Contrary to popular Aussie belief that the Poms only eat fish and chips, roast beef and over-boiled vegetables, curry and chips. In fact, chips with everything including bacon, egg, spam and chips for breakfast. English cuisine has evolved just as much as the Aussie variety over the last twenty or so years. Having said that, I will start this ramble with a discussion about English Fish and Chip shops or ‘Chippy’s’, which are, after all a national institution and as such deserve a good review.
I have to say that I was very disappointed with the chips in general anyway, I think that the Poms have lost the ability to cook a decent chip. It could of course be that they just didn’t live up to the the exaggerated expectations of my memory. The fish was excellent as were the steak puddings and I fell in love with a couple of faggots.
This is not to say that my sexual orientation has changed, the faggots I ate were in Swadlincote, at the chippy in the main street. If I ever found out what they were made of, I probably wouldn’t touch them with a well greased High Peak Canal barge pole, but ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. So cliches apart, they were delicious, which is more than can be said for’mushy peas’.
I persuaded my daughter to try them, this could have been a big mistake, it took me ten years to get her to eat ‘frozen peas’. She took one fork-full of mushies and as I was sitting opposite her, it was only her genteel upbringing that prevented me from wearing them. It could take another ten years to get her to look a pea in the face again. I mentioned this to my Yorkshire friend DeeDee today and she loves them, she gave some to her kids and they asked her why the mashed spuds were green.
She also mentioned ‘Pease Pudding’, which I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. Although I do remember the old English rhyme.
Pease Pudding hot
Pease Pudding cold
Pease Pudding in a pot
Five days old.
Which apparently refers to them throwing peas into a pot and keeping it on and off the boil, don’t ask me who ‘them’ were, look it up on Google, I’m too idle.
We then got on to discussing other offal things like ‘kidneys’, ‘brains’, ‘hearts’ and ‘tripe’, but I don’t want you to lose your last meal, so I’ll leave it there.
I ate a portion of cod and chips from ‘Andy’s Chippy’ in Swadlincote, which got an award for being the 2nd best chippy in the UK. The fish was superb but the chips were ordinary at best.
To get away from Chippies, I mostly ate at Pubs and Pub food these days is a revelation. It used to be pies and pasties, pickled eggs and peanuts. If you were really lucky you might have scored a dried-up sausage roll.
These days you can get everything from Thai food (which seems to be a bit of a favourite) through Chinese, Indian (of course) and the Olde English favourites. Roast Beef, Steak and Kidney Puddings, Gammon Steak, Ploughman’s Lunch with Pork Pies and cheeses, Liver/Bacon/onions. Not to mention various Continental dishes.
They varied in quality but were mostly very good, they have to be, because that’s how the Pubs make their money nowadays, since smoking was banned.
I was also lucky enough to stumble on a cafeteria at Morrison’s Supermarket in Swadlincote. Now, I’m not saying that the food served up there was exactly gourmet stuff, but when you’re like me and ‘eat to live’ rather than ‘live to eat’, their food is excellent value for money.
I normally only eat two meals a day, one at around 11:00am and the other at 7:00pm. A ‘Quick Start’ (I think that’s what it was called) brunch of ‘Egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried bread’ for two pounds seventy pee, was a great ‘start’ to the day, I wasn’t too impressed with the bread, it was too greasy and always a crust.
I did sample their excellent roast beef sandwiches on occasion, with a bit of salad, which was great with a cup of capuccino (no baristas there, out of a machine!). I once had the braised-liver, onions, mash and peas. O.K. but I can think of better brunches. (I am however in the process of cooking some up, with bacon for the family dinner tonight).
Overall, I liked English food and as an average shit-kicker, rather than an epicurean, I was more than happy with the grub served up.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
English Weather in November
ENGLAND
I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.
As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!
I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.
I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.
ENGLISH WEATHER
As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.
My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.
I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.
To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.
I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.
After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.
As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!
