Our WoW took us to Bakewell and the above is the Old Bridge taken from a newer bridge. The lady in the red coat on the seat was a bonus. The chaps found me a good parking spot near the Agricultural Centre and without having to walk far I found plenty to occupy me. After their walk the weather deteriorated. The day has been much milder, 48F at the moment and the wind has completely died down.
For lunch we returned to The Miners Standard at Winster and had a pleasant lunchtime, Lively conversation and some laughs. This framed notice intrigued us because we wanted to know what 'Sutlers' were.According to the landlord they were a sort of early 'procurement officer' for the military. My Etymology Dictionary fully endorses his opinion.
sutler
- "person who follows an army to sell food to soldiers," 1590, from M.Du. soeteler "small tradesman, sutler, camp cook" (Du. zoetelaar), cognate with M.L.G. suteler, sudeler "person who performs dirty tasks," M.H.G. sudelen "to cook badly," M.Du. soetelen "to cook badly." Probably related to Du. zieder, Ger. sieden "to seethe" (see seethe).
There was much discussion as to the difference (if any?) between Ale and Beer. It was noted that India Pale Ale and Mild Ale sound correct but Bitter Beer is right. Perhaps Bungus, with his knowledge of the licensing trade can assist?
The chip-cobs were well up to standard and there were actually two varieties of vinegar -
Sarsons and Lichfields. Well !I felt I had to find room for this cute junior gull who was perched on a piece of driftwood just offstage right front of Picture 1.
For the photographers it was on my 70-300mm VR Nikkor, at the long end. The gull must have been 40yards away. This vibration-reduction technique really works like a charm and I love the lens !
This evening we watched Andrew Graham-Dixon on BBC 4 doing Travels with Vasari and it was excellent. He made a first-rate programme of it.
Vasari's "Lives of the Artists" was one of my first year set-books and I still have that well-thumbed and heavily annotated volume around somewhere. Andrew Graham-Dixon is an engaging chap and a tops art-historian. I feel I ought to re-read Vasari and that can't be bad.
Re links. Y tells me that yesterday's link to Survivors was to the original series and of little interest to anyone. Please click here for a page about the current series. Sorry folks for getting my links in a twist !
I can't possibly move onto 'comments' without a resounding thank you to Jill for my hand-knitted, fingerless gloves personally designed for cold WoW days.When I got home from WoW a mysterious package had arrived through the post. I honestly had no idea before opening the package that I would find these delightful and so useful gloves.
They feel so comfortable and lovely and warm and just the job for camera-clicking at this time of year.
Thank you Jill !
Photograph courtesy of Y, who took it for me !
Comments
bungus ...... I accept the opening paras as a reasonable enough account.
It is my intention to try your highly recommended Aldi marlin. Each time we visit Aldi I intend to buy some and each time I forget. It has been written on shopping lists, programmed into my phone etc., all to to avail. Perhaps God doesn't want us to eat marlin (an anagram of 'lame train' by the way - could this be something to do with it?)
30 seconds is more than enough to miss out on a sunset ! They don't hang about do they ?
Speaking on a mobile phone is obviously something you have forgotten, not 'not learned' because I distinctly remember being at Northern College and exchanging the spoken word with you.
Jill ........ Please see above re my gloves.
You are probably correct about £4.99 for my Tesco electric jug. Whatever it was, it works perfectly and isn't at all slow, which some of them are.
No. I don't add beer to batter. Maybe someone else mentioned it. Ages ago I used to add a half-teaspoon of 'golden egg' for added crispness. But you can't get it nowadays.
Poor you and your electric gates ! I've heard of gated-villages but a gated house must have been quite scary.
Join you in being sorry about Woollies ..... Do you remember 'nothing over sixpence'. Those were the days.
I hope bungus has e-mailed you the Radio Nottingham stuff about the 'mystery blanket' gang and Debbie Abrahams. There are pictures and I definitely recognise at least one square from the pictures you sent me. A black and white one of interesting design.
Quotation time ....... I would love to have spent that 'hour in a pub' with Mark Twain......
"I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened"
Y is bombing off to Burton Joyce tomorrow and I am having a quiet day 'at home' prolly most of it in kip - unless something fires my burners ! There often is - I'm pleased to say.
I've downloaded a programme called Photology please click here if you are interested, which claims to sort out your old photos into 'landscapes', 'people', 'faces', 'red' etc., without you having to wade through them adding tags. I shall play arounbd with it and if it's any good I'll publish more details.
In the evening at EPS we have "An evening with Uncle Roy". I'm looking forward to it.
