won a nice bottle of Connemara Cask Strength which I suspect will get polished off by my better half.

This marks a modest but notable improvement on my respectable joint fourth finish in the Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship last Summer.

Fair play to the lads at the Celtic Whiskey Shop for organising the event.

Hopefully one day the nascent Irish Whiskey Society will take over the reins of running the tasting competition, though.


There were some very interesting drams included in the tasting last night, which meant that everyone had a chance to taste something new to them.

I was especially pleased to try the now legendary Red Breast 15 year old again, and the sherried Connemara single cask.


Needless to say, my head hurts this morning!

Congrats to the Irish Whiskey Society

Who had their inaugural founding meeting this week in a packed Bowes' pub in Dublin.

(Off on a tangent: I've been loathe to add my voice to all the others gabbling incessantly about the recession. After all, I'm not an economist, and it's all pretty obvious what's going on and how it's going to get worse in the months to come.
Instead, I've been trying, in these dark January days, to find something to be positive about. It hasn't been easy, which is why I haven't been posting much. But at last there's something to be cheerful about. Ireland's finally getting it's very own whiskey society! End of tangent.)

It's been a long time coming, but the response has been staggering, especially when you consider that all advertising of the society was done solely by word of mouth.

People from all over the world have inquired about joining. I mean all over. We're talking India, North America, Sierra Leone even.

People came to the inaugural meeting from Hungary, Belfast, Galway and plenty of other places. It just goes to show the massive interest and passion there is for Irish whiskey.

And fair play to the two of the four Irish distillers (Cooley and the Porterhouse) who showed up. No doubt once the society is established and on its feet the big two will come in behind it as well. After all, it's a society founded on a devotion to their industry!

Anyone interested in finding out more should contact (Scottish!) founder of the society Michael Foggarty via the society's website.

In the meantime, David Havelin's excellent blog about Irish whiskey is available to keep anyone who loves Irish whiskey informed about all the latest developments.

Not big or clever

I am currently attending a Whisky event in Glasgow.

Yesterday, I sampled at least nineteen whiskies in just under six hours.

This was not respectful to the wonderful whiskies I tried towards the end of the day, and it was not respectful to my body and mind, both of which are wracked with pain today.

Somehow, I managed to keep tasting notes for all (or at least, the first nineteen) whiskies I tried.

Okay, so the last few notes appear to be in Japanese, or to have been written by a man in the throes of an epileptic fit, but they exist nonetheless.

None of this is big or clever.

But since it marks the height of maturity compared to the juvenile behaviour on the boys' weekend trip to Amsterdam which just preceded this, I'm just glad to be heading in the right direction.

Which is towards painkillers, obviously.

Budget carnage

Did you enjoy your decade of gombeen government?

I hope you did, because the bill just arrived:

1% 'levy' on all earnings.
2% over 100K.
HSE middle management axed; review of public service to find more job cuts.
Decentralisation paused till 2011.
8c a litre on petrol, 50c on pack of fags, 50c on bottle of wine.
'Review' of pension reserve fund (he's going to raid it later.)
Dublin Metro on pause.
Over 70s med card axed for those who don't qualify - but they'll get a 400 euro donation towards med costs in its place.
Capital gains tax up.
10 euro tax on airport departures, 2 euro for 'shorter' journeys.
Tax on second homes and let homes, but not on homes for sale but not sold (got to look after those poor builders).
Child benefit halved for 18 year olds, and to be scrapped in a couple of years.

When your next pay cheque arrives, notably lighter than before, remember who to blame. You'll get a chance to have your say next year, when the local government elections come around.

(Pic shamelessly nicked from the geniuses at The Irish Sentinel)

You know it's time for bed

When the neighbours are banging on the walls because you're playing Ethiopian jazz too loud.



It fucking rawks, though.

(Or else the whiskey does. Or probably both do. Together.)



You should get yourself some of each and annoy your neighbours too.

Must go. The cops are at the door again...

JC Skinner's guide to Irish Whiskey

Following on from my nigh-legendary guidance on drinking in general, here's a few pointers about Irish whiskey just in time for St Patrick's Day.

1. It's whiskEy not whisky. With an 'E' and it's Irish, without and it's Scotch. Some Yanks like to spell their Bourbon the Irish way, with the E. This is a mistake, since the vast majority of Bourbon isn't proper whiskey at all. In my opinion, of course.

2. Unlike the Scots, who cleverly kept most of their distilleries open, we stupidly shut nearly all of ours. Therefore, there are really only three distilleries left. To make up for that, they distil a bewildering display of whiskies to make it look like there are lots more than there really are.

