Good evening friends! As storm Bella batters the isolated homestead of my parents house, I could almost be in my own revisionist Western, if the walls were not so well insulated, and I was sat in a saloon drinking Sarsaparilla whilst a piano plays itself, instead of a cosy living room drinking Oakham ales at 1am.
We've not quite reach the end of 2020 ('what further stings in the tail might there still be?' I'm tempted to ask), but with no more #WWWSI nights until January, I thought this might be an opportune moment to reflect on my craziest lockdown invention, which has best summed up my mental state throughout the year.
ORIGIN STORY
Back in May, I was doing this thing called SADCASE (Si's Ale & Dice Cleaning Adventure Social Exclusion) where I rolled a dice, cleaned a surface, drank a beer. It was fun, but I needed something more self indulgent, more 'pow!', more 'out there' in the absence of pubs. On my Birthday, I made a lovely buffet, drank a bottle of red wine with a straw and watched a film. And the first seeds were sown.
What if I could recreate this happy scene on a weekly basis, involving my fave crisp (sorry, maize snack), a film genre I like but have rarely explored, combined with a few rolls of the dice to add an element of randomisation to proceedings?
On 31st May, the official unveiling arrived as I watched the gruesome but great Bone Tomahawk. The wine was tough, all I ate was 4 packs of Wotsits. I had feverish nightmares and was a bit sick in my bathroom sink at 4am. Fine tuning needed.
Over the coming weeks, I made sure I had a proper meal, a large jug of ice cubed water on standby, and started BEFORE 7pm (to aid recovery). I even got a book on Red Wine so I could take this side of it seriously, and googled Westerns to death in a quest to find the best ones!
TWITTER UPDATE
A separate Twitter account was created (would be unfair to push such a departure from the norm onto my BRAPA followers) but I'm delighted to tell you we are up to 50 followers at the time of writing.
Two newbies to introduce to you all. Firstly, we have Katie Fuller. Not only does her surname make you think 'late night ESB in the Parcel Yard', but she is from Cambs, and like all Cambs followers, she loves nature & drinking tea. Check out her wonderful prints at Katiefuller.co.uk Great stuff, I was a bit of a twitcher in my younger days up at Blacktoft Sands so love anything birdie.
And secondly, and the equivalent of a breaking your transfer budget to bring in the marquee Brazilian, we're delighted to have finally acquired the services of Duncan Mackay. The ground-ticking, pub-ticking, moth-loving Reading St Mirren fan has already asked me "is this some kind of BRAPA parody?" Oh Duncan, you have much to learn. It is SO much worse.
I hope you will make both Katie and Duncan feel welcome. Sadly, we have had to say goodbye to our recent French acquisition Abigail Aggrey. Her Twitter account has been suspended, so perhaps she wasn't all she seems. We've released her on a free to Shepshed Dynamo.
Let's get into the awards shall we?
FOLLOWER OF THE YEAR
I love all 50 of the equally, you know that. But there can only be one winner, and that is Matthew Lawrenson for services to #WWWSI music.
Upon spying my beat-up Sony tape-deck in the background of a random wine photo, he has proceeded to make and send me four mixtapes through the post as 'build up' music as I cook, pour the wine and open the Wotsits before the film begins.
First we had a spectacular Western mix, then a spooky Hallowe'en one, then the amazing Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass Band, finishing with a great Jive Bunny inspired Christmas and New Year megamix, all of which will be utilised in 2021 nights. Thanks 'Uncle Matt'.
WINE OF THE YEAR
I've been meticulously making my way through the grape varieties listed in the 'Red Wine' book in alphabetical order, and it has been a lot of fun learning about something that pre-lockdown, was totally alien to me. What a much more rewarding drink Red Wine is in a home environment than beer. In my opinion at least.
So many stunners, but one that stood out was the Bauer Poltl, a Blaufrankisch grape from Austria, which I had on 7th August with some very juicy lamb burgers whilst watching a rare Australian Western, The Proposition. One of those nights where everything clicked. I liked it so much, I ordered my parents a bottle for Christmas.
