The Night Mail

[newbryford]

4 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

The M63 was the original M62 running from Chester Rd in Stretford to Worsley - at Worsley the orignal Y shaped end of the motorway to two roundabouts still exists with the later road that carried straight on to join the M62 to Leeds running between them.  From under the three bridges on the Bridgewater Canal you can see the subtle differences between the orignal Y junction bridges and the later M62 bridge. 

 

When the M62 was built and the awful junction that included the M602 was all added, the original M62 was renamed the M63 and later extended to Stockport (I can remember standing on it before it was completed).  Then it all got subsumed into the M60 along with a chunk of M62 - they should really have done the by-pass that was envisioned in the past so that the M62 did not touch the M60 or certainly not in the way it collides with the M60 at Worsley which is a daily traffic jam from around 2:30pm.  Five years of roadworks to make it the Smart M60 did absolutely nothing to the traffic and for much of it they found after starting the work that there was not the space to widen it.  Thinking about it I don't think they added any extra lanes on the M63 element apart from the bit of work around Sale that predated Smart Motorways and was done to segregate local and passing traffic for Manchester congestion charging.

 

Didn't they change Barton Bridge from 2 lanes to 3 by removing the hard shoulder?

And widened the section down towards Urmston and Sale?

 

Around the late 80s/early 90s.

 

edit - yep, they did:

Edited January 16 by newbryford

[Happy Hippo]

Can we wrap the trifle saga up before someone comes along claiming it can't be a proper trifle unless the top is sprinkled with chocolate covered gerbil droppings.

[Hroth]

24 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Can we wrap the trifle saga up before someone comes along claiming it can't be a proper trifle unless the top is sprinkled with chocolate covered gerbil droppings.

 

How about multi-coloured hundreds and thousands, or crumbled Cadburys Flake? 🙃

 

 

 

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Trifleism is better.  Especially when it has been made with Sherry

Is it OK if you make it with Suzie or Annie?

[woodenhead]

50 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

Didn't they change Barton Bridge from 2 lanes to 3 by removing the hard shoulder?

And widened the section down towards Urmston and Sale?

 

Around the late 80s/early 90s.

 

edit - yep, they did:

The Barton Bridge widening also meant additonal decking so that had to widen the supports too, the verticals at the edges were added, and some are now being infilled for more strength

 

 

No widening through Urmston, they were not allowed as the homes by the side of it are too close for the removal of the hard shoulder, they didn't plan for that when they announced the Smartening of the motorway, clearly the designer was not very smart!

 

The original M63 was built through a community by demolishing lines of homes rather like the M66 is in parts, so the motorway is very close to some homes with just a road in between the homes and the embankment.

 

Sale was widened for the purpose of segregating traffic for congestion charging that never in the end happened so what we have now is a three lane motorway with two long side motorway standard slip roads for a couple of miles which eventually feed into a short four lane stretch narrowing to three again at Northenden. 

 

But I guess at least we kept our hard shoulder, could be worse.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

…Jelly is essential to bind the tinned fruit; it should also permeate between the slices of roly-poly, in order to form the whole into a solid mass and so that you get that special sluck-slurp noise as the first portion is eased out of the bowl. The jelly should not completely cover the fruit - there should be a rough surface for the custard layer to key into.

I agree. 

I once had a rather expensive trifle that was exceptional - reflecting the work and the quality of ingredients that went into it:

• the custard was a Crème anglaise that was allowed to thicken before use
• the fruit (peaches, pears, morello cherries) was poached from fresh in a syrup.
• a homemade jelly made from gelatin and a fruit syrup was used.
• the cake wasn’t the traditional sponge, but rather a (homemade) madiera cake, left to go stale, cubed and then moistened with a sherry (Pedro Ximénez or similar)

and rather good it was too. It was by a British Chef who wanted to take the humble trifle to a new level, but without any hint of condescension, snobbery or pretentiousness - unlike dear Jane Grigson (according to Wikipedia): 

 

English cookery writer Jane Grigson has a trifle in her book on English Food (first published in 1974) and she describes her version, which includes macaroons, Frontignan wine, brandy, eggs, raspberry jam and everlasting syllabub, as 'a pudding worth eating, not the mean travesty made with yellow, packaged sponge cakes, poor sherry and powdered custard'

 

Apart from being right about the sherry (basic rule of thumb when cooking with alcohol: “if you’re not prepared to drink it, you shouldn’t cook with it”), she’s being rather snobby about a skoolboy favourite (the best skoolboy favourites make great things out of humble and sometimes less than ideal ingredients)

 

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, newbryford said:

 

Didn't they change Barton Bridge from 2 lanes to 3 by removing the hard shoulder?

