Beach babies

'The ocean doesn't want me today/but I'll be back tomorrow to play.' So sang the ever jaunty Tom Waits on the uplifting happy-fest that is Bone machine. It's a line which always springs to mind when I'm by the sea. I don't like it much, the ocean. I have a deep seated fear of it, having nearly drowned twice, and like so many other things on the planet (door handles, ovens, bicycles, most inanimate objects with sharp edges) I have a nagging suspicion it's out to get me. I do like to sleep by it though. I find the rush and pull of waves on a shore immensely soporific and would love to own a house near it (just so I can keep an eye on it y'know). Children seem not to suffer from this fear, or at least they're more exhilarated by it in that roller coaster way, rather than viewing it as the cold implacable killer I know it to be. They'll learn, mark my worms.

Oh yes, as for Warres Quinta da Cavadinha 1978, this stuff is liquid sex. This is the first time I've had a genuine vintage port and thanks to the handy link above, I now realize we should have taken our time with it, rather than slopping it about from a plastic jug with joyful abandon. No matter, it was delicious, with none of that lingering ethanol quality you so often get with fortified wines. I will attempt to seek out something similar and try to hang on to it for longer than ten minutes.

B