To be fair, I agree that people who have drunk eight pints of beer should not drive.
Mr. Leon, also, lots of water was drunk. It was just well or rainwater.
Yes, it's after that eighth pint that I do tend to get a bit "wobbly". I am quite strict on myself, in not driving after the eighth pint. Sometimes I will even forsake the car after just seven pints, if I've been drinking something like Special Brew
I briefly worked at British Steel in the late 90s. Had a tour of a blast furnace. We were introduced to a character in overalls and a full face visor who, on turning up the visor to talk to us, turned out to be quite an attractive young blonde woman. It was like taking part in a scene designed to confound stereotypes. Even in the 90s, though, she was highly atypical.
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
This is quite depressing. It suggests that the return of schools will mean another wave, and then another lockdown. So this is coming to south Britain, too?
*firms up plans to buy shack in Anguilla*
And still the JCVI drag their feet like a kid in the supermarket who has been told no sugary cereal for you....
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
I have a couple of GP mates. I've had drinking sessions with both. They do both have a few days off a week, though, so I try to follow their lead as a decent yardstick.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
Yes, more like May circa 2019 but without the seriousness and without having won 42% in a previous election as she had.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
I have a couple of GP mates. I've had drinking sessions with both. They do both have a few days off a week, though, so I try to follow their lead as a decent yardstick.
Yep same here - pre-lockdown I drank Fri-Sat only if I could possibly help it. Lockdown I have added Sunday. Oh and during the ******* season I don't drink on Friday nights as it's nice to hit Saturday 11am with a clear head.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
Entirely agreed. Hoeing fields of young turnips all day, my pet hate, or blazing trees for felling in everlasting Southern Uplands rain, were moreover excellent incentives to work hard and get a decent professional qualification.
Fellow students did such things as teaching in prep schools on their year off (!) or working in industrial bakeries. One of them recalled how a female colleague commented 'Ah, a student' when she saw him; as he had not said a word, he asked how she knew. 'No tattoos!"
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
Rhythmic, fairly mindless interaction with water, in particular, is highly conducive to creative thinking
I get some of my best ideas in the shower - seriously. I know other arty types who find the same when they are swimming, or even just looking at the ocean
Agatha Christie said she got all her best plot ideas when washing the dishes
"Why We Have Our Best Ideas in the Shower: The Science of Creativity"
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
My "year off" wasn't building schools in Thailand but working a succession of part time jobs each 1-4 weeks length. It was fantastic - everything from building sites, house removals, to office work, etc. Only one I couldn't do and that was to deliver those small taxi cards through letterboxes. They handed me two huge plastic carrier bags stuffed with these things and as I staggered to the door they said they would check to see I hadn't dumped them somewhere.
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
How strong were the pints then though? Weren't they a lot weaker then?
Plus if you're drinking eight points your presumably doing so after quite a few hours so your body will be getting rid of some every hour.
So it's a lot still but nothing like nowadays.
Drinking eight points of weak ale over five hours is possibly better than drinking 3-4 pints of Stella and a couple of shots of Jager or tequila in a 2 hour period.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
My "year off" wasn't building schools in Thailand but working a succession of part time jobs each 1-4 weeks length. It was fantastic - everything from building sites, house removals, to office work, etc. Only one I couldn't do and that was to deliver those small taxi cards through letterboxes. They handed me two huge plastic carrier bags stuffed with these things and as I staggered to the door they said they would check to see I hadn't dumped them somewhere.
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
All the other employers chucked you out after 1 to 4 weeks?
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Laschet is actually pretty centrist and ideologically close to Merkel, just uncharismatic and hapless. Plus don't forget Corbyn actually did pretty well on a populist platform in 2017 even if not in 2019.
If the SPD do win most seats and form a government with the Greens and FDP or Linke expect the Union to shift to the right in opposition and dump Laschet and Merkelism
I think an SPD-Green-FDP coalition is really difficult to see given the German liberals and Greens are a long way apart on economic matters. SPD-Green-Linke is a lot more likely. A Jamaica coalition (CDU-Green-FDP) is also unlikely, but CDU-Green more likely.
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
This is quite depressing. It suggests that the return of schools will mean another wave, and then another lockdown. So this is coming to south Britain, too?
*firms up plans to buy shack in Anguilla*
The key figure, as always, is hospitalisations and ICU. Due to the horrific lag in Scoltand numbers we won't see if this is translating through yet.
If this is all "Return from Holiday"/"Back to School" LFT tests picking up asymptomatic cases then everything is fine. If it feeds into hospitalisation then things are much, much less fine.