And widened the section down towards Urmston and Sale?

 

Around the late 80s/early 90s.

 

edit - yep, they did:

I sincerely hope that no cakes were harmed when Eccles was being widened. Though my purchases this year included both Eccles and Chorley cakes..  The latter are lovely with a good layer of butter spread in top.  I had one for supper last night. 

 

Jamie

Edited January 16 by jamie92208

[Compound2632]

27 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

the mean travesty made with yellow, packaged sponge cakes, poor sherry and powdered custard

 

That's the one I make! Never had any complaints...

 

Trifle vs. Tiramisu...

[Canal Digger]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Can we wrap the trifle saga up before someone comes along claiming it can't be a proper trifle unless the top is sprinkled with chocolate covered gerbil droppings.

A trifle unnecessary IMHO ...

 

hat, coat, bye 

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

This might be controversial, but what are the views about jelly in trifle?

🤔

Would that not depend on the type of jelly?

[Happy Hippo]

I seem to have had a very unproductive day!

 

It started with a late start due to an evening out with friends:  I think the single alcoholic beverage I had (a beer) sent me into a sleep that rivalled Snow White's.

 

What was left of this morning was taken up writing an email to br2975, in the hope of boring him to death about track changes at Penrhos Junction in the mid 60's and then I had lunch.

 

This afternoon seems to have been taking up with sorting out the transfer of our mobile phone numbers, as we got new sim cards.  It was pretty straight forward, but seemed time consuming.  We had to migrate from BT business to EE business, although BT and EE seem to be the same company for all intents and purposes, and we have been using the EE network for all our calls for a number of years now.

 

Nyda has a Rangers meeting this evening, so I might take the opportunity to wrap up warm and spend an hour or so in the garage admiring the shambles.

 

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

6 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

We had to migrate from BT business to EE business

Out BT TV box migrated itself to EE TV all by itself. The lights on the box have changed colour and some of the menus have changed a bit. Still  seem to be billed by BT. Oddly enough our mobile  phone contracts were originally BT Cellnet but they sold their mobile business to O2. BT mobile then started up again and I have a sim only deal from them for the car. 

[AndyID]

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

SNOW!

 

You can tell without even opening the curtains, its so quiet.

 

I'm just hoping it'll melt away soon, like fairy gold...

 

 

It's not going to melt here in a hurry. They are saying 11 inches over the next couple of days starting tonight and there's already a few inches of frozen snow on the ground 🥶

[Happy Hippo]

It has just been pointed out to me, that the remnants of my parcel packing efforts yesterday, are still extant on the dining room table.

 

Acquired wisdom tells me I'd better do something about it with some haste.

 

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's the one I make! Never had any complaints...

 

Trifle vs. Tiramisu...

As I said

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

....Apart from being right about the sherry (basic rule of thumb when cooking with alcohol: “if you’re not prepared to drink it, you shouldn’t cook with it”), she’s [i.e. Jane Grigson] being rather snobby about a skoolboy favourite (the best skoolboy favourites make great things out of humble and sometimes less than ideal ingredients)

 

(my highlight)

The critical ingredients for a Trifle (indeed any dish) are care, attention and passion for food...

 

Hmm, Trifle vs Tiramisu?

 

Quite frankly most places (restaurants) make abominations of both Tiramisu and Trifle (when they deign to make either), but if classically made then I'd say they are equal in scrumptiousness!

[Oldddudders]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I knew Donald quite well.

 

A lot of the early Pearse locomotive works products featured Donald's artwork for the photo etched components. He also had some input on the mechanical engineering side.

 

I remember sitting with him discussing how to calculate overcut and undercut on photo etched sheets. I think DH will have come up against this when he was Mr Pilgrim Models. 

 

These days, with the technical advances that have been made in this field, it's lot more straightforward to calculate.