I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.
I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.
ENGLISH WEATHER
As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.
My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.
I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.
To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.
I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.
After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
Friday, April 17, 2009
An update on naked bog hopping in the Peak District
Well, the Summer Solstice has come and gone, with no great surprises. Despite, or perhaps because of, a considerable police presence, in the form of Constable Paddy MacGillicuddie, formerly of the RUC but now with the Royal Cheshire Mounted Police (RCMP, Motto ‘We always get our person’) (Yet another example of Political Correctness gone wild).
Constable MacGillicuddie, a splendid example of a British Bobby, standing 6ft 3in in his size 14 Bobby boots and Bobby helmet, but actually 5ft 6 3/4in without them, reported that he had made no arrests.
He did however sight ‘a bevy’ of naked women skipping through the bogs and gave chase, but lost them as he became bogged down and sank into the bog, up to his strategically positioned, police issue truncheon. It should be mentioned here that the Constable was only attired in the aforementioned boots and helmet in order to blend in with the expected crowd of revellers.
When questioned about how many women constitute ‘a bevy’, he admitted that he was unsure because he had his whistle in one hand and was holding his truncheon strategically with the other, thus rendering him unable to count them all, but stated categorically that there were more than two.
Senior Detective Sergeant Mullet of The Police Association (Well known for his cameo appearance on ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ solemnly intoning “ ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, there’s something fishy going on ‘ere”) has subsequently stated that he will not have his members exposed to that kind of thing in future.
He has since released funds from the Association’s ‘Slush Fund’ to provide knitting needles and wool to Gladys MacPlebian and the spinsters, along with the ‘Vital Statistics’ of Constable MacGillicuddie and asked them to knit a ‘Willy-Warmer’ for future events.
When she saw the ‘statistics’ Phyllis Arkwright gigglingly suggested that the Sen Det Seg’t had failed to take into account the ‘Wind Chill’ effect on the high moors and that perhaps a Man City Blue would be a better colour co-ordination. Mullet told her “Shut your gob! and start knitting, or else!”. Constable Paddy quietly informed her, that Mullet was a ‘dyed in the wool’ Man U supporter and to use the red and white skeins.
Cheers for now. until the Autumn Equinox.
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Constable MacGillicuddie, a splendid example of a British Bobby, standing 6ft 3in in his size 14 Bobby boots and Bobby helmet, but actually 5ft 6 3/4in without them, reported that he had made no arrests.
He did however sight ‘a bevy’ of naked women skipping through the bogs and gave chase, but lost them as he became bogged down and sank into the bog, up to his strategically positioned, police issue truncheon. It should be mentioned here that the Constable was only attired in the aforementioned boots and helmet in order to blend in with the expected crowd of revellers.
When questioned about how many women constitute ‘a bevy’, he admitted that he was unsure because he had his whistle in one hand and was holding his truncheon strategically with the other, thus rendering him unable to count them all, but stated categorically that there were more than two.
Senior Detective Sergeant Mullet of The Police Association (Well known for his cameo appearance on ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ solemnly intoning “ ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, there’s something fishy going on ‘ere”) has subsequently stated that he will not have his members exposed to that kind of thing in future.
He has since released funds from the Association’s ‘Slush Fund’ to provide knitting needles and wool to Gladys MacPlebian and the spinsters, along with the ‘Vital Statistics’ of Constable MacGillicuddie and asked them to knit a ‘Willy-Warmer’ for future events.
When she saw the ‘statistics’ Phyllis Arkwright gigglingly suggested that the Sen Det Seg’t had failed to take into account the ‘Wind Chill’ effect on the high moors and that perhaps a Man City Blue would be a better colour co-ordination. Mullet told her “Shut your gob! and start knitting, or else!”. Constable Paddy quietly informed her, that Mullet was a ‘dyed in the wool’ Man U supporter and to use the red and white skeins.
Cheers for now. until the Autumn Equinox.