3. Scots tend to make the most sought-after single malts. Irish distilleries make some excellent malts too, but what they really excel at is blends.
The Scots also tend to use peat to dry the malt in their whiskies, which can make them smoky. The Irish don't, with two notable exceptions.
Irish whiskey is generally triple distilled, which Scotch rarely if ever is. Hence Irish whiskey is generally the smoother tipple.

4. You have Bushmills on the North Coast of Antrim, probably located in the most Protestant, Unionist town in the world, but still aware of the marketing value of calling their famous product Irish, rather than Ulster, whiskey.
Bushmills make their own basic blend, Old Bushmills, which is sweet, young and good for skulling lots of during a whiskey binge, if that's your thing. Black Bush is the more upmarket blend, very tasty indeed and good value for money.
They also do a great range of single malts, including the green bottle 10 year old, which is yummy, and a truly sumptuous 16 year old, which is finished in three woods and tastes incredibly complex as a result.
At the top of the range is the 21 year old, matured in madeira casks, and a special 400th anniversary whiskey currently only on sale at the distillery, which is just fantastic. Also only at the distillery is the 12 year old reserve single malt.
In the past, the distillery has done limited edition single cask special editions. These are extremely overpriced gimmicks. Having said that, I'm open to receiving any of them on Christmas or birthdays!

The verdict: If you want that genuine Irish whiskey binge experience, the basic Bushmills is a good contender. If smooth single malts with vanilla and complex wine notes are your thing, feel free to move up the Bushmills single malts ladder as far as your pocket will allow you. The 16 year old is probably the best value of the lot.

5. Midleton is a little town just outside of Cork, where distilling has been going on for a very long time, and they're good at it.
This is just as well, because probably nearly all of the best known Irish whiskies are actually all made here now, especially since distilling in Dublin died out with the closure of the Jameson's distillery at Bow Lane, which is now a nice museum.
So prolific is Midleton, that they even make the grain whiskey that goes into Bushmills blends, and the whiskey that goes into Bailey's Irish Cream.
But what they're best known for are the Jameson range, which they inherited from Bow Lane, Paddy's and Powers Gold Label. Personally speaking, I don't rate any of these.
In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest that anyone who recommends any of these doesn't know their whiskey.
Powers and Paddy's are fine for kids to mix with Coke, or for use in Irish coffees and hot whiskeys, of course. Same with basic Jameson, which is just about good enough to drink on its own or on the rocks.
Further up the food chain are some heavily overpriced Jamesons, including the 1780 which is a 12 year old blend, an outrageously pricey 18 year old, and Crested Ten, which has a reputation in some quarters which is unwarranted.
The Jameson Gold is probably the best value in the brand range, but is generally only spotted in duty-free shops, more's the pity.
Midleton does make the extremely good value Tullamore Dew, which is very young as whiskies go, and quite popular in the US. For sheer bang for your buck, this is probably the best of the Midleton productions.
For quality though, one is forced to pay through the nose for the Midleton Very Rare, a deliberately limited edition whiskey sold in an ostentatious wooden box for figures upwards of 100 euro a bottle.
Each year the 'vintage' is slightly different, which adds to the collectible value. It's a lovely whiskey, whichever vintage you sample. But is it worth that money? Probably only to those who will leave it in the bottle for twenty years, untouched.
But Midleton does produce one genuine all-round gem of a whiskey. It's a pure pot still whiskey, a traditional method unique to Ireland, and it is superb and very reasonable value too.
This is Redbreast, of course, a 12 year old whiskey that has to be sampled to be believed.
And at the price it generally retails at, you can afford to put a bit more money to what you were going to spend on Jameson or Powers and get the proper good stuff.
There is another little historical anomaly produced at Midleton too. And thank God for it. Once upon a time, Ireland's many distilleries would produce bonded whiskies for pubs, wine importers and other independent establishments. All bar one of these no longer are produced.
There is one left though, Green Spot, which is produced at Midleton for Dublin wine merchants Mitchells. And it's fantastic. This is probably the best value Irish whiskey there is.
Sadly, it's produced in limited quantities and generally is only found in Mitchells' own shops, of which there are only three, and they're all in Dublin.

Verdict: Forget Paddy's and Powers. Of the Jamesons, Gold is the only one worth your money. But for gulping whiskey, Tullamore Dew is the one, for sipping whiskey go with the Redbreast, and if someone else is buying, try a Midleton Very Rare. But the one worth flying to Dublin just to buy is Green Spot.

