I'm doing wine now

As regular readers of rhodri will have already seen, he's recently been writing on the subject of wine, which reminds me: I read in the Sainsburys magazine the other day that if you like Merlot, you should try Malbec. Now, I thought Malbec was the other one of Lambkin Simbert, whichever one of them was the Young Pretender, the one who didn't drown in a vat of lampreys ... or was that St. Nicholas of Syrah, patron saint of red wine? Anyway, I bought a bottle of Malbec. But I haven't drunk it yet.

Just thought I'd share that with you, there, as I know some of you are dedicated Merlot-drinkers.

Further to rhodri's musings, though, I think the problem with saying "I like wine" is that it's a bit like saying "I like sex". I mean, we all want to give the impression that we're a bit more discriminating than that. And maybe some of us are! Yeah! Let's be positive here! But Britishness dictates that we can't look too knowledgeable or discriminating, otherwise we'll be seen as gay, or foreign, or possibly even both. There is only an inch of respectably-ignorant grey area between the blokeish, brutish bellow of "BOOOOOOZE!" and the tantamount-to-being-on-the-guest-list-for-Elton-John's-wedding "Personally, I favour a full and fruity red" (let alone boringly-parodied rumblings from the realm of Pseud's Corner about the scent of fresh-mown grass) ... but it's the inch in which we live.

So, as Sir Elton almost certainly didn't say as he uncorked the nuptial champagne: bottoms up!