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A personal and cynical view of the UK
I was born in March 1949 in New Mills. This is a small town of about 8,000 people in North Derbyshire. It is sort of in the Midlands, but if it was a mile or less further north it would be in Lancashire, which is in the North of England and we all speak (or in my case, spoke) funny like Mancunians (natives of Manchester), so we think we’re Northerners.
Not that that is a real big deal, most Southerners i.e. Londoners and their ilk, think that anything north of Cockfosters (which is the most northerly station on the underground) is the deep north and should be avoided at all costs. Who cares what they think anyway! They’re almost as bad as the French and have spawned the likes of Margaret Thatcher.
Most thinking people recognise that the further you travel from London except South and East, (where they’re all cast in the same mould and even closer to France) the friendlier the people. West Country folk are very nice and not averse to smuggling a few barrels of brandy etc. from the accursed French.
They also make a very nice apple cider (called scrumpy which is best described as ‘Rough Cider’ including the skin and pips and rots your socks off . Up north a bit, you’ve got the Southern Welsh who were kind enough to give me a tertiary education. (more of that later).
East from there, after you jump over Offa’s Dyke you’ve got the Potteries Counties. The dyke was dug by some geezer called Offa and his tribe to keep the Welsh where they belonged, although it could have been intended to keep the Anglo Saxons out of Wales.
A bit further north is the Black Country, which was originally named because of all the factories belching out smoke, during and just after the ‘Industrial Revolution’. These days all the dark satanic mills have been moved offshore to China and India.
Further north still, you’ve got your good people from Manchester, Liverpool and if you hop over the Pennines, Sheffield. The other Yorkshire folk are a bit strange, but alright in small doses. Then you go up further and you get to the Geordies, who are some of the best I’ve met and invented Newcastle Brown and other delicious beverages.
Over to the left, you’ve got the Lake District which is very picturesque and that’s about all I’ve got to say about it. I’ve been there once and it’s got a few lakes and some famous people and poets lived there. I think Wordsworth may have wandered through a host of golden daffodils in that neck of the meadows.
In the far north you cross Hadrian’s wall, obviously built by a Roman Wally called, you got it! Hadrian. This was designed to keep the mad buggers called Picts and Scots back over the border in Glasgow fighting among themselves. The Scots are supposed to be a bunch of dour sods, but the ones I’ve met love a bevy or two and rarely get violent, I may have been lucky there.
To get back to New Mills, it’s situated on the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett (which will never get a mention in any documentary on the great rivers of the world). Although they do eventually flow into the Mersey and if you’ve never heard of that you shouldn’t really be reading this. As you were obviously born after the Beatles and the rest of the Scousers conquered the music scene.
These two, not so mighty, rivers were trapped behind a weir and forced into a mill race, which strangely enough turned a mill wheel, which provided power for a mill or maybe two, milling corn. The local idiot savant said “Oh! New Mills” and the local villeins and serfs clapped delightedly and the name stuck. That’s enough geography for the time being, I don’t want to bore you too much.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Not that that is a real big deal, most Southerners i.e. Londoners and their ilk, think that anything north of Cockfosters (which is the most northerly station on the underground) is the deep north and should be avoided at all costs. Who cares what they think anyway! They’re almost as bad as the French and have spawned the likes of Margaret Thatcher.
Most thinking people recognise that the further you travel from London except South and East, (where they’re all cast in the same mould and even closer to France) the friendlier the people. West Country folk are very nice and not averse to smuggling a few barrels of brandy etc. from the accursed French.
They also make a very nice apple cider (called scrumpy which is best described as ‘Rough Cider’ including the skin and pips and rots your socks off . Up north a bit, you’ve got the Southern Welsh who were kind enough to give me a tertiary education. (more of that later).
East from there, after you jump over Offa’s Dyke you’ve got the Potteries Counties. The dyke was dug by some geezer called Offa and his tribe to keep the Welsh where they belonged, although it could have been intended to keep the Anglo Saxons out of Wales.
