Confessions of a Wino

If you are looking for more wine related weblogs, you could check out the “other good sites” list on the right of my home page.

Or you could try a new site aggregating blogs across the web http://wine.alltop.com.  Here you will find links to the latest posts from a wide range of quality blogs including most of the ones I read regularly.

The weblog world has been accused of being unreliable, even corrupt.  The key to getting the best information is to read around and not take one person’s view as gospel.  The blogosphere, in my opinion, is no more corrupt (and may be less so) than professional journalism on average.  However, it is true that we bloggers are not held to the same benchmarks as published authors in the regular press.  This is both an advantage and a disadvantage of the blogosphere.  It enables us to speak freely without fear of advertisers pulling lucrative contracts, but conversely does sometimes allow un-researched opinion to be presented as fact, so it is worth reading around for the aggregated view.

Readers who idle here more than once in a Preston Guild are sure to have experienced problems accessing the website recently.  Regular “500” errors and database connection problems were almost exclusively caused by my (former) ISP, Streamline.net.

Streamline is cheap but, as in the wine world, you usually get what you pay for.  The quality of service from Streamline has been abysmal both in database uptime, and customer service.  You can read one of my rants, if interested, at my other blog.

So I have put my metaphorical bottle of Echo Falls in the bin and upgraded to a nice Argentinean Malbec.  Well you didn’t expect me to choose an expensive French ISP did you?  Here’s hoping that the site is more reliable from now on.

I was casually browsing around the wine blogs I usually read (see “Other good sites” on my home page) and found time to follow a few links to new sites I have not seen before.  Why not mosey around yourself and see if you like:

Winos and Foodies – Barbara is the Aussie wino and foodie returning after a stint in the land of kiwis.  Lively and fun.

Chez Pim – possibly the best travelled and restauranted lady in the blogoshpere.  Name a posh resto – she has eaten there.

Wino Sapien – Edward the doctor from Oz who you might expect to focus on wines from down under but in fact reviews wines from all over the world with an elegant writing style.

Pour More – a new blog from Carol, formerly writing at Celebrate Wine.  Only a couple of posts so far but already looking interesting.

The Wine Wanker – see through the risqué title (risqué in the UK at least) and you will find Jules, an intelligent and informed wine lover from Wellington, New Zealand.

The Chicken Out Campaign – I used to think Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was a stuck up tosser but his River Cottage TV series got me hooked, and I love his views on animal husbandry and how this relates to the food on our plate.  His latest campaign to promote free range chicken in place of the cheap supermarket (2 birds for £5 anyone?) chickens is really important.  Cruelly kept in dark sheds at a density of 17 pale and weak birds per square metre, for 39 days without ever seeing daylight, suffering massive discomfort at best, the luckiest birds get lame or diseased, and slaughtered early.  This practice has to stop and I urge you to sign up for the campaign.  The cost argument does not stack up for me – I would rather eat no chicken, than the cadavers of soulless inmates held to unjustified life imprisonment by supermarket accountants.

Seattle Wine Blog – OK I haven’t really read much of this one.  It may be great, but I really included it in memory of the Seahawks glorious victory over the Redskins last weekend and to wish Seattle best wishes for their first post-season win on the road since 1983.  Green Bay – watch out.  I predict that Seattle will win the NFC Championship but despite my huge optimism, I can’t see them beating the Patriots in the Superbowl.

I am so impressed with WordPress – it is the platform for both my blogs.  But I may have stepped over the line in my loyal devotion, because I am the new, and proud, owner of a WordPress T-Shirt.

I now have two real concerns about wearing it.

1. The only people who will recognise the logo will be geeks, and I will look like one myself.  Do I have to stop shaving?  Should I start wearing sandals (and socks)?  What do I do if I get approached and asked an awkward question?
2. As a Manchester City fan, the colour red (Man United) is anathema to me.  What if people think I am a Man United supporting geek?  Come on guys, can we please have a blue T-Shirt next????

Have you checked out the Wine Life Today website?

I found it recently and thought it was a great idea.  If you have ever heard of Digg, you are probably a bit techie.  Nonetheless, I’ll press on.  Digg is a news aggregation and bookmarking website that allows users to vote for (Digg) the best stories and these get promoted onto the front page so they get a better chance of being read by busy folk.  But Digg is really aimed at geeks so if you look for softer categories like wine and food for example, you will not find them.  So someone had the great idea of a Digg for wine and decided to call it Wine Life Today, only instead of Digging, you Toast the news item.

Now there are two other differences between Digg and Wine Life Today.

1.  Digg is well used and Wine Life Today is not – the most toasted post I could find only had 10 supporters.  The top Digg article had 41,619 – hmmmm.

2.  Digg has a good algorithm and WLT is totally rubbish.  It looks like any post of any age will make it onto the front page with only 4 Toasts.  Today there is a post three days old with 5 toasts that is above a three day old post with ten toasts.

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Mmmmm…. couple too many glasses last night.  Could really do with a spam fritter this morning to soak up the excess alcohol.

Talking of which, I use the Akismet spam filter which is generally superb but just recently it’s been picking up comments that are clearly not spam.  I only noticed while idling through the comments section.  Sorry if any of your comments got caught and not published.

I also decided to publish two comments promoting the sale of lawn mowers.  This was entirely relevant to the article and not only amused me but impressed me.  Online marketing techniques are getting ever more sophisticated!

I normally follow Jeff Nolan for his views on enterprise software but this post caught my eye in relation to restaurant reviews.

An advert is only going to make me aware of a restaurant.  The next step is to find out what common customers think.  I don’t trust the reviews on Top Table and similar “guide” sites because it is too easy for them to be rigged.

Why don’t more people (especially in the UK) blog about their dining experiences?

If you click on the “Food” link under Categories on my home page you can see all the reviews I have done so far and there are lots more to come.

So come on everyone – let’s get busy!  Anyone who knows of any good blogs in this regard, please let me know and I will publicise them on this site.

I have just taken the opportunity to do a little site maintenance and I have added an email feed (courtesy of Feedblitz).

Now you can subscribe and receive emailed confessions once per day (when updated) which will keep you up with the latest confessions.  Simply go back to the home page and look for the form on the right hand side of the page. Simply enter your email ID and hit “Subscribe me”!  Easy peasy….

You can still subscribe in your preferred reader of course.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, subscribe by email or go and watch this excellent video.