Another week, another beer festival for the intrepid MEMWNs pelotons. This time the venue was the Sun Inn at Feering. The Sun always puts on a reasonable festival and this time it had the added attraction of a Lager Land Rover stuffed with Belgian delights.
I arrived to find Joergen, Mrs Jiber, the Strangler, "Tomsk", Hotblack, the Hustler and the Fixie King all deep in study of their beer menus - well apart from Mrs Jiber who was trying to make Joergen sit up properly and behave and the Fixie King who was tucking into the fourth course of his taster menu.
We managed to sample a wide range of ales - so wide, in fact, that the Quaffers' Committee permanent members only managed to intersect on one beer. Fortunately, that beer was Tropical Tom by Fat Cat which was worthy of the Quaffers' Choice Award. Had the Hustler followed the prescribed list, it might well have gone to one of the lagers from the Land Rover. I know that first substitute, Joergen, particularly enjoyed a couple of those, as did I.
The Strangler (who seems to have his feet very comfortably under the table for an interloper), took it upon himself to chair a meeting of our Youth Wing, who, it turns out, are revolting. Given that there were only three of our juniors present, they seemed to be remarkably vocal on a number of issues. The Strangler is demanding social influencers at our annual awards evening and a live feed on Periscope, Joergen wants to send us to the outer rims of East Anglia (when he is away) and the Fixie King wants a relaxed dress code at formal functions - since when was a string vest an acceptable substitute for tails ?
Under normal circumstances, Tomsk would have quietly but firmly put the pesky kids in their place. These are not normal circumstances however. Tomsk has been replaced by an oft-malfunctioning cyborg that looks like him but doesn't act like him. I think our suspicions were first aroused when the unit had to be collected in a vehicle from Goldhanger, presumably for re-programming or charging. PBP by fixed in sub-80 hours did seem like classic Tomsk, at first sight at least. On closer inspection, there were some further clues; no beer consumed during the whole ride, issues with the unit's mechanical claws and some missing time between its finish and the rest of us when it was back at base re-charging. Since then we have had the motorised visit to Tippers' PBP debrief and now, as if further evidence was needed, riding to the Sun on gears. I never thought I would be saying this but perhaps we really do need OD back. He can be Shaggy to Joergen's Scooby Do and see if we can't unmask this fake Tomsk and solve the mystery once and for all.
It was still remarkably mild on the way home but naturally the strong headwind had turned into a barely noticeable tailwind. We have the darkness of winter but not, as yet, the temperatures to match.