A bit further north is the Black Country, which was originally named because of all the factories belching out smoke, during and just after the ‘Industrial Revolution’. These days all the dark satanic mills have been moved offshore to China and India.
Further north still, you’ve got your good people from Manchester, Liverpool and if you hop over the Pennines, Sheffield. The other Yorkshire folk are a bit strange, but alright in small doses. Then you go up further and you get to the Geordies, who are some of the best I’ve met and invented Newcastle Brown and other delicious beverages.
Over to the left, you’ve got the Lake District which is very picturesque and that’s about all I’ve got to say about it. I’ve been there once and it’s got a few lakes and some famous people and poets lived there. I think Wordsworth may have wandered through a host of golden daffodils in that neck of the meadows.
In the far north you cross Hadrian’s wall, obviously built by a Roman Wally called, you got it! Hadrian. This was designed to keep the mad buggers called Picts and Scots back over the border in Glasgow fighting among themselves. The Scots are supposed to be a bunch of dour sods, but the ones I’ve met love a bevy or two and rarely get violent, I may have been lucky there.
To get back to New Mills, it’s situated on the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett (which will never get a mention in any documentary on the great rivers of the world). Although they do eventually flow into the Mersey and if you’ve never heard of that you shouldn’t really be reading this. As you were obviously born after the Beatles and the rest of the Scousers conquered the music scene.
These two, not so mighty, rivers were trapped behind a weir and forced into a mill race, which strangely enough turned a mill wheel, which provided power for a mill or maybe two, milling corn. The local idiot savant said “Oh! New Mills” and the local villeins and serfs clapped delightedly and the name stuck. That’s enough geography for the time being, I don’t want to bore you too much.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Naked Bog Hopping in The Peak District
I read a very short piece (about one column inch) in the Melbourne Age, about this degradation of the peat bogs, (not the naked bog hopping part) and sent this off to The Buxton Advertiser as a tongue in cheek review. I got a rather stern reprimand, stating that the bogs in the Peak actually soaked up more CO2 than all the forests in Europe.
Further research showed that the original piece was based on an article written by the Ecological Reporter for the Manchester Guardian. I received a grudging apology and although this was written for a very localised readership, I shall include it here. All the characters in this load of the old proverbial, are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to anybody who ever walked in Britain's very first National Park.
THE PEAK DISTRICT PEAT BOGS
I read recently that the Peak District Peat Bogs were a major cause of the dreaded Global Warming, this was a trifle distressing to find out that the bogs were causing more emissions of methane/carbon dioxide than the entire bovine herds of Argentina and ovine flocks of Australia plus rain forest clearing in Brazil and Indonesia.
It has been suggested that the peat bogs be ‘bombed’ with bales of heather, so far nobody knows how she feels about this invasion of privacy, but it has gone ahead regardless, with bales being flung, hither and yon, over the bogs of Bleaklow and subsequently Kinder Scout. This will, they hope, end up with the bogs covered in newly sprouting heather come spring time. In effect draining the bogs and turning them into virtual meadows.
I then discovered that if the bogs were drained, that 17 different types of lichen, found only in that part of the world would be lost for ever, according to Gerald P. Greenbotty the world renowned Lichenologist from Warwick University.
If this was not enough, amateur ornithologist Phyllis C. Heaps said that the the yellow bellied, lesser spotted, great tit, (which had been thought extinct until her husband Arnold stumbled on a nest, literally rather than metaphorically, in the great fog of 1987) was still flittering around in rather depleted numbers.
This is confirmed by Gladys MacPlebian, a well known Scottish eremite, who in traversing the Pennine Way down to Salford to see her sister, fell up to her neck in a bog just south of Kinder Scout. Taking this as a sign from ‘God’, she decided to build a bothy there. She states quite unequivocally that she has heard the plaintiff cries of the great tit quite frequently.
