2/
Seriously, we each got a crate of 3x each of A,B,C,D of current and possible new recipe Gold Label.

We did the reviewing out of one of each bottle, leaving twenty bottles for student party contributions...

Yes, that's the truth of the matter...

My uni housemate and I knew when and where to go in Sheffield to be knobbled for market research, with home tasting of samples (all with a pre-paid tick box return).

Two young lads (20/21-ish) managing to convince the pollster we were regs on Barley Wine...😬

Rispeck. #Wearenotworthy

Something like:
Roger's Conqueror 1066og
Roger's Rocket Fuel 1100og
Roger and Out 1125og
iirc

OG about 1120 😱 that's Roger's Rocket Fuel territory! (beloved of '80s student days, Frog & Parrot, Sheffield)

There's nothing like a bit of bagad to warm the cockles!

And we did persuade one fellow pupil at school that Socrates is pronounced So-crates ...

It became his nickname, and still is, 45 years later.

We had our first of the season last week. Love e'em!

Shiplake and Billy Borlase winning the Visitors was, I think, my first HRR.

My ever-loyal university flatmate and wedding usher is a former pupil of the latter, so that felt so relevant so soon after his school career.

PS I met MrsM when we found ourselves in a railway carriage together (in the days of compartments) on a lengthy journey.

I think my spontaneous parting gift helped, a bulb of garlic from a string I'd bought in Sparta the previous week on my summer Ancient History research project.

Hells bells, I hate 'hookup culture'

I sometimes get in a muddle with of / from / for,
but I think you mean *detractor of

A bit niche.

When I was a boy, the model Airfix 10th Hussar — HUSS-ER

At school, a Head Boy at the annual Commemoration Service reading out the list of school benefactors.

Viscount — Vis-Count

I won't name him, but he is an eminent professor at a leading university.

It made me stop in my tracks! It was absolutely wonderful. 🦢

I'm a glutton. Apple Music for the phone, Tidal HiRes at home. Spotify, never.

2/
Not quite low enough to hear the movement of air in the beating wings, but most definitely to hear their affectionate conversations on the wing: the familiar honks of keep each other in order, like the loving utterances of accustomed agéd spouses, "Are you there?" "Here I am". "Thanks love."

On the irony scale, that is the Siberian Gulag of irony.