Castle Aching

[robmcg]

We need a groan button, certainly, 

 

I used to enjoy a good filled bread roll, butter, ham, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise,, back in the 70s when we all spoke English...   and you could legally visit a cafe and eat such things.

 

I hadn't realised that the English back 'home' were essentially foreign.

[Nearholmer]

If you are modelling a later period than CA, I think the 1930s*, a proportion of PO coal wagons should be from the big "smokeless fuel" producers. From what I can work out, merchants used to order wagon-loads of the stuff and it was popular for 'closed' fires such as some types of stoves and 'back boilers', which I vaguely remember were used in some houses to provide hot water until gas became standard.

 

*Coalite seems to have started as early as 1915.

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by Nearholmer

[robmcg]

What do you foreigners call a square mince pie?  There is only one which truly satisfies every craving, and it is the New Brighton, Christchurch NZ 'Happy Jose' square mince pie, kept warm in service stations, for breakfast during motorbike rides on cold days... 

[Nearholmer]

Disgusting.

 

(I've never like mince pies, as in pies made of minced meat, especially those round Scottish ones that have pastry that seems to consist of brown lard.)

[drmditch]

Re : The Building of the British Empire

Most important factors:

The four truck shipboard gun carriage

Salt Beef, Salt Pork, Hard Tack, and the industrialisation of food production and storage.

Rum and Lime Juice

 

When the Empire had been built (whether in a fit of absence of mind or not) It was sustained by IPA.

(Captains of sailing ships liked bottled bear as cargo.)

 

Not to mention quite a lot of people, both those doing the colonialisation, and those being colonialised.

 

One other factor which can be observed to this day is members of the legal professions wearing black robes and white wigs, even in tropical heat. They do look smart though! That must be why the Empire lasted as long as it did. 

[Schooner]

Both Empire and language built by the keen appropriation of anything useful currently in someone else's possession but obviously actually belonging to the British.

 

At least in linguistics this can be seen as absolute positive

 

Mind you, it's as strange to view English as one language as it is to view those who speak it as one people...

Edited March 26, 2020 by Schooner
Fat fingrrs

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

I think the trade name for that stuff was Phurnacite _ an early 'smokeless' fuel. About the size of a cobble though.

 

At the risk of starting bap-gate 2; where I came from you could barely lift a cobble in one hand and often not.  I think you are referring to large pebbles.  

[runs as required]

10 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

At the risk of starting bap-gate 2; where I came from you could barely lift a cobble in one hand and often not.  I think you are referring to large pebbles.  

 

I think you just have ...

 

Quote

I have a yorkshire pebble I think it 17ft open top I'm presuming it was designed for an inboard looking at the shape of the hull and to stop the bow raising too much I have ballast under the running boards near the front. It's a real plodder with a 10hp 4 stroke mariner on the back. It's and I wouldn't really want to put a bigger motor on there.

I found the above while mis-remembering how to spell a Yorkshire COBLE  fishing boat 

dh

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Disgusting.

 

(I've never like mince pies, as in pies made of minced meat, especially those round Scottish ones that have pastry that seems to consist of brown lard.)

Ah, but the New Zealand mince (meat) pie is a different thing entirely and is almost an art form over here.

Not that I eat them anymore since I've been a strict vegetarian for the past five years.

[St Enodoc]

16 hours ago, NeilHB said:

In his family, they call soft cobs baps, rolls were the long thin ones (finger rolls I think is the correct terminology?), and cobs were crusty. 

When I was a trainee in Derby, cobs were always crusty. Two cheese and onion cobs was a typical lunch.

 

Where I grew up in London, long rolls were bridge rolls.

[St Enodoc]

16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Cob nuts, trees for the picking of from, are “filberts” where I grew-up.

Nuts! Whole hazelnuts! Cadbury's take 'em and they cover them in chocolate...

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

Ah, but the New Zealand mince (meat) pie is a different thing entirely and is almost an art form over here.

Not that I eat them anymore since I've been a strict vegetarian for the past five years.

If they're anything like Australian mince pies I can understand why.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, runs as required said:

 

An old friend from Liverpool Corpy days rang today to check whether we were still alive.

So I asked him what the word was we used for buns

"Baps"  he said

I am ashamed to admit I'd been trying to remember "tottie" which in Liverpudlian is wanting something quite different

dh

That's not right. Baps are on the front, buns are on the back and lower down...

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, drmditch said:

Re : The Building of the British Empire

Most important factors:

The four truck shipboard gun carriage

Salt Beef, Salt Pork, Hard Tack, and the industrialisation of food production and storage.

Rum and Lime Juice

 

When the Empire had been built (whether in a fit of absence of mind or not) It was sustained by IPA.

(Captains of sailing ships liked bottled bear as cargo.)

 

Not to mention quite a lot of people, both those doing the colonialisation, and those being colonialised.

 

Spare Scotsmen, don't forget them.  There always seem to have been plenty of them available for export.  True, Cornishmen went everywhere to to dig holes and sing about Trelawny, while the Welsh, and I'm never quite sure whether this was by way of some ghastly misunderstanding, went to Patagonia, but it was "capable Scotsmen" who popped up everywhere doing more than a proportionate share of Empire Building.   

