"Ra Ra Rasputin / Lover of the Russian queen."
That's what German pop sensation Boney M sang in their 1978 disco hit about the life and times of religious mystic Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, although there is no verifiable evidence to support rumours of a romance between the mad monk and Alexandra Fyodorovna.
Saintly healer or debauched charlatan, Rasputin's favourite pastime was tugging on his own crazy beard.
He also managed to stop the heir to the Russian throne from bleeding to death (the boy had haemophilia) and so became best buddies with the Tsar and Tsarina.
Boney M continued - "In all affairs of state he was the man to please / But he was real great when he had a girl to squeeze"
Rasputin's influence over the Royal family made him deeply unpopular with the Russian aristocracy. He was accused of various immoral and evil practices, including membership of dodgy religious sects, such as the Christian Khlystys, who would overcome their sexual urges by having lots of sex together.
Five particularly annoyed aristocrats decided to kill Rasputin. They gave him wine and cake laced with enough cyanide to kill 5 men, but he survived. So they shot him in the back, beat him in the head, chopped off his penis, and threw him in the river where the coroner's report says he drowned.
But did he really?
No he didn't.
Actually it was the British Secret Service who killed Rasputin. They were worried that he would convince Tsar Nicholas to withdraw his troops from World War 1, so they assassinated him with a bullet through the forehead - hence the bullet wound in his forehead.And they would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those pesky kids.
After his death, Rasputin was resurrected by the Ogdru Jahad (imprissoned entities bent on destruction and subjugation and destined to bring about the end of the world).
He then worked with the Nazis for a while on project Ragna Rok.
And on December 23, 1944, he summoned from the Underworld the creature known as Hellboy.
After that he was killed a few more times, and finally retreated to the roots of the World Tree where he now lives inside an acorn, looked after by the great Russian witch, Baba Yaga.
All very strange.
But here's something even stranger - North Coast Brewing Company's Old Rasputin's Imperial Stout is apparently "Produced in the tradition of 18th century English brewers who supplied the court of Russia's Catherine the Great."
But Rasputin wasn't born until late in the 19th century, over 70 years after Catherine the Great had died.
Spooky.
And delicious.
Sweet coffee chocolateness with lashings of frothy foam. It's the caffè mocha with whipped cream of beers.Supplementary pop fact: Just like Rasputin, Boney M front man Bobby Farrell died on December 30th in Saint Petersburg.But did he really?
Yes he did.
My old (really very old) friend James and his son Joe are cycling from Land's End to John o' Groats to raise money for Duchenne, which is a severe muscle wasting disease.
It's a good cause, and a very long way on a bicycle.
Please sponsor them here.
Barley Wine is strong (like regular wine) so when you drink a pint of it you can get rather drunk. Perhaps that is why barley wines have funny names, because getting drunk is funny.
For example, see our review of "Old Thunderpussy" at last year's San Francisco Beer Week.
"Old Numbskull" is a funny name, I suppose. It didn't make me laugh, maybe because it reminded me of The Numskulls strip from The Beano comic, which wasn't very funny in 1977, and is probably even less funny now.
The concept of the strip was that tiny little people exist inside of us, making decisions that affect our behaviour. Exactly the same concept was used in the awful Fox sitcom Herman's Head.
And before that in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex*
*but were afraid to ask.
featuring Bert Reynolds in the Brain Department.
And before that in Dr. Fritz Kahn's Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace).
Here's an animated version
Here is another image by Kahn, illustrating the taste zones of the tongue - sweet, salt, sour, bitter.
Apparently, women's palates more acutely register bitterness than men's palates. A current theory among anthropologists is that because women do the cooking they have become genetically conditioned to reject bitter tastes as potential harbingers of spoilage.
A survey by the Pink Boots Society concluded that women like all kinds of beers, but they like IPA's the least, because the bitter hops offend their highly sensitive lady tongues.
I like IPA's a lot - further proof of my manliness, as if proof were needed. Although I do like a nice barley wine too.
My bottle of Old Numbskull tasted okay - malty and sweet and not too boozy considering it's 11% abv. But I wasn't overly keen on its texture, or "mouth-feel" as they say in the business - kind of flat and watery, like someone had opened it the day before. There was very little evidence of the promised "Impressive Brussels Lace that clings to the sides of the glass."
To alleviate this disappointment I made another pie.
My weak male sense of bitterness left us susceptible to spoilage, but we ate it anyway.