This claim is disputed by Hubert Thistletwaite of ‘Thistlethwaite Bean & Broccolli Growers’, Lower Strange Lane, Edale , tel No 156 472, who requested to remain anonymous. Mr X claims that ‘the plaintiff cries’ heard by Gladys Mac, are in fact the throttled screams of Dan D. Rough the lead singer of local punk band ‘The Hairy Nits’ playing at the Disco in Castleton.
NAKED BOG HOPPING
There are also local concerns about the behaviour of Gladys Mac, who having seen ‘God’, has now introduced ‘Bog Hopping’ to the local spinsters, this apparently involves naked rites at the solstices and equinoxes, where the participants frolic, tits akimbo in the bogs, hopping from tussock to tussock and immersing themselves in the slime.
According to Cyril Neptune of the Manchester Institute of Reptilian Studies, this is seriously affecting the reproductive patterns of the local fauna, specifically the legless shit-brown lizard, which is listed by the RSPCA as being endangered.
Gladys, however, remains unrepentant and claims that Bog Hopping has improved the complexions of the Glossop, Hayfield and Buxton Ladies Ramblers Society (GHABLRS) to such an extent that five of their number have attracted spouses and a few others report fighting off toyboys and gigolos.
She also states that this came to the notice of Maggie T, who joined the GHABLRS at the spring equinox in 1989 and was joined by her adoring hubby Dennis in the bog, (this in itself is unusual, as males generally stay away, as a cold northerly wind does nothing for the proud properties of the male danglers).
However, it is reliably reported that Maggies shrieks drowned out the great tits plaintiff cries, when Dennis gave her a ‘Damned good Rogering’ in the shower afterwards. Subsequently it has been noticed that when Maggie fondly fondles Dennis’ family jewels, his eyes glaze over and his tongue lolls out rather alarmingly.
Rumours that Betty-Nancy Brush, wife of ex-US-president Basil H. W. Brush upon hearing of this miracle cure, has instituted something similar in the peat bogs of Pennsylvania, for the use of the upper echelons of Washington society attending her clinic, are as yet unconfirmed.
Locally however, Lucille Throgmorton of the Little Hayfield, ‘Olde Alternative Pharmacology Store’ has reported record sales of her vials of ‘Peak Peat Bog #5 Slime’, she also expects a record turn out for this year’s ‘Summer Solstice Bog Hop’. As it is expected that this event could rival Glastonbury in years to come, tickets should be purchased early at the store, or other major retailers.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
How could any rational person have taken that lot seriously?
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Further research showed that the original piece was based on an article written by the Ecological Reporter for the Manchester Guardian. I received a grudging apology and although this was written for a very localised readership, I shall include it here. All the characters in this load of the old proverbial, are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to anybody who ever walked in Britain's very first National Park.
THE PEAK DISTRICT PEAT BOGS
I read recently that the Peak District Peat Bogs were a major cause of the dreaded Global Warming, this was a trifle distressing to find out that the bogs were causing more emissions of methane/carbon dioxide than the entire bovine herds of Argentina and ovine flocks of Australia plus rain forest clearing in Brazil and Indonesia.
It has been suggested that the peat bogs be ‘bombed’ with bales of heather, so far nobody knows how she feels about this invasion of privacy, but it has gone ahead regardless, with bales being flung, hither and yon, over the bogs of Bleaklow and subsequently Kinder Scout. This will, they hope, end up with the bogs covered in newly sprouting heather come spring time. In effect draining the bogs and turning them into virtual meadows.
I then discovered that if the bogs were drained, that 17 different types of lichen, found only in that part of the world would be lost for ever, according to Gerald P. Greenbotty the world renowned Lichenologist from Warwick University.
If this was not enough, amateur ornithologist Phyllis C. Heaps said that the the yellow bellied, lesser spotted, great tit, (which had been thought extinct until her husband Arnold stumbled on a nest, literally rather than metaphorically, in the great fog of 1987) was still flittering around in rather depleted numbers.
