Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

....the correct procedure is to spread tomato ketchup (definitely not thinly) on a slice or two of fried bread....

I shall reserve judgement, Mike, until I have the complete facts about the fried bread. Was it, perchance, “proper“ fried bread - fried in bacon drippings or was it “pseudo“ fried bread - cooked in another fat, such as butter or olive oil. 
As for tomato ketchup, I think - like with the overuse of certain swear words, - the overuse of tomato ketchup on absolutely everything has a blunted the impact it can make on your tastebuds. But correctly used, like an appropriately used swearword,  tomato ketchup can provide the maximum amount of culinary input for the minimum amount of culinary effort.

I have never been much of a fan of tomato ketchup until I tried a proper home-made version; unlike most commercially available tomato ketchups which seem to be mostly sugar, home-made tomato ketchup is simply bursting with tomato flavour.

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

....Disaster at the Butchers.. NO PORK PIES!!!!  will have to survive on smoked bacon, black pudding and Dragon Sausage.. life can be hard sometimes...

I feel your pain. Isn’t being deprived of pork pies a violation of your human rights?

 

Whilst it could’ve been just sheer bad luck that you got to the butchers after the porkpies had been sold out, it could also be that the absence of pork pies was down to criminal activity: with the forthcoming and ongoing lockdowns, organised criminal pork pie gangs are buying up all the pork pies, stockpiling them and then, when people are really desperate, will release them slowly onto the black market at extortionate prices - say £10-£20 for a mini pork pie.

 

I can see the ads, printed on cheap flyers, pushed through the letterbox: “do you have a desire to enjoy the best that Melton Mowbray can offer? If yes, call 0800 1111-PIE. Cash ONLY”  Not to mention the pork pie touts hanging around outside the butchers trying to sell dodgy pies to desperate punters...

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I was born and raised in Romford (Essex not East London) ....

I grew up on the border between Romford and Gidea Park (as a digression I must add that I have always wanted to model Gidea Park Station circa 1967). Nowadays, perhaps, Romford is more East London than Essex. Dagenham, on the other hand, I think has always been East London. Certainly, my maternal grandparents moved from their council house in East Ham to a council house in Dagenham. Although my late maternal grandparents council house in East Ham has long been bulldozered for a modern development, had it survived and had they bought the property in the 80s, they would be sitting on a small goldmine nowadays.

 

It’s amazing how the social fortunes of many parts of London rise, fall and rise. My maternal grandmother recalled that when she was a girl East Ham was quite genteel, when my maternal great aunt opened her dance studio on the border between Romford and Gidea Park in the 1920s, that was considered a very posh area with nothing but fields surrounding the house. I am also old enough to remember when Shoreditch was a pretty dodgy place at the best of times, and that was in full daylight!

An interesting but relevant digression, a friend of mine worked briefly as a social worker in the late 60s in a particularly rough area of the East End. He was always getting hassled by the local yobs, but after he helped one of the Kray Twins’ lieutenants by getting social services to provide some nice shoes for the lieutenant’s shoeless children, the harassment suddenly stopped. Albert believes that, after he helped get shoes for the children, the word got back to the Kray twins who then issued an edict “leave Albert alone or else!”.

 

Somehow, I can’t imagine a pre-London Overground Shoreditch being home to anything like a cereal restaurant or a vegan takeaway.

 

iD

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

39 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Locally Kirkcaldy, is not Kurr-caldee(as pronounced by Tom Wannocott recently on the Antiques program) but Kurr-coddy.

 

Don't know what the BBC is coming to. Not difficult to get these things right.

 

Lord Reith, a Scot, must be spinning in his grave.

[TheQ]

Borrowstouness = Bo'ness, (west Lothian) even to the fact that's what's on most road signs and maps these days.

Of Norfolk,

 The well known Happisburgh or the sand banks off shore Haisbro = Haisbrough 

Tacolneston, =  Tackleston

Mundesley,= mundslee

Lessingham= lezingum.

 

Dull grey, light breeze, still not cold nor warm.

 

To the garage workshop,

First  complete the mains wiring, including the outside socket, a simple job but I noticed a lot of wetness. It was dripping off of the asbestos roof, I suspect over many years of leaks, water has soaked in, in the garage.

Anyway water dripping over the consumer unit, the charging station and a couple of junction boxes, was not a good idea. So various off cuts of wood were assembled to clad the underside of the  roof in that area, then installed insulation between.

 

After that I started, fitting adjustable catches to the doors, problem, one door had dropped, I had to rehang it 1/4inch higher.

