Hoppy 4th July… let’s celebrate American Independence Day the way the founding fathers would have, with good ale.
Because while we think we can drink we have nothing on Washington, all the Adamses, Franklin and Co.
Colonial Americans drank roughly three times as much as modern Americans, primarily in the form of beer, cider, and whiskey.
And uisce beatha (Gaelic for water of life) is probably what the Spirit of 76 was all about.
Our old friends at Westward Whiskey in Portland, Oregon, have already been on.
And they’ve been showing off their wares with a new product for Independence Day.
And they remind us (OK, we didn’t know) that they begin their process by brewing an artisanal American Ale from scratch.
They use locally malted barley, ale yeast, and a slow, low temperature fermentation.
We love our American whiskies and we will return to them in due cours.
But to make the tortured pun in the title of today’s blog work it’s all about the beer on today’s Independence Day.
Drunken Sam
A bucket of booze: In boozy Boston
Sam Adams: Now the great Bostonian rabble-rouser spent so much time swigging ale in radical public houses that his enemies nicknamed him Sam the Publican.
Sam, of course, took it as a badge of honour, and the Bostonians repaid him by putting his badge on their beers.
Go West young man (or woman) and join the gold rush to beat cost-of-living crisis… just like they did, of old.
Tuolumne County’s Gold Country is one of those heritage holidays we love.
And we’re told it is alive with thriving historic towns including Jamestown, Sonora and Columbia.
Experience the Old West like nowhere else by taking a ride on the famous Sierra No. 28 locomotive, panning for gold and taking a drive along Historic Highway 49.
As the Railtown 1897 State Historic Park celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, Tuolumne’s Gold Country has a three-day itinerary.
And that will feel like you’re in an old-style Western.
Morning has broken
Dead man’s hand: Or is it?
Heading out of San Francisco and Sacramento, Jamestown is the first town in Tuolumne County.
And you’re starting point on the first morning.
Jamestown is where gold was first discovered in the county.
And several of the town’s buildings that date back to the 1870s are now quaint historic inns, restaurants, shops, microbreweries and wine tasting rooms.
The kind which bring back memories from Knott’s Berry Farm for me, which those of you know SoCal, Southern California will be familiar.
For a true Gold Country experience, start your day by getting your hands dirty panning for gold like the 49ers once did.
After dinner, take a short 15-minute drive to Columbia State Historic Park, which preserves the historic downtown district that was once a bustling, lively gold town.
And you’ll stay in the heart of the park at one of two historic Victorian Inns – the City Hotel or the Fallon Hotel.
The next day
Ride on: California’s pastures
Wake up in Columbia State Historic Park where travellers can stop by the working blacksmith shop.
Take lunch at Columbia Kate’s Teahouse, then explore the unique shopping opportunities available at Columbia Merchants to find the perfect souvenir.
Spend the rest of the afternoon experiencing an authentic stagecoach ride.
Dip your own candle and dress up in costume for an old-fashioned photo or catching a show at the historic Fallon House Theatre.
After exploring Columbia, drive 15 minutes to reach Sonora and wander around the town’s iconic shops in historic buildings, each with their own unique story.
Tour the Tuolumne County Museum, which is housed inside the former county jail built in 1866.
And as you can see I’ve got form, although also for breaking out.
Being a globetrotting superstar means you adopt fave destinations around the world, and so on the day that’s in it, we Get Mac with 80 years of Paul McCartney.
In My Life (and there will be a few of these) I’ve followed in a few of the Great Man’s footsteps.
So here’s Something Macca-related to add to the Rainy Days and Songdays catalogue from around the world.
Live and Let Liverpool
In my ears and in my eyes: Penny Lane
Liverpool: And back in my days in Liverpool in the Nineties, alas a dilapidated McCartney’s Bar sign was all that advertised that Paul had even been born here.
Liverpool City Centre is all Beatled up now to go alongside the Beatles Story at the Albert Dock and the Cavern Club.
Need a singer? The Cavern Club
And there are no shortage of Beatles coach tours to take you around Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and even Macca’s family home.
It’s become a fixture on the party and social calendar in the West but, of course, Pride is a revulsion elsewhere in the world, and in this World Cup year isn’t it queer how offside Qatar is to the world?
Now the football world (a different universe, of course) turned a blind eye to the Emirate’s discrimination and criminalisation of the LGBTQIA community when awarding Qatar the hosting of this winter’s World Cup.