 

I had quite forgotten you had technical discussions w Donald - gosh! Last time I saw him he was sitting up in the oncology ward of QE Hospital, B’ham, where a few bits of liver were going to be removed. He was doing drawings for Ian. That would be 2007, maybe. Not much more than a year later he slipped and broke a hip, never fully recovered. One of Deb’s great regrets was that due to being in the rehab hospital at Le Mans after her accident, she was unable to attend his funeral in 2009 (I think). They had been great friends - he was, inter-alia, Bridleways Officer for the British Horse Society for Shropshire. And of course she was gone less than 4 years later. Things to reflect upon as my comfy, warm, loco-hauled TER glides towards Versailles Chantiers!

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

The critical ingredients for a Trifle (indeed any dish) are care, attention and passion for food...

 

... and sherry.

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... and sherry.

….who can indeed be critical if I misbehave!

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, Oldddudders said:

….who can indeed be critical if I misbehave!

I hope she doesn't mind that I still think of her as Ashers (aka Ashcombe).

[Oldddudders]

15 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I hope she doesn't mind that I still think of her as Ashers (aka Ashcombe).

Absolutely not. Ashcombe was the road in which our school stands, and is part of her email address. Necessarily obscure in the days before 2014 when we became an item. Her previous email was joint w her first husband, with whom we sat recently on 12th Night at the theatre bash.

[jamie92208]

55 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... and sherry.

Or in my late Dragon in laws case, plenty of Gran mariner. My teetotal aunt and mother commented on how tasty it was. 

 

Jamie

Edited January 16 by jamie92208

[Hroth]

23 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Or in my late Dragon in laws case, plenty of Gran mariner. My teetotal aunt and mother commented on how tasty it was. 

 

Jamie

 

You should try them with lime jelly cream, made with gin...

 

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I agree. 

I once had a rather expensive trifle that was exceptional - reflecting the work and the quality of ingredients that went into it:

• the custard was a Crème anglaise that was allowed to thicken before use
• the fruit (peaches, pears, morello cherries) was poached from fresh in a syrup.
• a homemade jelly made from gelatin and a fruit syrup was used.
• the cake wasn’t the traditional sponge, but rather a (homemade) madiera cake, left to go stale, cubed and then moistened with a sherry (Pedro Ximénez or similar)

and rather good it was too. It was by a British Chef who wanted to take the humble trifle to a new level, but without any hint of condescension, snobbery or pretentiousness - unlike dear Jane Grigson (according to Wikipedia): 

 

English cookery writer Jane Grigson has a trifle in her book on English Food (first published in 1974) and she describes her version, which includes macaroons, Frontignan wine, brandy, eggs, raspberry jam and everlasting syllabub, as 'a pudding worth eating, not the mean travesty made with yellow, packaged sponge cakes, poor sherry and powdered custard'

 

Apart from being right about the sherry (basic rule of thumb when cooking with alcohol: “if you’re not prepared to drink it, you shouldn’t cook with it”), she’s being rather snobby about a skoolboy favourite (the best skoolboy favourites make great things out of humble and sometimes less than ideal ingredients)

 

All this talk of trifle reminds me of this.

 

[Winslow Boy]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

You're getting me onto a hobby-horse here, as a long-time trifler. Better change the subject to Midland wagons...

 

Jelly is essential to bind the tinned fruit; it should also permeate between the slices of roly-poly, in order to form the whole into a solid mass and so that you get that special sluck-slurp noise as the first portion is eased out of the bowl. The jelly should not completely cover the fruit - there should be a rough surface for the custard layer to key into.

 

In my early trifling days - late 80s - diced tinned pineapple was an essential component of the fruit / jelly layer but at some time in the later 90s the formula of the jelly cubes changed and the jelly would no longer set in the presence of pineapple - I assume because of the acidity of the latter.

 

There's a Victorian novel - I think by Mrs Gaskell - in which in the opening chapter the heroine is assisting with preparations for her cousin's wedding and it is said that for the past month she had been occupied with nothing bu trifles - that sounds like my sort of wedding reception, though a month-old trifle might be a bit past its eat-me date. Nevertheless, trifle-making is a multi-day process since one has to wait for each layer to set properly before applying the next. 

The fact that you know the sound the trifle makes when it leaves the bowl is a tad worrying. But the rest was quite informative.

[J. S. Bach]

27 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

All this talk of trifle reminds me of this.

It was funny in the first few scenes but got old and stale after a bit; too much repetition, I think.

 

It did make a right fine mess at the end, though!