Rocking Horse Fly, Cat, and Jungle Monster

What: Rocking Horse Fly (facing left)
Beer: Ossett Silver King
Receptacle: Straight-sided glass
When: 11 September 2008
Situation: Third official Beer Reading Meeting, Live and Let Live pub, Cambridge.

Approximately half an hour into the first pint, I spot an image of a horse emerging from the foam. Soon, though, a fully formed rocker appears attached to the horse's legs. Suddenly, it occurs to me that the strange protuberances on the horse's back were not a saddle, as I at first thought, but were in fact a pair of wings. It all adds up - the unusually slender legs, the slightly geometric head, the fully outstretched stance. "Could it be that insect that people say looks like a rocking horse?" I said. "You mean a rocking horse fly? From Alice Through the Looking Glass?" came the reply. It seems I have briefly confused fiction and reality.

It turned out to be a difficult day for recording our readings. For as yet unexplained reasons, the foam on all beers was disappearing very rapidly, sliding quickly down the glass and returning to the liquid form from whence it came, sometimes without our having been able to capture the full image. The rocker on the rocking horse fly above, for example, although slightly broken-looking in the photo, had been complete and intact moments before. Disappointingly, we also failed to capture fully the image of a dog holding a guitar which appeared in Rob's beer at the same time.


What: Seated Cat (facing left)
Beer: Elgood's Black Dog
My second pint, being of a frothier beer, inevitably produced an image in the negative spaces between the residual foam. This time a very clear outline of a seated cat. Tom believed the cat to be kissing a dragon, but I remain unconvinced.

What: Jungle Monster
Beer: Elgood's Black Dog

Further down in the same pint, a slightly disturbing monster appears. Swinging between trees, with an expression reminiscent of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, and long outstretched arms, this menacing little critter seems to be heading straight out of the glass towards the drinker... Or the onlooker, if you photograph it from the other side (see below).

My third pint only produced something that was either mildly pornographic (if you viewed the negative spaces) or a sort of scorpion thing (if you viewed the foam). I won't post it, just in case it turns out to be the former. Although it could potentially be used in one of those experiments about which side of the brain you think with (or, indeed, which brain...)