 

Quote

One other factor which can be observed to this day is members of the legal professions wearing black robes and white wigs, even in tropical heat. They do look smart though! That must be why the Empire lasted as long as it did. 

 

Sadly such traditions are whittled away in the "Mother  Country", by those humourless modernising (as they see it) for the sake of it wowsers I decried here not so long ago.  But, the English common law is a thing of subtle beauty that balances, as well as any system might, the competing imperatives of justice; the need for certainty and the need for flexibility.  The Bond villain, Drax, in the Moonraker film quipped that our sole contribution to civiliastion was the taking of afternoon tea.  Well, he overlooked the cultural phenomenon of the suave psychotic killer in bespoke tailoring, to his ultimate cost. But he was, in any case, wrong. The common law is undoubtedly England's greatest gift to the world.

 

I've always been a firm believer that those who could dress for dinner in the jungle could accomplish just about anything; a formidable (if in retrospect seemingly absurd) mindset.

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Edwardian

[Annie]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

If they're anything like Australian mince pies I can understand why.

Due to a doctor's faulty prescribing a number of years ago I developed liver and kidney damage.  I discovered that I can keep my blood test results inside normal ranges if I'm a strict vegetarian and as a result I don't need to be on any medication.  My doctor heartily approves of this.  An additional benefit is I feel much more healthy and I don't need to be on any of the medications folk my age seem to be on for high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels or anything else of the sort.

 

My daughter is an excellent cook and when she's cooking a non vegetarian meal for herself I can certainly appreciate the delicious smell of her cooking, but I have no interest in sampling any of it since I know it will only make me ill.

Have you actually looked inside an Australian meat pie?  The sight of the mess of torn up gristle, veins and sinews floating in sludgy grey gravy inside an Australian meat pie will scar you for life.  A New Zealand meat pie is the food of the gods and could not ever be mistaken for an Australian pie.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

The common law is undoubtedly England's greatest gift to the world.

I have long held the view that Scotland's greatest gift to the world is the "not proven" verdict.

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Where I grew up in London, long rolls were bridge rolls.

 

Bridge rolls are the bite-sized version of the long rolls.  Totally pointless.

 

Are the long rolls of use for anything other than hot dogs? Not the US version but with a really nice British sausage.

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I have long held the view that Scotland's greatest gift to the world is the "not proven" verdict.

 

Alex Salmond may or may not agree.

 

Justice is important but not perhaps as great an export as Single Malt.

 

Edit: Come to think of it, "not proven" is probably an import to Scotland.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Joseph_Pestell
Correction

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Bridge rolls are the bite-sized version of the long rolls.  Totally pointless.

 

Are the long rolls of use for anything other than hot dogs? Not the US version but with a really nice British sausage.

No, they were long rolls. Long enough to get a saveloy in. Never saw a short long roll until many years later.

[Edwardian]

15 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I have long held the view that Scotland's greatest gift to the world is the "not proven" verdict.

 

I must strongly disagree.  The "Scottish verdict" is invidious, as it leaves a stain on the character of the accused in circumstances where the crown could not establish guilt.

[St Enodoc]

3 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I must strongly disagree.  The "Scottish verdict" is invidious, as it leaves a stain on the character of the accused in circumstances where the crown could not establish guilt.

While I must defer to your legal opinion, to the man on the Clapham (or Leith) omnibus it means one thing only: "Everyone knows damn well you did it but we just can't prove it".

[Edwardian]

14 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

While I must defer to your legal opinion, to the man on the Clapham (or Leith) omnibus it means one thing only: "Everyone knows damn well you did it but we just can't prove it".

 

Which is precisely why it is an evil; innocent until proven guilty is the more just proposition, IMHO. 

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

it was popular for 'closed' fires such as some types of stoves and 'back boilers', which I vaguely remember were used in some houses to provide hot water until gas became standard.

 

When young, I remember visiting my great-aunt who had a back-boiler in the fireplace in their sitting room.  At teatime, she'd build up the fire so there's be a supply of hot water to wash the dishes with.  It was cosy in the winter months but a bit too warm for the rest of the year...  We had gas central heating by then so even as a small child, it seemed to be a bit old-fashioned to me!

 

However we used a fair amount of smokeless in the stove on our narrowboat, which we tended to use as a sort of weekend cottage throughout the year. It kept the boat pleasantly warm, especially on those weekends when you could hear the ice creaking against the hull...

 

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Nuts! Whole hazelnuts! Cadbury's take 'em and they cover them in chocolate...

 

But you get less chocolate with those!

 

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That's not right. Baps are on the front, buns are on the back and lower down...

 

Yep, that's totty for sure, but best not discussed in the same breath as "Not Proven".....

 

 

[TT-Pete]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Nuts! Whole hazelnuts! Cadbury's take 'em and they cover them in chocolate...

 

(sings) Oh, what has a hazelnut in every bite? - Squirrel sh!t!

[Talltim]

Can’t believe the most relevant cob  hasn't been mentioned

 

 

Palmerston + Prince + David Lloyd George, The Cob 16-4-16 (V28227)
by Tim Easter on Flickr