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End User fun stuff

The black art of serving Guinness

Guinness - best drunk warm :)It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a manGuinness is good for you on his way home from work on a Friday night must be in search of a decent pint of beer.

We are indeed fortunate, on this scepter’d isle of ours, in having a wonderful brewing heritage that yields a terrific diversity of ciders, bitters, lagers, ales, milds and of course stouts. There is a drink for everyone.

Afficionados of the ancient brewer’s art will know that, lagers aside, most of these beers are ideally served at room temperature or cellar temperature at best.

This is particularly the case in the modern age where big business, dominated by men in suits seeking to maximise profits, abounds with “creative” ideas intended to extract as much cash as possible from a hardworking public.

One such creative idea is the notion of “extra cold” beer. It’s the same stuff, out of the same barrel but served through a different pipe and cooled by a further 3 degrees. Some people surrender to the hypnotic effects of the advertising budget and opt for this cold concoction.

Not I for I am a man of tradition, especially when it comes to my pint. Tonight whilst waiting for a Guinness, dispensed in two stages and then finally topped up after the liquor has settled for a minute or so, I was treated by the barmaid to a technical tutorial in the science of beer pouring.

Extra cold Guinness is preferred by bar staff to the warm stuff. This is because the extra cold variety pours with a much smaller head and therefore does not normally need the final topping up stage of its warmer sibling. The publican, with time and motion always at the forefront of his busy mind, clearly favours this more profitable option.

At my own local this does not affect our enjoyment of the experience and to my knowledge I personally have never been subjected to any exhortation, subliminal or otherwise, to opt for the extra cold variety.

Long may this continue – bottoms up and have a good weekend.

Categories
charitable End User social networking

world record attempt – the results are in #comment24

世界記録のコメントWe had a good go at it guys. When I first discussed the world record attempt for “most comments on an online news post” with the Guinness World Records® people there was no record in place. We came in at 5,455 comments in 24 hours.

Unfortunately in the meantime a Japanese pop star – don’t ask me his name, I was too distraught to register it1  – has come in with 56,800 on his fan website. Apparently a quarter of all his registered fans left a comment. That’s life folks.

However we should not be dismayed. We should rejoice. First of all we raised just over £6k for the RNLI. The RNLI needs £150million a year to keep going. That’s a lot of two pences rolling down that lifeboat donation box and every little helps.

Secondly I contacted Charles Arthur, Tech Editor of the Guardian who after digging around a bit discovered that the most comments ever on a Guardian news post was 4,789.  The Guardian is reputed to have a monthly unique readership of 50 million people globally so the fact that we beat their number for most comments is huge news. NOTW phone hacking not unsurprisingly seems to be the subject that generally attracts most people to comment at the Guardian.

Perhaps I’ll change the subject next time to something more inflammatory. I think we will have another go – next year maybe. There was huge enthusiasm amongst everyone who participated. The main feedback from GWR, apart from the fact that they enjoyed following the attempt was that it appears that this sort of record is generally best suited to celebs with huge  followings. A bit obvious but perhaps we can prove that wrong someday:)

Still to do: tech post & look at the “most inspiring comments”. As regard the latter if anyone has any they would like to highlight let me know – leave a comment on this post linking to their favourite comment.

That’s all folks.

PS world record attempt blog post here

1 tbh it’s ‘cause I couldn’t understand it & didn’t want to look stupid asking for the name again 🙂

Categories
charitable Cloud End User social networking

The story behind the world record attempt #comment24

This attempt at a Guinness World Records® Record all started back in November when I took a customer out to dinner to celebrate a bit of business. The customer mentioned that he read trefor.net and, to cut a long story short, I said that Timico would donate £1 to his favourite charity for every comment left by one of the staff from his company. I capped this at £100 – it was just a bit of fun. His favourite charity is the RNLI.

A glass or three of wine followed and we decided, as you do, that we would go for a world record. Considering this I upped the ante to 1,000 comments from his employees (£1 each) and said Timico would double up if we got a world record out of it. The record, whatever it was, seemed eminently doable. This customer has thousands of employees globally with many of them being industry analysts and commentators with large twitter followings.

I was sure that we could have a good time with this important customer and raise some funds for charity at the same time.

I woke up the next day thinking hmm what have I committed to