As ever with Covid data it is far to early to tell. By next week it could all be over in Scotland, orrrrr it could be fucked.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
I think Northern AI means just as unelectable. Like May in 2017 if Labour had had someone better than Corbyn.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
My "year off" wasn't building schools in Thailand but working a succession of part time jobs each 1-4 weeks length. It was fantastic - everything from building sites, house removals, to office work, etc. Only one I couldn't do and that was to deliver those small taxi cards through letterboxes. They handed me two huge plastic carrier bags stuffed with these things and as I staggered to the door they said they would check to see I hadn't dumped them somewhere.
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
All the other employers chucked you out after 1 to 4 weeks?
LOL - they were temporary jobs. Really was a fantastic education. It meant walking in to a whole new set of people every couple of weeks and having to get on with them.
Stood me in great stead for PB where we have "known" most of each other for ages and most certainly don't get on.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
My "year off" wasn't building schools in Thailand but working a succession of part time jobs each 1-4 weeks length. It was fantastic - everything from building sites, house removals, to office work, etc. Only one I couldn't do and that was to deliver those small taxi cards through letterboxes. They handed me two huge plastic carrier bags stuffed with these things and as I staggered to the door they said they would check to see I hadn't dumped them somewhere.
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
🚨🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧💔💔💔💔🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨🚨NEW: EU decision to block U.K. from EU/EFTA Lugano legal pact after #brexit will hit broken families and consumers on both sides of Channel, warn lawyers from 22 EU countries.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
My "year off" wasn't building schools in Thailand but working a succession of part time jobs each 1-4 weeks length. It was fantastic - everything from building sites, house removals, to office work, etc. Only one I couldn't do and that was to deliver those small taxi cards through letterboxes. They handed me two huge plastic carrier bags stuffed with these things and as I staggered to the door they said they would check to see I hadn't dumped them somewhere.
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
I worked a 60 hour week, so made good money overall. It was quite fun too, an inverted society with the permanent staff and bosses school leavers without qualifications with the summer staff all students. We all piled down the pub afterwards together, smoked and swore at each other at work. If you didn't smoke you didn't get breaks. Some jobs were horrible, like cleaning out the deep fat fryers, others not so bad, and quite a doss.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Hence my "not overly strong," there's usually a couple in a mixed case with wifebeater alcohol levels - 5.9% and so on.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Laschet is actually pretty centrist and ideologically close to Merkel, just uncharismatic and hapless. Plus don't forget Corbyn actually did pretty well on a populist platform in 2017 even if not in 2019.
If the SPD do win most seats and form a government with the Greens and FDP or Linke expect the Union to shift to the right in opposition and dump Laschet and Merkelism
I think an SPD-Green-FDP coalition is really difficult to see given the German liberals and Greens are a long way apart on economic matters. SPD-Green-Linke is a lot more likely. A Jamaica coalition (CDU-Green-FDP) is also unlikely, but CDU-Green more likely.
SPD-Green-Linke of course means that a Union-AfD-FDP coalition becomes possible in future elections too if as is likely the Union moved right in opposition. The FDP have already dealt with the AfD in Berlin, just Merkel and Laschet have refused to touch them.
In 2005 and 2013 the SPD could have formed a government with the Stalinist Linke and the Greens but refused as Linke were too extreme.
Similarly in 2017 Merkel and the Union could have formed a government with the populist right AfD and the FDP but refused as the AfD were too extreme.
If the SPD win most seats and now agree to do a deal with Linke then the era of centrist German politics is over. It would become polarised between leftwing and rightwing blocks.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Mr. Contarian, it was a world of wars lasting over a hundred years, plagues with 30-50% mortality rates, and sky high infant mortality.
If rainwater collected in a barrel was your biggest problem you were bloody lucky.
Indeed. There's a great documentary out there on the findings from skeletons found in a burial pit after the battle of Towton.
Gruesome injuries, but they also found that medieval wound surgery was more advanced in some respects than they had expected. Some of the injuries were old and had clearly been survived.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Hence my "not overly strong," there's usually a couple in a mixed case with wifebeater alcohol levels - 5.9% and so on.
7% and up is not uncommon. Some are quite nice though, and on the plus side, the cans are small so the overall intake is limited.
I've got a Tiny Rebel special edition box arriving on Thursday.
We sometimes grumble that threads are tetchy, so just wanted to say what a good thread this has been - genuinely interesting range of views on the 50s and conservatism, and well-informed comments on the German outlook of interest to punters and others. Nobody insulted anybody...
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
Yes, more like May circa 2019 but without the seriousness and without having won 42% in a previous election as she had.
No, I'm saying May at the 2017 election.
Laschet went into this election as clear favourite and is in the process of running a May-style low energy, low competence campaign. If he scrapes home he will be weakened, just as May was.
Your stuff about May in 2017 is revisionist nonsense. There was an exceptionally high two-party share in 2017 due to Lib Dem and UKIP weakness. The situation is more fragmented in Germany, and obviously nobody is likely to get 42%. But there's no serious question that May fell well short of expectations due to a terrible campaign and was badly damaged. She survived it but never really recovered.