6. The last of the three distilleries is Cooley, located almost on the border between British-owned Ireland and the independent free bit.
One thing Cooley has going for it is that unlike the other two, which are both owned by massive corporate conglomerates, Cooley is genuinely independent and hence deserving of support.
And a lot of people like what Cooley are doing, since they can't stop winning awards for their whiskies.
I once had a bad experience with their main single malt, Tyrconnell. I don't like it much and I don't like the fact that Cooley took the name from a venerable old whiskey once distilled in Derry at the now long-closed Watts distillery.
But Tyrconnell is loved by many, despite its youth. I'd be more inclined to look out for the limited edition finishes of Tyrconnell, though. They're marginally more interesting than the basic number.
The Greenore single grain whiskey is also, to my mind, completely worth ignoring, I'm afraid. The small amount of it they make inflates the price for what has to be the blandest whiskey in Ireland.
Their Kilbeggan blend is an adequate alternative to Paddy's or Jameson for those who want whiskey in their cola, and personally I'd recommend doing so just to give Cooley the business.
Cooley claims that their other blend, Locke's (also named for a whiskey that died a long time ago) is very hard to make and complex. I find it pretty bland again, even at 8 years old.
But before you think I'm completely down on the border boys, let me discuss what Cooley do uniquely and do incredibly well: peated Irish whiskey.
But JC, I hear you protest (because I have special powers which allow me to hear over the internet), didn't you say it's the Scots who peat whiskey?
Yup, they do. And if you've a taste for smokey Scotch, or a friend who loves Scotch who you want to convert to Irish whiskey, then you need to stock up on a couple of Cooley whiskies.
Specifically, you want to get the Connemara single malt, which just keeps winning awards.
It's very like a smokey island Scotch single malt, which was the point of the exercise really. In fact, it keeps outdoing Scotch equivalents at competitions.
And with a delicious 12 year old and a beefy cask strength option, there's a little range of options to enjoy, and though both of these can hurt the wallet a little, they're worth it if you like the basic Connemara number. Like pretty much all whiskey lovers do.
But for me, the real gem at Cooley is Inishowen (again, a name nicked from an old Watts whiskey).
There is literally nothing like Inishowen on earth. It's an Irish blend whiskey, with peated malt in the mix. In other words, it's the Giant's Causeway of whiskies, the missing link between Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky. Also a multiple award-winner, it is so reasonably priced that it's hard to fault it, despite its unique qualities.

Verdict: Everyone's waiting to see what emerges from the old Kilbeggan distillery, which Cooley has taken out of the mothballs, and hurrah for that. But judging on their current performances at Cooley, it could go either way. So for now, play it safe and stick with their peated range, Inishowen and Connemara.

6, There are other Irish whiskies out there. All are made by the above three distilleries for foreign markets, or for independent bottlers. I'd name a few, but apart from Coleraine (made at Bushmills and only recently improved to drinkable quality), or Millars Special Reserve (made at Cooley for a UK off-licence chain) I wouldn't accept a half-un of any of them to be honest.

7. Sadly, some of the best Irish whiskies are the remaining stocks of long-closed distilleries. As a result, these gems are generally very hard to find and appallingly expensive.
Examples would include 'Dungourney 64', which came from a single cask from the Old Midleton distillery that went missing for 30 years before being discovered and bottled.
Or Dunville's, a whiskey distilled in Belfast until the place closed Seventy years ago, a cache of which surfaced in Bushmills some years back.
Or Coleraine 1959, a limited edition 34 year old bottling of the last cask ever produced at the old Coleraine distillery.
Or Old Comber, which was bottled in the Eighties at around 33 years old from the last couple of casks remaining from the Ulster Distillery in Comber, which shut down in 1953.
Or Knappogue 51, which surfaced after 36 years and was bottled, and is now marketed as the rarest Irish whiskey in the world.
Which it probably isn't, as no doubt someone out there has a unique bottle out there of something ancient and preposterously rare.
But these are mostly museum pieces, articles for collections. Not for drinking unless you have deep pockets.
For St Patrick's Day, I'll be sipping some Green Spot, some Redbreast, some Bushmills 16 year old, and a little drop of Old Comber as a special treat.

Good luck and enjoy whatever you're having yourself! Slainte!

Roaming the blogosphere

As a prelude to sitting down and properly looking over the many excellent Irish blogs to be found on the long lists for the Irish Blog Awards, I thought I'd share with you some of the more unusual, but interesting non-Irish blogs I've come across recently.

For Girls Who Can't Do Football - A bit of untruth in advertising here. The splendidly monikered Georgina Best strides that fine, previously unknown, line between gurly life rambling blog (second biggest blog category in the whole 'sphere apart from cat blogs) and footie fanatic blog. Quality result! The girl done well.