This is confirmed by Gladys MacPlebian, a well known Scottish eremite, who in traversing the Pennine Way down to Salford to see her sister, fell up to her neck in a bog just south of Kinder Scout. Taking this as a sign from ‘God’, she decided to build a bothy there. She states quite unequivocally that she has heard the plaintiff cries of the great tit quite frequently.
This claim is disputed by Hubert Thistletwaite of ‘Thistlethwaite Bean & Broccolli Growers’, Lower Strange Lane, Edale , tel No 156 472, who requested to remain anonymous. Mr X claims that ‘the plaintiff cries’ heard by Gladys Mac, are in fact the throttled screams of Dan D. Rough the lead singer of local punk band ‘The Hairy Nits’ playing at the Disco in Castleton.
NAKED BOG HOPPING
There are also local concerns about the behaviour of Gladys Mac, who having seen ‘God’, has now introduced ‘Bog Hopping’ to the local spinsters, this apparently involves naked rites at the solstices and equinoxes, where the participants frolic, tits akimbo in the bogs, hopping from tussock to tussock and immersing themselves in the slime.
According to Cyril Neptune of the Manchester Institute of Reptilian Studies, this is seriously affecting the reproductive patterns of the local fauna, specifically the legless shit-brown lizard, which is listed by the RSPCA as being endangered.
Gladys, however, remains unrepentant and claims that Bog Hopping has improved the complexions of the Glossop, Hayfield and Buxton Ladies Ramblers Society (GHABLRS) to such an extent that five of their number have attracted spouses and a few others report fighting off toyboys and gigolos.
She also states that this came to the notice of Maggie T, who joined the GHABLRS at the spring equinox in 1989 and was joined by her adoring hubby Dennis in the bog, (this in itself is unusual, as males generally stay away, as a cold northerly wind does nothing for the proud properties of the male danglers).
However, it is reliably reported that Maggies shrieks drowned out the great tits plaintiff cries, when Dennis gave her a ‘Damned good Rogering’ in the shower afterwards. Subsequently it has been noticed that when Maggie fondly fondles Dennis’ family jewels, his eyes glaze over and his tongue lolls out rather alarmingly.
Rumours that Betty-Nancy Brush, wife of ex-US-president Basil H. W. Brush upon hearing of this miracle cure, has instituted something similar in the peat bogs of Pennsylvania, for the use of the upper echelons of Washington society attending her clinic, are as yet unconfirmed.
Locally however, Lucille Throgmorton of the Little Hayfield, ‘Olde Alternative Pharmacology Store’ has reported record sales of her vials of ‘Peak Peat Bog #5 Slime’, she also expects a record turn out for this year’s ‘Summer Solstice Bog Hop’. As it is expected that this event could rival Glastonbury in years to come, tickets should be purchased early at the store, or other major retailers.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
How could any rational person have taken that lot seriously?
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Imperial System of Measurement
A GUIDE TO THE OLD SYSTEM
My daughter asked me to help her with her homework recently, she had to convert a recipe from imperial into metric and for some reason was a tad confused. She wanted to know what an oz woz and what was a lb. (pronounced erlb). Having been born in the UK in the middle of the last century, this presented no problem.
I explained that there were 16 ozs to the erlb. 14 erlb. to the stun and 20 stuns to the cwit and quite a few stuns to the ton and approximately 2,240 erlb, or thereabouts, to the aforementioned ton. She thought this was a trifle confusing and what the hell did it have to do with grams and kilograms and tonnes.
We then went into volumes, with two gills to the quart, four quarts to the pint and eight pints to the gallon. I must confess to a certain amount of confusion on my part, when it came to metric equivalents of cups, tbsps, tsps, and pinches. To cover my ignorance (it never pays to admit to stupidity in front of the fruit of your loins, even if they can smell a lying rat 1,760 yards away), I launched into a dissertation on Imperial lengths.