I've downloaded a programme called Photology please click here if you are interested, which claims to sort out your old photos into 'landscapes', 'people', 'faces', 'red' etc., without you having to wade through them adding tags. I shall play arounbd with it and if it's any good I'll publish more details.
In the evening at EPS we have "An evening with Uncle Roy". I'm looking forward to it.
"Sleep tight - catch you tomorrow - sometime"
.
.
Originally ale was a type of beer made with barley, With the introduction of hops into England this became known as beer, The distinction does not apply nowadays.
ReplyDeleteAle is now brewed with top fermenting yeast. Its a Little more in depth than this but that's the basis of the difference.
The licensing law until a few years ago still mentioned Porter which was very common and was a dark beer.
Kevin
DIARY
ReplyDeleteI started to watch the second episode of ‘The Devil’s Whore’ but gave up at the first advertsisng break. My impression is that there are only two women in it and all the men look alike (John Simm is undecipherable). Even the Roundheads have perms. Considering the complexity of the costumes they seem to get out of them pretty smartly.
Sandra had the stitches out of her wrist today with only minimum discomfort. Now to wait for an appointment to have the other one done. The experience has been so comparatively easy that she almost wishes she had more than two hands.
BLOG COMMENT
A nice bridge picture although I don’t know where it takes us – probably to the far end.
You speak of it being warmer, and there was I just feeling sympathy for the huddled creatures on the bench. You are right about the red coat serendipity.
It reminds me a bit of the bridge at Christchurch, Hants. I will scan and email a b&w picture taken circa 1950.
I didn’t know what a sutler was either, nor yet the distinction between ale and beer. I think of Mild Beer but have seldom drunk it; does anyone still brew it? In Scotland it is not Mild and Bitter but Light and Heavy, the Light presumably being dark and the Heavy light.
Before about 1950 there were still a number of pubs licensed to sell only Beer and (I think) Ale & Porter. I went on several surveys around Sutton-in-Ashfield for the purpose of applications to the justices to also sell Wines & Spirits. We usually took sandwiches and ate them in the pub at lunchtime but I recall one occasion when the landlady kindly cooked us lunch, foc, in the form, I believe, of what would now be called an ‘all-day breakfast’.
Sarsons or Lichfields? As Harry Hill would say “There’s only one answer…”
What a nice little bod. Even he looks ‘starved to death’. And look how red his poor little chapped legs have gone. Your lens must be good because I have no doubt he was shivering. I remember having winter-long chapped thighs every year until I was ‘britched’ (at 13?).
Your fingerless ‘gloves’ are what I have always known as ‘mittens’. A very kind gift from Jill but I have also always thought them a waste of time – it being the fingers that get cold rather than the hands. But if they work for you…
There was another form of mitten, ie, like a glove but the fingers not separated, ie, just a thumb and a 4-finger-bag. I remember having, I suppose at the age of 3 or 4, a pair made from rabbit fur, one of which I lost having dropped it down between the railway carriage and the edge of the station platform.
I first had the marlin from Aldi months ago but it then disappeared from the freezer thingies. But it is back. ‘Laminater’ too is tararmacing.
Having recommended this fish so highly, I hope that you won’t be disappointed when you do try it.
Aldi’s pikelets (crumpets) would be as good as Warburtons, if they had a bit more salt,.
Sunset? Now you see it …
I don’t think I had a mobile phone the last time we went to Northern College. It must have been two other people. Was that before I suffered my Transient Global Amnesia, or not?
Why do so many of the people you quote seem to be my alter egos?
The ‘photology’ programme sounds promising. I’ll wait to hear your verdict before having a look.
Well done that explorer.
Jill:
Not another war story, I promise, but I discovered in Tripoli that anything will drip dry and not need ironing. I refer to civvies of course; KD uniforms were washed, starched and pressed foc at the on-camp Chinese laundry.
I think any bitter beer or pale ale, even cheap lager (any of which you might find in individual 250 ml bottles) would do perfectly well for batter. I suspect it is the CO2 rather than anything else that makes the mix lighter and that soda water would probably have the same effect.
Your ‘locked in’ episode sounds like the start of a psychological drama. What if no-one could get out of his/her house one morning and then these strange, transparently amorphous… (cue Dr Who type music)
The Woolworths & MFI collapses will no doubt bring home the seriousness of the situation to those who wanted to believe that if they closed their eyes it would all blow over.
Who next. Currys? Wigfalls? Co-Op?
AnonymousKevin:
Thanks for that info.