Chatsoccer - Not strictly a blog, though it has group blog-like qualities. I mentioned them a little while ago, when they were still all new and pink with that lovely baby smell. Now they're already toasting the mainstream media on all things Irish footie-related. Spare yourself the euro and ignore what you read on the red-tops' backpage. Chances are, if it's true they probably nicked it from Chatsoccer.

What Does John Know? - Everything, actually, if what you want to know about is whiskey. John publishes a glossy expensive magazine purely about whiskey - the sort of mag you find in the rack in suites of five star hotels. But go to his blog, and for the price of the internet connection, you get the full inside track on whiskey, whisky, bourbon, rye and that muck that Japanese, New Zealanders and for all I know Martians also claim to be the water of life.

Tattooblog - Does exactly what it says on the skin, sorry, tin. It's not the usual insider 'body adornment' mong banging on about how 'tribal' his studio in some San Diego basement is. Though there is a serious appreciation of skin art expressed herein.
Nope, this blog strikes the tone of a celeb mag, with plenty of pics of new celeb tats and fresh pics of what's hot in tatworld (and not in the half-dressed biker chick kind of way). Wanna see tattoos of Darth Vader crossed with Hello Kitty, or read about braille tattoos for blind people? Or just find out what Amy Winehouse or Jordan's new tattoos are? This is where to go.

Weird Meat - Michael from Weird Meat is the inevitable result of the fetishisation of food and cuisine in modern culture. But writes it all up so well, you have to forgive him his penchant for chowing down on worm fungus, live shrimp and lizard soup in various unsignposted backstreet eateries in Asia.
This is what happens when you cross the food pornography of a Nigella or a Jamie with the backpacker spirit of eating local from a dodgy street stall even when your brain and tummy tell you not to. The lad has balls (sheep's balls, and he ate them in Shanghai).
For proper dodgy meat, however, he really needs to get out of Asia and over to Iceland, where rotten shark, whalemeat and singed sheep heads are traditional fare (I've had one of them and it was fantastic - not saying which one, though!)

There are more, but those are my current faves out there. And yes, I need to get out more, so I'm going to try doing that next week.

The JC Skinner guide to drinking

There is much discussion these days of drinking. People giving up the drink for the New Year. People in the country who needs lifts to get to the pub to go drinking. EU stats that show Irish people drinking more than Russians, nearly.

But what has been overlooked in the debate is what we're all drinking. Hence, in the spirit(s) of enlightenment, let me share with you my discerning young man's twelve point guide to good drinking:

1. Real men drink beer and whiskey. And only real beer and real whiskey, not Bud or Bourbon. Except in Russia, where they drink meths by the quart. Safer by far to stick to the beer and whiskey.
2. Cocktails and gin are acceptable drinks only in tropical climates. Brandy is for after dinner.
3. Quality indigenous rum and tequila exist only because the locals didn't have early access to quality ales and Scotch. So if you see Mexicans or Cubans drinking these drinks, it doesn't make them homos. However, they will laugh long and hard if you start knocking back shorts of their national drinks, or mixing them into girlie cocktails.
4. Whisky is made by Scottish people and whiskey is made by Irish people. No one else makes proper whiskey, no matter what they might claim.
5. Blended whiskies go from crap to great. The Irish make the better blends. Single malt means one type of whisky in the bottle only. The Scots make the better single malts.
6. Beer is best brewed by English, German and Belgian people. But drinking the local beer is always the best option, since beer needs to be enjoyed fresh. So forget imports if you want good beer. Drink from the local tap.
7. Alcopops are Satan's piss. The government should cut out the middle man and just hand out ASBOs at the bar to anyone even ordering one.
8. If you're drinking wine, start with the lightest white and work towards the strongest red, in order to appreciate the taste of each in turn. Wine tasters are supposed to spit, which is why it's more fun to be a beer or whiskey taster.
9. Knowing the grape type is more important to assessing a wine's taste from looking at the label than knowing the place it came from. Trying to know about vintages and terroirs is totally pointless, unless you are a wine buff looking for a job in alcohol retail. Even the experts regularly get it wrong, picking £5 bottles over £100 bottles in blind tastings. Most wine on the market that doesn't come in boxes is drinkable, unless it's corked.
10. Screwtops do not mean shit wine anymore. They stop wine from getting corked and a lot of top wineries use them now. Plastic corks are also good, but once you open the bottle, they won't go back in, so you'd better finish it. Wine doesn't keep overnight.
11. Corked wine smells musty, like your granny's wardrobe. If there's a smell of damp mould about a wine, it's corked. Send it back or take the bottle back untouched to the off-licence. Don't drink it anyway.
12. Stop drinking before people start staring.