I’ve never claimed to be a metrologist (or even a meteorologist, as this bloody computer keeps insisting that I’ve never claimed to be, which incidentally is also true). I did do one semester on the subject of metrology in 1967, in my first year at Uni, so I suppose that qualifies me more than most.
However, the imperial system, which must incidentally have been the Roman Empire, as opposed to the British Empire, is predominantly in Latin e.g. lbs. And the UK Pound Sterling (which has a dinky little capital L symbol, denied to me by this accursed computer) are both based on Libra, maybe? There again they had deca-whatsits and centurions and other such stuff, so maybe not!
As I was saying, the Imperial System hides very few secrets from yours truly. I know that an inch is the length of the average man’s top joint on his little finger. A foot is self-explanatory and three self-explanatories make a yard. The yard being a very handy little measure of a normal man's stride or alternatively the distance between the centre of a tailor's chest and the end of his fingers, when measuring out cloth. Which is why, over the centuries, evolution resulted in tailor’s having exceptionally short arms.
To proceed, a Chain was 22 yards long, which not coincidentally is the length of a cricket pitch (and possibly some baseball lengths, but don't quote me on that). Rods, Poles and Perches had nothing at all to do with anglers and were all exactly the same length, which was a bit less than a Chain (5 and ½ yards to be precise) , but a lot more than a Fathom (6ft to be equally as precise). All of these were designed to discourage ship-borne invaders and visiting cricket teams.
For greater distances the Mile was invented, this was equal to 1,760 yards, obviously, no explanation needed there! However, for seamen the Knot or Nautical Mile was invented, which is a bit further than a Tonk or Terrestrial Knot. This was mainly due to the fact that crows are notorious for not flying in straight lines over large bodies of water.
IMPERIAL CURRENCY
This brings us nicely to the British Currency, this was simply based on Pounds, Shillings and Pence (In Latin, Libra, Shillingiums and Dinari i.e. LSD, which has absolutely nothing to do with acid based, mind altering substances, thank you very much!
In the golden, olden days the serfs, villeins and servants were only given a few Pence (d.) every couple of months, if they were lucky. This caused the Bank of England and the Royal Mint to start issuing ¼d coins (farthings), ½d coins (ha’pennies) and 3d coins (threpenny bits).
Clear so far? There were 2 farthings to the ha’penny, 2 ha’pennies to the penny, three pence to the threpenny bit, (four pence to the groat, which was discontinued in mediaeval times, for some obscure reason), those were the coppers. With the silver coins there were 6d to the tanner, 12d to the shilling or bob, 24d to the florin or two bob bit, and two and six to the half crown. There were also crowns (5 bob) and sovereigns (21 bob), but I never saw any of them and they were probably fictitious and probably went down the gurgler along with groats.
Then of course, there was the folding stuff, as a kid I was never entrusted with this stuff, as it was far too valuable. I did get to handle the occasional ten bob note and Pound note (240d) but only under strict parental supervision. I can recall seeing a 5 Pound Note at a distance and think that I may have once glimpsed a 10 Pound Note, which was the size of a small newspaper, but it could have been a figment of my youthful imagination.
So there you have it, simple really! How can you wonder that people fought the introduction of metrics tooth and nail? They were used to working out whether it was cheaper to buy 3 & ¼ ozs. of butter at two and threpence ha’penny a lb. or 6ozs. of marg. at one and eleven a lb. When they only had two tanners to rub together and a family of eight to feed. “Bugger the butter, give the ungrateful brats dripping on two day old bread, that’ll keep ‘em goin’ for another week”.
Wonderful mathematicians those housewives, with nary a calculator, slide rule, log table or abacus in sight, they produced the men who claimed half of the world for King/Queen and Country. I could go on about area and temperatures and so on, but I think I’ll give it a big miss, partly because I’m bored shitless with metrology and mainly because I know sod all about it, which is where I first started.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
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