At that point Ben the inquisitive Collie appeared with SWMBO, and a Muggacoffee.

 

I took the hint and after the coffee took him for his walk. Strangely just 1/4 of the way round he stopped, I asked him what he wanted to do, he turned and headed for home.

 

We then reviewed vacuum cleaners, we have....5 !!!, all mains powered .

Vax big dry upright,.   Now reserved for the house,

Vax Wet and dry, Henry type, also reserved for the house,

hover wet and dry upright, reserved for the mobile home,

hover wet and dry oval but Henry type, now reserved for the workshop garage

unknown brand, lightweight dry , reserved for the muddling shed...

 

The workshop hoover will be built in, I have bought a cyclone unit, which, after being walked by Ben, I fitted to the top of a twenty litre ex resin can. The hoover will suck out of that, plastic drain pipe will then go to the work bench , the lathe , and to a socket for floor vacuuming.

 

door catches were completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Somehow, I can’t imagine a pre-London Overground Shoreditch being home to anything like a cereal restaurant or a vegan takeaway.

And it was definitely home to the "Wrong sort of Night Club" when I was at university not a million steps away and, somewhat later, working at Liverpool Street station.  Not now.  When (or if) night clubs reopen the Shoreditch area may once again become a nocturnal haven for the many and with roads more heavily congested at 3am than 3pm.

 

East Ham was always "down market" in general terms when I lived in east London.  But it was aspired to as being an improvement upon the Victoria Docks, Stratford and Plaistow* when I knew it.  I had a flat for some time a stone's throw from East Ham tube station but across the boundary between E6 and E12 and I was therefore in Manor Park.  Oh boy did a few of the older East Ham folk sneer at me for going into "their" shops.  It was a very Indian area at the time.  White faces were in a minority and they still are but the demographic has changed with the Indian community having moved farther out in favour of African, Afro-British and other cultures.  Jamaican fried-chicken shops replace the Indian sweet shops and curry houses I frequented.  

 

Romford has always been in Essex to my mind.  Dagenham was also in Essex and I don't know when it shifted to become east London.  The River Roding was approximately the boundary.  Manor Park and East Ham were London; Ilford and Barking were Essex.  

 

* Whilst in the area of place-name pronunciation this still catches a few out.  Plar-stow not Play-stow.  But the identically-named village in Surrey is Plass-tow.  

 

Working at the House of Fun means I have to interpret place names at times.  "Esh-er" rather than "Eee-sher" is common.  "Reed-ing" for "Redd-ing" likewise and perfectly logical really.  I haven't been asked for Looga Barooga Junction yet but have had to advise on the next trains to "Gate-wick Airport", "Briggerton" (I thought most folk knew it was Bry-ton), Hass-Lem-Er-ee (Haslemere), Owl-tun (Alton), See-on Road (Syon Lane), Chiz-wick (the w is silent), Hay-vent (Havant), Sir-Liz-Berry (Salisbury) and Pooley (no Y).  All in a day's work.  

[Dunsignalling]

Broadwoodwidger, discuss.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

I shall reserve judgement, Mike, until I have the complete facts about the fried bread. Was it, perchance, “proper“ fried bread - fried in bacon drippings or was it “pseudo“ fried bread - cooked in another fat, such as butter or olive oil. 
As for tomato ketchup, I think - like with the overuse of certain swear words, - the overuse of tomato ketchup on absolutely everything has a blunted the impact it can make on your tastebuds. But correctly used, like an appropriately used swearword,  tomato ketchup can provide the maximum amount of culinary input for the minimum amount of culinary effort.

I have never been much of a fan of tomato ketchup until I tried a proper home-made version; unlike most commercially available tomato ketchups which seem to be mostly sugar, home-made tomato ketchup is simply bursting with tomato flavour.

I feel your pain. Isn’t being deprived of pork pies a violation of your human rights?

 

iD

 

I rarely put tomato ketchup on anything nowadays, just occasionally on a sausage sandwich if the sausage happens to be a less than flavoursome sort.

 

Now my mum would inevitably have fried the bread in dripping of some sort - most likely beef dripping,  assuming either dad or I hadn't nicked it for dripping spread on fried bread or very occasionally dripping  spread on toast (see previous post regarding lack of frequency of toast).  Mum never fried anything in butter (I was 19 before I saw anything being fried in butter, and then it was Kit-E-Kat) while I don't think I ever saw any olive oil in the house until my 20s although Mazola corn oil did appear on the ladder shelves when I was in my teens.