We sometimes grumble that threads are tetchy, so just wanted to say what a good thread this has been - genuinely interesting range of views on the 50s and conservatism, and well-informed comments on the German outlook of interest to punters and others. Nobody insulted anybody...
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Okay, time to don my flameproof suit and dive headlong into this topic ...
Personally, I want feminism to disappear because it has become irrelevant - in the same way it would be good if race became irrelevant. Any role should be open to anyone who can do it, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc. And roles should be defined for characteristics the role requires, not to close out certain categories of people. What works for a man, woman, couple or family should be of no interest to the rest of us.
Until that time, feminism can perform a useful role in heading towards that goal - as long as the movement does not destroy itself in an orgy of stupid internal arguments.
As an aside, a nasty trend I've seen amongst online feminists is 'shaming' women who freely choose to chuck in their jobs to look after their kids. How dare they betray the cause by going back to old-fashioned roles?
One interesting talking point in this debate is the future of "women's networks" and designated awards ceremonies (eg "women in banking/technology/whatever") for previously male dominated industries. It seems pretty clear that they serve a purpose in helping achieve some form of equality, but it's less clear whether they are a help or a hindrance once equality has been achieved (or close to it). There is a strong argument that, by drawing attention to women being assumed to be a minority group, these concepts eventually start to do more harm than good to the cause.
I think that the founders of most such things would be horrified if anyone suggested disbanding them, and would consider it a backwards step. However, I don't see how you could ever get true equality if you have anything for one half of the workforce that you don't have for the other.
Contrast with ethnic minority groupings, which will always have a place as long as they are a minority in the wider population, because the purpose is to make networking within communities easier, and to reassure people they aren't the only ones. But, at some point feminists are probably going to have to accept that they aren't a "minority" in the strict sense of the word, and therefore they need to drop the special treatment.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
One more thought on the Germans: there is a significant anti-CDU vote out there, akin to the anti-Tory vote in Britain, and as in most quasi-PR systems there is less fanatical party tribalism than in places like the US. As the SPD progress, it's possible that more of that will flock behind them, at the expense of both the Greens and Die Linke.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
I have a couple of GP mates. I've had drinking sessions with both. They do both have a few days off a week, though, so I try to follow their lead as a decent yardstick.
Yep same here - pre-lockdown I drank Fri-Sat only if I could possibly help it. Lockdown I have added Sunday. Oh and during the ******* season I don't drink on Friday nights as it's nice to hit Saturday 11am with a clear head.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
Yes, more like May circa 2019 but without the seriousness and without having won 42% in a previous election as she had.
No, I'm saying May at the 2017 election.
Laschet went into this election as clear favourite and is in the process of running a May-style low energy, low competence campaign. If he scrapes home he will be weakened, just as May was.
Your stuff about May in 2017 is revisionist nonsense. There was an exceptionally high two-party share in 2017 due to Lib Dem and UKIP weakness. The situation is more fragmented in Germany, and obviously nobody is likely to get 42%. But there's no serious question that May fell well short of expectations due to a terrible campaign and was badly damaged. She survived it but never really recovered.
May still won most votes and seats in 2017, Laschet might not even match May on that front if the latest poll is correct.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Tastes foul too...
Is it veganism? I think fish skin is involved in the fining process.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
My mum grew up in the war and was an occupational therapist, so was very keen all 4 kids - 2 girls then 2 boys - learn all the skills. We all equally had to do household chores, cooking, dishwashing, laundry, ironing (anyone remember what that is?), sewing, needlepoint, knitting and gardening from as early as I can remember. Have to say, it has mostly stood me in good stead and I take great pleasure from both cooking and gardening. One sister takes great pleasure from sewing and knitting.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
There is a certain pleasure in manual tasks, cooking, gardening, DIY etc. They are an absorbing task, by and large thought free and allowing absorption and contemplation. The key though is that these to me are leisurely pastimes rather than low paid drudgery. Doing any of them for a living is quite a different situation, as I know from working in a kitchen for 3 months as a student for £1.65 an hour, which wasn't much even in 1983.
The worst low paid job I had was in 1981 digging 2.5'x6" trenches by hand for a BT subcontractor through slate. I think it was 30 quid a week under the table, which I thought at the time was handsome enough to warrant the exhaustion and blisters.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
I have a couple of GP mates. I've had drinking sessions with both. They do both have a few days off a week, though, so I try to follow their lead as a decent yardstick.
Yep same here - pre-lockdown I drank Fri-Sat only if I could possibly help it. Lockdown I have added Sunday. Oh and during the ******* season I don't drink on Friday nights as it's nice to hit Saturday 11am with a clear head.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
I can get it back to 1919 (newspaper report of a drunk and disorderly court case). Seems to have been newish then - one or two judges in the next few years had to have it explained. In one instance it was explained as the notion that there were eight glasses of wine in a bottle, so ...
