devil 101: hateful things
Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–1017) was a Japanese author best known for The Pillow Book, a collection of lists, gossip, poetry, observations and complaints written during her years in the Japanese court. Here's our tongue in cheek adaptation of her list of wine complaints.
+Yellow Tail
+Japan's blind love of the abomination that is Beaujolais Nouveau and the sorry circus that plays out on the third Thursday of every November
+Liebfraumilch and all its foul progeny
+Cheese served by the teaspoon
+Slurping ramen
+Warm red wine in the summer
+400 page wine lists
+A visit to Budo-no-oka in Katsunuma (http://budounooka.com) - hundreds of bottles to sample from but not a decent drop among them
+You are invited to a friend's house who offers you a glass of wine; in your thirsty eagerness you drink it up too quickly and it is not replenished despite your obvious distress
+A mean-spirited gin and tonic served with a tiny measure of an inferior gin, year-old opaque ice cubes, warm sugar-free supermarket tonic water and a slice of lemon rather than lime - surely better to stay dry than swallow this
+House party guests who, making the excuse that they don't know anything about wine and apparently lacking the imagination to ask for advice, stop by the nearest convenience store to bring you a bottle of Yellow Tail - pour it down the sink in front of them
+In a wine bar you call over the waiter to seek a wine recommendation, the waiter either simply recites the list back to you or sucks their teeth and goes off in search of the sommelier - extremely annoying
+Japanese restaurants that present the bill as a single number written on a tiny slip of paper: no need for them to write "gotcha" as you already know that you have been ripped off
+Otoshi or cover charge, usually 500+ Yen, which is added surreptitiously onto the bill by grubbier establishments, normally in return for a hand towel and a gulp of something slimy - most self respecting restaurants give you the towel free
+Camembert in a can
+Plastic ham - the poor piggy's death was entirely in vain
+Spongy sliced white bread, crust free sandwiches designed for the toothless made from said sponge bread and revolting sandwich fillings - potato salad sandwich anyone?
+Sausages with thick plastic skin & fish fed pigs to supply fishy limp Bacon
+$50 melons, $10 punnets of oversized watery strawberries, tasteless apples
+Dustbin pizzas bedecked with wholly inappropriate toppings such as mayonnaise and fish eggs
+Japan's blind love of the abomination that is Beaujolais Nouveau and the sorry circus that plays out on the third Thursday of every November
+Liebfraumilch and all its foul progeny
+Cheese served by the teaspoon
+Slurping ramen
+Warm red wine in the summer
+400 page wine lists
+A visit to Budo-no-oka in Katsunuma (http://budounooka.com) - hundreds of bottles to sample from but not a decent drop among them
+You are invited to a friend's house who offers you a glass of wine; in your thirsty eagerness you drink it up too quickly and it is not replenished despite your obvious distress
+A mean-spirited gin and tonic served with a tiny measure of an inferior gin, year-old opaque ice cubes, warm sugar-free supermarket tonic water and a slice of lemon rather than lime - surely better to stay dry than swallow this
+House party guests who, making the excuse that they don't know anything about wine and apparently lacking the imagination to ask for advice, stop by the nearest convenience store to bring you a bottle of Yellow Tail - pour it down the sink in front of them
+In a wine bar you call over the waiter to seek a wine recommendation, the waiter either simply recites the list back to you or sucks their teeth and goes off in search of the sommelier - extremely annoying
+Japanese restaurants that present the bill as a single number written on a tiny slip of paper: no need for them to write "gotcha" as you already know that you have been ripped off
+Otoshi or cover charge, usually 500+ Yen, which is added surreptitiously onto the bill by grubbier establishments, normally in return for a hand towel and a gulp of something slimy - most self respecting restaurants give you the towel free
+Camembert in a can
+Plastic ham - the poor piggy's death was entirely in vain
+Spongy sliced white bread, crust free sandwiches designed for the toothless made from said sponge bread and revolting sandwich fillings - potato salad sandwich anyone?
+Sausages with thick plastic skin & fish fed pigs to supply fishy limp Bacon
+$50 melons, $10 punnets of oversized watery strawberries, tasteless apples
+Dustbin pizzas bedecked with wholly inappropriate toppings such as mayonnaise and fish eggs
