Covered: Amsterdam, maps, media
African moonshines
Underappreciated…
Guardian football guides With writers as good as Paul Doyle and Martin Kelner on board, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the voice of liberal England’s pre-season supplement is excellent – yet we’re always blown away by just how ace it is. Crammed with stuff, you know, you might actually want to read, plus shedloads of insight and humour, the guides are an indispensable tool for football anoraks and inveterate gamblers alike. The one the paper produced for the 2010 World Cup was a fixture on the Umbrella sofa, ready to be consulted when the lure of Mr Hill’s online betting emporium proved too much. If this wasn’t enough, every guide is a satisfying A5-ish size – just right to be collected and put in a shoebox at the back of the wardrobe, ready to be leafed through in years to come.
…Overrated
Weekend fashion supplements To be a ‘journalist’ on one of the big broadsheets’ style supps is to have bought the winning ticket in Easy Street’s weekly lottery. It’s not a crime that these mags tend to be staffed by well-spoken gals with parents in the media, but their sheer metropolitan laziness really does tweak Umbrella’s tail. If these writers ever leave the capital, it’s only to write some patronizing article about how “glamourous” (ie “tarty”) Liverpool’s women are or why Newcastle’s nightlife is so much “fun” (ie “Let’s laugh at the proles”). So, while a certain supp could dedicate a recent issue to the completely fictitious ‘new style tribes’ of (you guessed it) London, countless scenes, trends and real tribes around the UK got missed out. It’s not just politicians who are lazy, is it, ladies?
www.umbrellamagazine.co.uk
The illegal drinks that are sending people crazy. And yes, they really are… Botswana: ‘Tho-tho-tho’, distilled sorghum brew, trans: ‘The dizzy spell’. Other local names include ‘O lala fa’ (‘You sleep right here’); ‘Chechisa’ (‘Hurry-up’); ‘Laela mmago’ (‘Say goodbye to your mother’); ‘Monna-tota’ (‘Real man’); and ‘Motse o teng godimo’ (‘There is home in heaven’). Benin, Togo: ‘Sodabi’. Corn liquor also used as a sterilizer in voodoo ceremonies. DR Congo: ‘Kasiki’, trans: ‘I regret’; ‘Mokoyo’, trans: ‘The dog that bites’. Kenya: ‘Kumi Kumi’, trans: ‘10 10’, as a glass costs 20 Kenyan shillings; ‘Jet 5’, distilled alcohol cut with plane fuel; ‘Hustle’, contains faecal water and formaldehyde. Nigeria: ‘Crazy man in a bottle’, a lethal palm wine distillate; ‘Chang’aa’, trans: ‘Kill me quick’. Uganda: ‘Waragi’, banana wine cut with industrial alcohol. The name is a corruption of the colonial term ‘War gin’. Zimbabwe: ‘Scud’, an unfiltered beer. Serious note: poorly distilled spirits contribute to hundreds of deaths across Africa each year. The WHO also believes moonshine contributes to malnutrition, impoverishment and domestic violence. Alex Rayner is the Editor of bspirit magazine. www.bspiritmagazine.com