A decade ago today we got married.
Only a year since since Phase 1, and Phase 2 is nearly finished.
Have you ever seen Disney's The Black Cauldron?
I haven't.
Okay, I've seen it now.
Disney's The Black Cauldron is a schmaltzy Lord of the Rings knockoff.
Sauron is played by Skeletor.
The Palantirs are replaced with a pig.
And this hairy thing is Gollum.
He looks like Geppetto, but he sounds exactly like Andy Serkis.
In 1985 Disney's The Black Cauldron was the most expensive animated movie ever made. It took 12 years to produce and lost millions of dollars (millions of dollars was a lot of money in 1985).
A big bottle of Grand Teton's Black Cauldron is only $7.99.
It's an imperial stout - very dark and thick and chocolaty, and a bit boozy. And delicious.
I recommend it to you for drinking over Christmas, or any other festive occasion, such as the weekend.It is brewed deep in the Misty Mountains of Idaho by these ladies.
Beer brewing was traditionally women's work until the 15th century, at which time brewing became profitable and all the women brewers turned out to be witches and had to be burned to death, like on this bottle of Lost Abbey Witch's Wit.
The label caused a bit of a commotion last year. Vicki Noble (Astrologer, Shamanic healer and professor of Tanspersonal Psychology) saw it and wrote to her friends - “Can you imagine them showing a black person being lynched or a Jewish person going to the oven?... Such images are simply not tolerated in our society anymore (thank the Goddess) and this one should not be, either.” 
Noble's friends sent emails to the brewery accusing them of inciting violence against women.
One email said, “Screw you, you fat ass beer slugging alcoholic Christian Ass Hole.”
The brewery said they would change the label, but I don't think they did.
The witches in Disney's The Black Cauldron don't do any brewing. In fact they don't do much at all of any consequence.
One of them sticks a frog down her cleavage.
This was Disney's first PG rated animation.
It's considered one of the darkest of all Disney's animated features, seconded only by 1987's The Brave Little Toaster.
That one's an adorable adventure that kids will treasure, with a dark subtext of abandonment, obsolescence, and loneliness.
Like Toy Story 3.
Have you seen Toy Story 3?
I haven't.
This will be the last Book of the Month, as it was the world's most unpopular book group (no one else joined). I will be continuing to read books, just not boring you with the details.That said, here are this month's boring details.
Oliver Postgate wrote, directed, narrated and animated 12 wonderful children's television shows, including Ivor the Engine, the Clangers, and Bagpuss.
I read his autobiography in the hope of finding out how he managed to be so very good. From what I can tell he was using a clever combination of wild imagination, independent spirit, relentless inquisitiveness, and bull-headed practicality. Plus he had the loveliest voice in all of history. As Stephen Fry writes in the book's Forward: "During bouts of childhood theism, I always supposed that if God had a voice it would be that of Oliver Postgate, the same matchless blend of authority, kindliness and humour."
Postgate's parents were well-off lefties. He went to a private "progressive" school where you could do whatever you wanted. He was a conscientious objector to the second world war and went to prison. He tried acting for a while. And farm work.
Throughout his life he was inventing and building machines, from electric pencil erasers to solar powered houses. He almost went into manufacturing, but feared that a lifetime spent in the pursuit of "Personal success, wealth, dignity..." would be like "Spending one's life decorating one's tomb."
He then spent some time making props for television shows, noticed how most television for children was pretty poor, decided he could do better, and did.
Postgate founded Smallfims with Peter Firmin. They operated out of a cow-shed, with the later addition of four converted pigsties. Commissions for television shows flooded in, and Smallfilms became successful in their own modest way. When America called and offered them the big time, they politely declined.
Towards the end of the book Postgate seems to turn into a bit of a grumpy old man, although probably less grumpy than most of us. His wife died and his own health failed. His passion for nuclear disarmament disturbed people on both sides of the argument. And the television companies were no longer interested in his shows.
He was particularly unimpressed by those concerned with the "art" of film-making. He describes the students he met at the RCA Animation School (where I went to college) as "manic pretentious pseudo-artists."
In 1999 Bagpuss was voted the most popular British children's television show of all time.Oliver Postgate died in December 2008. The rights to several Smallfilms properties were bought by Coolabi for $625,000. Coolabi specialises in "The ownership, development, creative management and exploitation of high quality children's and family intellectual property assets."
They are apparently working with Peter Firmin on new episodes of Bagpuss.
Oh dear.