 

Yes - all very traditional at home regarding food but it was all well cooked and without over-cooked veg although my grandmother was of a generation which put a pinch of bicarb in the cabbage water before boiling it for a millenia or thereabouts and reducing it to mush.   But at least there I got to eat fresh killed chicken, most of the veg was grown in the garden, and at harvest time there hare was regularly on the menu.  And both my gran and mum had pastry hands.

[Gwiwer]

2 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Broadwoodwidger, discuss.

Bridger.

 

Woolfardisworthy, on the other hand, depends upon which of the two villages by that name one is discussing.  It is "Wool-zer-ee" when near Hartland but "Wool-zee" when near Tiverton.  The former also has "Woolfardisworthy (Woolsery)" shown on most direction signs.  

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Don't know what the BBC is coming to. Not difficult to get these things right.

 

Lord Reith, a Scot, must be spinning in his grave.

I believe in the interests of defining  economic costs, if you use the BBC department that is supposed to issue correct pronunciations. your production will be charged for it, so many now don't bother.

 

A couple of days ago on "escape to the country", they said the name of a village I used to live in incorrectly, Ludgershall is not pronounced Lud gers hall, but luggershaul.

It means... place of the spear trap..

I've often been asked on the Norfolk Broads rivers how far to Ackl..

it's A as in hay , Acle..

Edited November 28, 2020 by TheQ

[Dunsignalling]

6 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Bridger.

 

Woolfardisworthy, on the other hand, depends upon which of the two villages by that name one is discussing.  It is "Wool-zer-ee" when near Hartland but "Wool-zee" when near Tiverton.  The former also has "Woolfardisworthy (Woolsery)" shown on most direction signs.  

Spoilsport!

 

Your musing about when Dagenham became East London was once explained to me by an acquaintance from the area thus: it never did; East London just carried on sprawling until it was surrounded....

 

John

Edited November 28, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[Danemouth]

How about Llandough just outside Cardiff pronounced Llan-dock

 

Dave

[Gwiwer]

Polyphant

St. Ive (no, I don't mean St. Ives)

Trewoon

Launceston (which differs between Cornwall and Tasmania)

Porthoustock

..... plenty more  

 

[The Stationmaster]

Count yourself lucky Rick.   One evning ewhen I was earning some extra crust in Slough booking office a gentleman of obvious sub-continr ent origin arrived at the window, with luggage, and and asked for a ticket 'uhh, uull'.  This posed quite a problem because the 'uull' bit suggested a destination with an L in t its name so the obvious one - from both spelling and population demography - was Southall; he shook his head.  So following the ;uull' clue and. admittedly, making a guess based on his apparent land of origin I tried Luton; he shook his head.  So it tried Leicester - and again he shook his head.  At this I reckoned the only way was to start at Paddington and work outwards in the hope I might get there eventually - Ealing (all three) drew a shake of the head as had Acton and Westbourne Park.  Another attempt with Southall was equally unsuccessful as was Hayes but West Drayton brought forth a huge smile and much repetition of 'uhh uull' and a single to West Drayton duly passed through the window.

 

What I could never work out was what he might have heard over the years to cause him to pronounce West Drayton in that way - Southall fitted that fairly well, but West Drayton??? 

[Tony_S]

Most place names in Essex sound like they are written except for Theydon Bois. By the time Aditi and I worked in the Romford area it was definitely in the London Borough of Havering. Many of the schools dated from when it was part of Essex though. 

After 33 years working in Havering, Aditi moved to a job in Newham. The Newham College had two major sites, one in East Ham and the other in Stratford. Colleagues in Havering thought she was mad to move there. She actually started a trend as others followed. 

Tony

[Dave Hunt]

There's a village near Crewe spelled Wybunbury but to the locals it is Winbry.

 

I was once driving from South Wales to Lincolnshire at night and became temporarily unsure of my position (pilots are never, ever, lost) so stopped and asked a lady if I was on the right road to Leominster, pronouncing it in my ignorance as Lee-o-minster. She shook her head and said she'd never heard of it and since she had lived in that area all her life didn't think it was anywhere nearby. At that moment a man came along and asked if he could help. "l'm looking for the road to Lee-o-minster," says I. He looked thoughtful, then suddenly brightened up. "Ah, you want Limster," he said, it's on this road about two or three miles on." The lady looked at me askance. "Why didn't you say you wanted Limster?" she asked.

 

Dave 

[chrisf]

I'm told by someone who used to live there that Launceston is pronounced Larnson.

