Opinionated Master of Wine, journalist and photographer. Also tweet about politics, books + music. Citizen of the world. Humanist. Liberal. Catador de auroras.
“Johnson set the law. He promoted the law. And then he broke the law. He must go. Or else our entire system of government is a farce.” Bravo,
@IanDunt
“One day, our children and grandchildren will look back in astonishment that Britain’s governing class managed to fail the country so comprehensively. One day, politicians will feel embarrassed to admit their association with the tawdry politics of Brexit”
Weird sense of priorities
@BBCNews
. Harry and Megan - who cares? - are your lead story. Can we hear more about the
@GoodLawProject
’s victory in the courts? Or doesn’t government corruption matter any more?
“This was supposed to be Brexit day. That's not the way it turned out. Remainers and Soft Brexiters now have the advantage. “ Yipppppeeeee. Via
@IanDunt
“The longer that show goes on, the harder it gets to remember what good government ever felt like. The deeper we go into this emergency, the more it shades into absurdity and the absurdity starts to feel like normality.” Via
@rafaelbehr
“Johnson was a failure and a disgrace. Now, as he finally falls apart, the Tory party must pick up the pieces and decide what it wants to be: a respectable party of the centre-right, or a deranged populist power fantasy.” Excellent from
@IanDunt
.
"What we need to ask is whether a man closely allied to people like Bannon and supportive of Viktor Orbán should be allowed to amplify his propaganda unchallenged on our broadcast media." Excellent piece on Nigel Farage by
@carolecadwalla
“The right does not want Britain to “take back control”. It wants to control Britain, and anyone who gets in its way is a fake, a grandstander, an enemy or saboteur.”
A short potted history of the BBC's coverage of Vote Leave's cheating in the Referendum.
It begins here, when
@GoodLawProject
began judicial review proceedings against the Electoral Commission. A balanced piece of coverage (by Brian Wheeler.) /1
There are compensations for missing a flight to Uruguay because of fog in London and Madrid. One is that I get to go to La Venencia, one of my favourite bars in the world.
#madrid
#sherry
“The most dispiriting thing about reading the book is that dawning sense that all your worst imaginings about the conduct of that government were, it seems, played out in real time.”
This is extraordinary. Electoral Commission says it can't go after DUP because it already found Vote Leave guilty of same offence. I can't emphasise this enough or say it too many times: it stinks. The whole thing. And we desperately need a proper inquiry
Great wine is about nuance, surprise, subtlety, expression, qualities that keep you coming back for another taste. Rejecting a wine because it is not big enough is like rejecting a book because it is not long enough, or a piece of music because it is not loud enough. Kermit Lynch
BBC sources tell me that John Humphrys will be retiring from the Today Programme on September 20th. Anyone else up for a party to celebrate his departure?
My father’s obituary has almost a whole page in the print edition of The Guardian today. He would have been proud. We’re going to remember him and celebrate his life on Friday with a service and what South Africans call an after tears party. Shout in the week, as he would say.
You know you’ve made it when you’re on the door of the ladies’ loo in a wine bar in Madrid. Not sure what
@JancisRobinson
would make of this. Robert Parker is on the door of the gents.
Speaking at the Spanish Embassy in front of the UK, Spanish and EU flags. As I said on Tuesday, I hope we'll still be in the EU when I present the Wines from Spain Awards next year. Our future is in Europe.
#StopBrexit
I rather miss the days when wine merchants sought out great wines and told their customers about them. Too many these days talk about “investment” opportunities and have next to no interest in, or knowledge of, wine. A fine wine market crash might not be a bad thing.
These are the Chilean wines I talked about for tonight’s tasting with
#67pallmall
. I’m now going to drink at least two of them for tonight’s
#lockdownwine
.
In 2013, I published my first South African report. It was 81 pages long and reviewed 710 wines. Tomorrow, I will publish my
#2019saport
, which runs to 281 pages and reviews 2,118 wines. It's my biggest ever overview of the SA industry.
#labouroflove
Tonight’s
#lockdownwine
is a lip smacking Greek Assyrtiko. Just what I need after a day at the computer. Cheers everyone. Stay safe and well distanced.
“Today, the government did not even try to justify what it was doing. Tory MPs barely pretended to have read the bill, let alone understand its contents, let alone challenge them. The great champions of English liberties didn’t say a word.”
@IanDunt
Emotional day for me. Preparing to taste top Chenins from South Africa and the rest of the world with the amazing Samantha O’Keefe of
@lismorewine
and other friends. Two years ago, Sam’s winery and house were destroyed by fire. Now we’re back here, a testament to Sam’s spirit.
Theresa May’s political obituary via
@IanDunt
. “She has no achievements, she conducted herself without grace or principle, and she governed the country as it was humiliated on the world stage.
Belated Burns’ Night dinner with friends yesterday. We drank these Spanish wines to toast Rafa Nadal. Let’s hope he can win this amazing final.
#spanishlegends