So is there now any distinction between Ale and Beer (ie, is Beer brewed with bottom fermenting yeast (which sounds somewhat unhygienic)?
I had always thought Porter to be a sort of weak Stout, of Irish origin.
POSTSCRIPT
For homework, Jessica has recently had to prepare a presentation about the Ruth Ellis case. This struck me at first as being somewhat macabre but, on reflection I think that at 13 my friends and I were morbidly aware of, and discussed, executions. But capital punishment was then simply accepted, almost universally.
Jess has discovered that a lot of people favour a return of the death penalty and she seemed surprised (and not entirely convinced) when her maternal grandparents did not concur.
I saw on Radio Nottingham’s website yesterday that the Pierrepoint family came from South Notts although Albert was born in Yorkshire.
Henry Albert Pierrepoint (1878 – 1922) - Normanton on Soar, Notts
Executioner from 1901 - 1910
Thomas William Pierrepoint (1870 – 1954) Sutton Bonington, Notts
Executioner from 1901 - 1946
Albert Pierrepoint (1905 - 1992) Clayton, West Yorkshire
Executioner from 1932 – 1952
“In 1974 Albert came to the conclusion that executions solved nothing and it simply arose out of a desire for revenge.
However, two years later Albert admits, in an interview with Radio Merseyside, that he could have been an executioner again - particularly with vile murder cases.”
I think that India Pale Ale was created at the time of the Raj in India. the English soldiers stationed in India wanted/needed their beer/ale but it was found that in the days of sail the standard brews would not withstand the journey to India and they could not brew in India because there were no hops at that time. A modified brewing process was developed so that they could make a beer/ale that could be transported to India and would withstand both the journey and storage at the high temperatures/humidities in India. At the time of the Raj Calcutta was the main base and during the summer months (June, July and August) the temperatures can be around 100oF with a humidity of between 95 and 98%.
ReplyDeleteThe new ale was called India Pale Ale and that IPA has been with us ever since.
As an aside the Indians found that when they started to use computers they could not use ordinary floppy discs for data storage because the humidity was such that there was fungal growth on the oxide coating of the disc. The arrival of large, sealed hard drives and optical data storage systems were a Godsend to them.
JBW
Lovely comments about your Shirebrook experience, Bungus. They made me laugh out loud. I would have thought you would know, however, that the far side of the Market Place is the one furthest away from you. Which means, of course, it will keep moving about whenever you do.
ReplyDeleteYour attire did not go unnoticed, just not commented upon. One would not necessarily comment upon David Beckham having a tanned and toned body because that is what one expects. Similarly, one would not necessarily comment upon a carefully crafted layered look worn by a style guru.
We are enjoying watching The Devil's Whore though I think it helps to have some knowledge of the period. I think there are only two women in it but the wars and the politics were largely conducted by men; not entirely though. Roundhead and Cavalier were terms of abuse and not, as I was taught at school, comments upon hairstyles. Most people of the time would have considered themselves Royalists or Parliamentarians.
Rob
My dictionary agrees with Kevin that beer was distinguished from ale by being hopped but the term is now generic and includes ale and porter.
ReplyDeleteVery nice fingerless mits - I look forward to seeing them 'in the flesh' next week. I agree with the point about it being the fingers that get cold but as you could use the camera without removing these they are an elegant solution!
It only occurred to me later on in the evening that, having left you in Bakewell, I should have told you about the shop there that sells the best Sticky Toffee Pudding in the world. Next time!
I am glad you think the fingerless mitts will be useful, G, and that they fit. It's my fingers that get cold, but then sacrifices must be made in the cause of Art....I find the warmest hand coverings are what Bunguys describes, a thumb and a 4-finger bag, but I have to keep taking at least one off to fiddle with clasp on my handbag, get out bus pass, pay for something, and unless I have a handy pocket or somewhere I end up with it in my teeth - or I lose one.....what I really need is to have them on a tape threaded through my coat sleeves, like infants do.....
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever tasted marlin. Is it like swordfish?
The bridge photo is like the Christchurch one, I know that one.
I hung on in there with 'The Devil's Whore' but admit I had a job following some of it. I don't have more than a very sketchy knowledge of that period of history - I remember reading 'Children of the New Forest' !
I was talking to someone tonight (at a knitting group) who works and frquents Borough Market, in Southwark - she was talking about the splendid fish and chip shop there. And then she said - very surprised - they sell chip sanwiches! Thick white bread, with chips in it. Civilisation is coming south.....apparently they also do fish finger sandwiches too!