 

Chris

[BokStein]

How fascinating is the way in which we contrive to strangle the interpretation of a combination of letters!

 

2 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Locally Kirkcaldy, is not Kurr-caldee(as pronounced by Tim Wannocott recently on the Antiques program) but Kurr-coddy.

 

About half way from Kircaldy to Glasgai is the Falkirk Wheel, compromising two caissons (= Kassoons) in which the canal boats ascend or descend.

 

58 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

And it was definitely home to the "Wrong sort of Night Club" when I was at university not a million steps away and, somewhat later, working at Liverpool Street station.  Not now.  When (or if) night clubs reopen the Shoreditch area may once again become a nocturnal haven for the many and with roads more heavily congested at 3am than 3pm.

 

East Ham was always "down market" in general terms when I lived in east London.  But it was aspired to as being an improvement upon the Victoria Docks, Stratford and Plaistow* when I knew it.  I had a flat for some time a stone's throw from East Ham tube station but across the boundary between E6 and E12 and I was therefore in Manor Park.  Oh boy did a few of the older East Ham folk sneer at me for going into "their" shops.  It was a very Indian area at the time.  White faces were in a minority and they still are but the demographic has changed with the Indian community having moved farther out in favour of African, Afro-British and other cultures.  Jamaican fried-chicken shops replace the Indian sweet shops and curry houses I frequented.  

 

Romford has always been in Essex to my mind.  Dagenham was also in Essex and I don't know when it shifted to become east London.  The River Roding was approximately the boundary.  Manor Park and East Ham were London; Ilford and Barking were Essex.  

 

* Whilst in the area of place-name pronunciation this still catches a few out.  Plar-stow not Play-stow.  But the identically-named village in Surrey is Plass-tow.  

 

Working at the House of Fun means I have to interpret place names at times.  "Esh-er" rather than "Eee-sher" is common.  "Reed-ing" for "Redd-ing" likewise and perfectly logical really.  I haven't been asked for Looga Barooga Junction yet but have had to advise on the next trains to "Gate-wick Airport", "Briggerton" (I thought most folk knew it was Bry-ton), Hass-Lem-Er-ee (Haslemere), Owl-tun (Alton), See-on Road (Syon Lane), Chiz-wick (the w is silent), Hay-vent (Havant), Sir-Liz-Berry (Salisbury) and Pooley (no Y).  All in a day's work.  

 

Nearer to home might be Slough (= Slouw rather than Sluff, as in Luffbra [Looga Barooga / Loughborough])

 

Going back to the Isle of Wight, there's

Whitwell = Whittle

Shorewell =Shorrel

Brighstone = Brigstun

 

41 minutes ago, Danemouth said:

How about Llandough just outside Cardiff pronounced Llan-dock

 

Dave

 

Isn't the Welsh Ll more like a gutteral Khl?

 

On the south coast, travelling between Chichester and Fareham, there are two of the most violent towns in the country: Cosham and Bosham! Correctly pronounced, they become Cossam and Bozum!

[The Stationmaster]

I wonder if the lorry driver who asked me for directions one day in the Rhymney (Rumnee) Valley was ex forces?  I'd stopped at ashop to buy some cigarettes on my way back down from Cwmbargoed and as I came out of the shop a lorry wt stopped and the driver shouted across the road 'which way do I go to get  Why-strad My natch.  I tod him and also said that he was lucky he'd asked me because the locals would not have understood that he wanted to get to 'uss-trad munuck' (Ystrad Mynach).

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.

 

Mrs NHN's a Corn....Cornish.....her folk now live in Lost With Neil, or somewhere...oh, Lostwithiel!  She has a Geordie accent.  Having moved around a lot as a child and young woman, she learned to adopt the local lingo.  She sounds more Geordie than I do, as a born there version. Maybe some of that RP rubbish did sink in!! Folk say I'm a 'posh Geordie' but there isn't anything remotely posh about me that's for sure.

 

Some Manx placenames defy any known attempts to pronounce them, but surnames also cause issues.  Callister and Collister are very common, but both pronounced Callister for some reason.  Mooragh is part of Ramsey that the locals argue over correct pronunciation, the 'agh involving a lot phlegm as a rule!  Maughold too.   Ballasalla is as it is written, with hard northern a's throughout Ba-la-sa-la, but hearing visitors from the South saying Bawll-Arr-Sarler cracks us up.  All good fun.

[Barry O]

Tomato sauce spread on toast was supposedly good as a hangover cure....not sure how that works .. never tried it.

 

I do use Heinz reduced sugar and salt tomato sauce on occasion.. it does taste OK.

