The Field

It Needn't Be New...

An Aristocratic Enfilade from Portugal

Incipit Tragoedia:

'About the same time, there came to London a young gentleman of the name of Aubrey: he was an orphan left with an only sister in the possession of great wealth, by parents who died while he was yet in childhood. Left also to himself by guardians, who thought it their duty merely to take care of his fortune, while they relinquished the more important charge of his mind to the care of mercenary subalterns, he cultivated more his imagination than his judgment.

 He had, hence, that high romantic feeling of honour and candour, which daily ruins so many milliners' apprentices. He believed all to sympathise with virtue, and thought that vice was thrown in by Providence merely for the picturesque effect of the scene, as we see in romances: he thought that the misery of a cottage merely consisted in the vesting of clothes, which were as warm, but which were better adapted to the painter's eye by their irregular folds and various coloured patches. He thought, in fine, that the dreams of poets were the realities of life.

 He was handsome, frank, and rich: for these reasons, upon his entering into the gay circles, many mothers surrounded him, striving which should describe with least truth their languishing or romping favourites: the daughters at the same time, by their brightening countenances when he approached, and by their sparkling eyes, when he opened his lips, soon led him into false notions of his talents and his merit.[...]' (John Polidori: The Vampyre)

A Tragic Demiurge: Modern Man and His Artificial Worlds

The plan of escape from the world is the blueprint to a future fortress that only can be recognized as yet another prison when one is forced to live in it.

Knowledge Can Be Dangerous?

...or was that ignorance?
 (Nietzsche, for example, favoured former theory).

A Comprehensive History of German Opera:

Fidelio and Wagner.

Intermediate Whisky Studies: Mothballed and Closed Distilleries (Malt Mill, Brora, Rosebank)

According to a recent youtube video, Malt Mill, even more so than Brora, is somewhat the Holy Grail of obscure whiskies. The few bottles that are left seem to be safely locked away but parts of the output can still be found in the White Horse blend up to the 1970s:

Malt Mill Distillery, Established 1908

When Sir Peter Mackie lost his bitter legal dispute to retain the sales agency for Laphroaig whisky in 1907 he reacted in characteristic style by deciding to make his own "Laphroaig" type whisky, and in 1908 built a traditional small pot-still distillery within the Lagavulin complex. Despite hiring staff from Laphroaig and attempting to copy the Laphroaig recipe, it did not succeed, perhaps because it used a different water source. Malt Mill tried to replicate a traditional style of Islay Whisky, using only peat-dried malt, and it is reputed to have had heather added to the mash. It was always a small scale operation producing 25,000 gallons of proof spirit (113,500 litres) in its first year, compared with 128,000 gallons (581,120 litres) at Lagavulin. What is perhaps surprising is that it survived until 1962 when it was merged with Lagavulin and its coal-fired stills moved to the latter's still house for another seven years use. The Malt Mill distillery building is now the reception centre within the Lagavulin Distillery site.

http://www.islayinfo.com/lostdistilleries.html

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I recently started my own more humble adventures into closed-distillery-land with a 1991 G&M bottling of a Rosebank; a Lowlander that I bought at a fair price and that the late Michael Jackson- the whisky-connaisseur- described as ‘a floral, light whisky for lovers and poets’, and me, being an enthusiastic dilettante and poseur of those arts, had to get it in order to test its magico-projective qualities. I’ll try it at some more or less special occasion later in the year since it doesn’t seem to fit the winter season.

Die unmutige Epigonenkunst des 20. Jahrhunderts:

Da sich die moderne Kunst nicht eingestehen konnte in einer historischen Tradition zu stehen, aber trotzdem nicht auf die Geschichte als Inspirationsquelle verzichten wollte, zitierte sie diese nur und beraubte sich somit ihrer Tiefe. Die Skizze als Anfang ist profund (da sie das vollendete, klassische Werk und dahinter das Presque-rien einer metaphysischen Unendlichkeit erahnen lässt), wenn sie sich jedoch zur Weltdeutung aufbläht, begründet sie eine Tyrannei des Makels.

The Ability to Judge and the Agony of Choice: A Decidedly *Parisian* Dilemma

A Present For a Girl

Girls love bottles like these or the ones from Perrier-Jouët ...look at those hearts in the top-middle of the label! I have no idea how this tastes, though...

Long Live the Countryside!

Atheismus

Leute, die ihren eigenen Atheismus thematisieren sind (in diesem Punkt) Idioten, da man entweder glaubt oder nicht: da gibt es nichts zu argumentieren.

Hunting Attire

Picture from: Piras/Roetzl: Traditional Style- Wohnkultur auf den Britischen Inseln

"The most fortunate people go to shoot, on their own land or the land of their friends. There you will find many of them in their badges of honourable experience: fully seasoned, weathered tweeds (including unlined plus twos), over silk long johns, viyella shirts, old (probably skew-whiff) ties and caps or battered felt hats; shooting stockings, deeply-dubbined field boots or shoes and gaiters and Schoffel and Barbour coats. […]

More likely than not, these people use their grandfathers’ guns; since the only people that can afford a pair of bespoke Best London guns now are the pointless (and often clueless) ‘celebrities’ of the modern age." 
(Nicholas J. Storey, A Short Guide to the Sporting Life- History of Men's Etiquette, p.33 f.)

Tweed Library

Archive of Johnston's of Elgin



The Good Thing When Coming Home After a Short Stroll Through the City at Temperatures of -10°C Is

...that you don't have to cool down the champagne! (from: Le Cru)