WOTSITS OF THE YEAR
'Pray, tell me the Wotsit Stats of 2020?' asked nobody on earth.
But whilst I'm here, I have a rolled a 1 on three occasions, a 2 on three occasions, a 3 on three occasions, a 4 on four occasions, a 5 on SIX occasions and a 6 on five occasions. So there you go, 5 is the most popular number.
For me, 3 is the optimum number of bags of Wotsits now I'm eating a proper meal too.
My fave week was 12th November, when I took the plunge and tried the Giant Cheesy Wotsits for the first time. What a revelation! Love the added crunch, and the slight departure from overly powdery cheesiness. They'll be back in 2021.
WORST WINE AWARD
Only one wine I can remember as being truly dreadful, and I ended up drinking it over two nights on 16th & 17th August. This was Kayra Buzbag Reserv from Turkey. I dunno if there was something wrong with it, like it was corked or something, but surely it wasn't supposed to taste like that, but then again, it is an 'old world' grape that hasn't always been universally popular?
PUKEY MCPUKEFACE AWARD (SPONSORED BY ANDREWS ANTACID)
14th June (week 3) wins the award for the poorliest I've felt (without being sick!) on a WWWSI night. It was a perfect storm of quease inducing queasiness. I lined my stomach with a pint of full fat milk. The wine, a Shiraz from Australia called Jam Shed was far too sweet. I ate 4 bags of Wotsits in about two minutes. I had a four cheese pizza. It was humid. And the film had loads of vampires and blood in. Difficult.
WORST FILM AWARD
In 24 weeks, I've not watched one film where I can honestly say 'this is total tripe'.
My main criticisms have been directed at those which went on too long. Dances with Wolves and especially Giant fit into that category. Even the highly rated Treasure of the Sierra Madre felt a little bit overly drawn out.
All three though were pleasurable in the early stages, but my overall winner of this award, The Revenant was quality, but just so damn painful from start to finish as a dying Leonardo Di Caprio drags himself across the tundra. If he'd survived, that'd been something, but for him to die in the final stages anyway, I just felt a bit cheated like 'I went through all of that with you for what?' It didn't help that it coincided with that dreadful Turkish wine I mentioned earlier!
BEST FOOD AWARD
My optimum food of choice for one of these nights would be a nice simple board of crusty bread, olives, tomatoes, rocket leaf, stuffed peppers, three or four different types of cheese, maybe a blue, maybe a hard one, and perhaps a few deli meats like chorizo, prosciutto, that kind of thing.
But the one week which had me purring with delight more than any other was the first time I did steak on 24th September. I'd got lots of advice from my work friends on how to do it perfectly, and it came out so well, I even paused the film so I could appreciate it in full!
BEST FILM OF THE YEAR
There's been some absolute classics, and I've loved the culty modern ones like Bone Tomahawk, The Propostion, Near Dark and Lone Star. Classics that probably deserve more love.
Many of the older ones have been highly enjoyable. El Dorado was great, McCabe and Mrs Miller and High Plains Drifter from the 70's were both sort of spectacular.
But the one that impressed me most was one of the most famous I've watched so far, and that was High Noon. I just loved the real time setting, the clock ticking, the sense or urgency. It was easy to follow, but yet superbly done in every way.
So there we have it! Thanks for reading.
I full expected #WWWSI to die a death once pubs reopened 4th July, but things haven't got back to normal as quickly as I'd hoped, and although WWWSI nights became a bit more sporadic Aug-Oct, they became weekly occurrences again by November what with second lockdown and all this stupid tiering / 'only drink if you are buying a meal' nonsense.
I predict a full lockdown Jan, Feb and probably March, so am relying on WWWSI to get us through the bleak midwinter, latewinter and early spring!
Happy New Year to you all, and thanks for reading.
Si