 

@New Haven Neilwill know the station announcement for  "Porcy Mainne!"  from days gone by. My sister lives in Cottesmore - or as locals call it Cotsmore...

 

 

Back to listen to the  rugby on S4C.

 

baz

[New Haven Neil]

Indeed - my old mate Plum was a signalman there!

[tigerburnie]

Countesthorpe in Leicestershire is known as "niffy", not a dialect, it just stank from the water treatment works.....................................

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, chrisf said:

I'm told by someone who used to live there that Launceston is pronounced Larnson.

 

Chris

Always sounds more like Lansun or sometimes Lans'n to me.

 

John 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. News just in that parts of Basildon have the highest C-19 infection rates in Essex. The areas concerned are Vange and Pitsea with Bastable which includes the town centre bringing up third. I live in Kingswood which is surrounded by those three areas (south, east and north. The infection rate in Pitsea is 596 per 100,000 whereas where I am is half that but is still rising. I have to travel through Vange to get to Tess Coes in Pitsea for shopping. That current rate is a lot higher than some places in tier3.

Edited November 28, 2020 by PhilJ W

[polybear]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

The workshop hoover will be built in, I have bought a cyclone unit, which, after being walked by Ben, I fitted to the top of a twenty litre ex resin can. The hoover will suck out of that, plastic drain pipe will then go to the work bench , the lathe , and to a socket for floor vacuuming.

 

This kind of thing by any chance?:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Efficiency-Cyclone-Collector-Separator-Industrial/dp/B07L2VTSZF/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Bear has been using a couple of standard domestic hoovers during the kitchen refurb - it's a miracle they still survive.  Bags have to be changed regularly - long before they are full - due to the fine dust blocking the bags; I've had a bag split as well, which no doubt didn't do the hoover a lot of good.  A workshop hoover would be useful, but reviews tend to be mixed so far as I can tell; it's also something else that needs storing....

 

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I rarely put tomato ketchup on anything nowadays, just occasionally on a sausage sandwich if the sausage happens to be a less than flavoursome sort.

 

Mum never fried anything in butter (I was 19 before I saw anything being fried in butter, and then it was Kit-E-Kat)

 

 

Bear's first thought upon reading this is WHY??  Bear's second thought is that I'm not sure I want to know....

 

12 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Truly, you are a bear with hidden attributes (incidentally, regarding tomato sauce on toast: is it a smear, a wipe, a dollop or a splodge of sauce on the toast?  Is the sauce Heinz, supermarket house-brand or homemade? And the toast: is it buttered or not?)

 

 

Welcome to Bear's Haute Cuisine 

 

Lesson One:  Toast con salsa di pomodoro

Toast two slices of bread to taste, cool for a few minutes then add butter and spread with Tommy Sauce.

 

 

Chef Bear will let the patron decide if the quantity of Sauce applied would be best described as a smear, a wipe, a dollop or a splodge......

 

In other news:

Bear's knee has been giving a bit of grief since yesterday evening; when I went to bed-e-byes last night I was half expecting to be awakened in the middle of the night by some serious cramp in the thigh muscle.  Today it's apparent that the knee is the source of the grief, so pink pills have been consumed and a folded pillow will be under the knee in bed tonight. . It first gave problems back in the early 1990's whilst working on the construction of the RMN Frigate KD Lekiu at Yarrow shipbuilders in Glasgow; there's nothing like going up and down the ladders (often carrying heavy equipment) in a warship all day long to screw your knees up.  Fortunately it rarely gives trouble, but it's still letting me know it's there....

So today was a cushy day, and the knee was nowhere near bad enough to prevent the short walk to the chippie

This afternoon was a slight re-arrangement of the (stored & covered) furniture in the lounge so I can start using the gas fire again. No shivering anymore

Tomorrow I think I'll investigate what exactly is underneath the ceiling box in the kitchen - this covers the top of the stairs construction.  Even if I can change the shape a bit will be a result.  I need to go slowly though - the last thing I want to do is rip it all apart only to have to rebuild it exactly as-is.

 

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

28 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Countesthorpe in Leicestershire is known as "niffy", not a dialect, it just stank from the water treatment works.....................................

I only know about Countesthorpe from the Community College. In 1974/75 I was doing a teacher training year (PGCE) at Keele. Countesthorpe College had a very radical curriculum and school management so staff and students were invited to  Keele to talk about their experience. Unfortunately despite great interest from the PGCE student the college students were really quite obnoxious and not a good advert for progressive education.