Flagging up an issue: With Qatar
And quite what that’ll mean to LGBTQIA football fans who are wanting to follow their countries’ fortunes then we’ll try here to decipher.
While we all know too that of the hundreds of footballers, coaching staff and officials taking part not one will be LGBTQIA.
And that will get FIFA off the hook… and there won’t be anybody queer in that organisation either.
A word from the sponsors
Take that: The Qataris
Football’s World Cup is, of course, more than a sporting event.
It is a cultural, educational example and the tourist trip football fans have been planning for years.
So make of these welcoming words if you will from Qatari official Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Ansari
‘If he (a fan) raised the rainbow flag and I took it from him, it’s not because I really want to really take it to really insult him.
‘But to protect him. Because if it’s not me, somebody else around him might attack (him).
‘Watch the game. That’s good. But don’t really come in and insult the whole society because of this.
‘Reserve the room together, sleep together – this is something that’s not in our concern. We are here to manage the tournament.
‘Let’s not go beyond the individual personal things which might be happening between these people… this is actually the concept.’
Right, where do we start? The Major General’s assertion that he really wants to protect ‘them’?
Qatari protection
Sheikh it off: The Qataris
So, protecting them then would be not exposing them to a punishment of up to seven years in prison and a fine.
And the possibility of death penalty if you are indigenous.
Of course this is for men because just like in Victorian Britain lesbianism wasn’t even considered thing despite upper-class society’s obsession with all things Classical where the Sapphists were chronicled.
Maybe here too Major General you might think.
About criminalising the people who would attack an innocent person simply because which sex they love.
And then what about their concession to gay visitors that they can ‘reserve the room together, sleep together’?
Well evidence this very year has shown that FIFA recommended hotels in Qatar are actively refusing to accommodate same-sex couples.
Or ‘these people’ as the Major General calls them.
Of course it’s not as if we hadn’t been warned.
Bla, bla Blatter
Out of touch: Sepp Blatter
That bastion of integrity, former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter had thought it all a big joke.
When he was asked about a lack of gay rights in Qatar shortly after they were selected in 2010… ‘They should refrain from any sexual activities.’
And the Qataris, naturally, must have seen this as a green light.
Because three years later the head of Qatar’s World Cup bid team, Hassan al-Thawadi, said that everybody was welcome at the event, so long as they refrained from public display of affection.
‘Public display of affection is not part of our culture and tradition’.
To which you can justifiably add… and particularly not when you’re holding hands with, or kissing, a member of the same sex.
American continental LGBTI army
The right path: Pride in West Hollywood
We can console ourselves somewhat that the next World Cup will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Where people are allowed to express themselves and love each other how they want.
Let’s hope too that by then there will be more than one openly gay professional footballer in the English league structure.
And that this is replicated throughout the country.
And that the sports whitewashing by Middle Eastern and Gulf countries who are buying up, or have bought up Europe’s biggest clibs, does not deter LGBTQIA players from coming out.
Now we’ll leave this heavy but necessary subject.
To get back to checking out where I can get my best Pride experience around here in sleepy North Berwick, near Edinburgh.
A Dutch of class
The future is Oranje: The Oranje Army
But before we go, big hats with feathers off.
To the Dutch politician who suggested that the Netherlands national team play in pink rather than their traditional orange, in solidarity with the LGBTI community.
We’ve not heard whether that this is being taken up by the Dutch football federation.
But having partied with the inclusive Oranje Army on the way to Rotterdam to see them play Greece a number of years ago…
We know the supporters’ only rule is that you love Total Football.
And where you can dine at the very hotel, the Hotel Interlaken, the Bad Boy of the Romantics quaffed wine. And this Swiss swisher too.
Where Twain shall meet
Yale, Connecticut
Mark Twain, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: And as prolific a traveller as Connecticut’s Samuel Clemens was this was his most epic journey.
Across 14 centuries and an ocean.
Twain is for many the Father of Modern Travel Writing.
And his home was tantalisingly up the road on my latest trip to New England.
What the Dickens?
Way to go, Joe: With hotel boss Joe at the Hotel Envoy, Boston
Charles Dickens’ American Notes, Pictures from Italy: The Great Victorian Age author of course stripped bare the England of his days.
But his curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the foibles of human nature stretched way beyond that… to America and Italy.
Which just so happen to be two of my favourite countries anywhere in the world.
Dickens was particularly impressed with Boston (good judge) of which he said: ‘Boston is what I would like the whole of the United States to be.’
But he seemed to have a conflicted view of Rome, observing on first viewing that it reminded him of London (no harm there).