I wonder if it is service slang from the timing? There are eight bells in a nautical watch of 4 hours, as rung on a RN ship's bell. 'Eight bells' could be, for instance, 11.30 am in the forenoon watch. Then it was a single bell at noon. If you rang nine by mistake you had probably been excessively at the rum, almost certainly. But I can't find any evidence for this.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Tastes foul too...
Is it veganism? I think fish skin is involved in the fining process.
Plenty of beers being marketed as vegan that are not hazy. Isinglass is being replaced with alternatives - Seaweed, Irish Moss, mechanical filtration etc.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Some of these new IPAs are ridiculously strong. And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Tastes foul too...
When I had my restaurant, the beer reps were always trying to foist off on me all the latest fad beers (e.g. pine sap beer, yuk). I pointed out that beer had been around for several millennia and that the traditional beers had evolved to their respective points of perfection. Fads could only be worse than the best of the traditional beers. That argument went down like a lead balloon with the reps, as the fad beers were their biggest mark up, but at least they stopped bugging me to buy the new stuff. (PS I did buy some beers I thought ridiculous based on customer demand, such as the massively over-hopped or ridiculously alcoholic American micro-brews).
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
This is quite depressing. It suggests that the return of schools will mean another wave, and then another lockdown. So this is coming to south Britain, too?
*firms up plans to buy shack in Anguilla*
The key figure, as always, is hospitalisations and ICU. Due to the horrific lag in Scoltand numbers we won't see if this is translating through yet.
If this is all "Return from Holiday"/"Back to School" LFT tests picking up asymptomatic cases then everything is fine. If it feeds into hospitalisation then things are much, much less fine.
As ever with Covid data it is far to early to tell. By next week it could all be over in Scotland, orrrrr it could be fucked.
Covid needs to get fucked.
We've vaccinated those who are willing to be vaccinated.
Anyone who isn't willing to be vaccinated that gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
Anyone who has been vaccinated that still gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
We can't have zero Covid. We need to learn to live (or die) with it.
No more interrupting schools, no more legal restrictions, no more lockdowns.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
This is quite depressing. It suggests that the return of schools will mean another wave, and then another lockdown. So this is coming to south Britain, too?
*firms up plans to buy shack in Anguilla*
The key figure, as always, is hospitalisations and ICU. Due to the horrific lag in Scoltand numbers we won't see if this is translating through yet.
If this is all "Return from Holiday"/"Back to School" LFT tests picking up asymptomatic cases then everything is fine. If it feeds into hospitalisation then things are much, much less fine.
As ever with Covid data it is far to early to tell. By next week it could all be over in Scotland, orrrrr it could be fucked.
Covid needs to get fucked.
We've vaccinated those who are willing to be vaccinated.
Anyone who isn't willing to be vaccinated that gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
Anyone who has been vaccinated that still gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
We can't have zero Covid. We need to learn to live (or die) with it.
No more interrupting schools, no more legal restrictions, no more lockdowns.
One more thought on the Germans: there is a significant anti-CDU vote out there, akin to the anti-Tory vote in Britain, and as in most quasi-PR systems there is less fanatical party tribalism than in places like the US. As the SPD progress, it's possible that more of that will flock behind them, at the expense of both the Greens and Die Linke.
I do suspect that as the SPD are obviously 2nd in polls and the public realise there will be some Greens switching across. Having said which, the Green surge seemed to harm the Union directly so perhaps not.
I do have a small bet at 3/1 on Greens under 15% on this logic.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Ah. Phew. For a moment I thought you were a terrific lightweight. Disappointing.
Monkey 47 is an excellent gin. Pricey, tho - and foreign. I prefer patriotic British gins just because. Gin is our drink. We stole it from the Dutch but we made it ours.
Plymouth is my go to. Cotswold Dry is also good. And Chase - distilled in Herefordshire.
I've gone off Bombay and not hugely keen on Hendricks and Sipsmith, partly because the silly bottles put me off. I love the bottle shape of Plymouth gin: genius marketing.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Aside from Sipsmith I quite like Hendricks also.
Bombay sapphire is pretty good.
On the other hand I tried Japanese Roku Gin the other day and it was awful. Completely over perfumed.
The Japanese are great at scotch now, but gin not so much.
Florida, it seems, has added north of 700 reported deaths in its latest update which comes 2 days after its last. That's over a thousand a day UK equivalent.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
Maybe but I remember asking an adult what it meant, and they told me exactly that. "He shouldn't have been driving because he'd had more than eight pints". Even at the tender age of 9 I realised that was quite a lot of beer
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
Yes, more like May circa 2019 but without the seriousness and without having won 42% in a previous election as she had.
No, I'm saying May at the 2017 election.
Laschet went into this election as clear favourite and is in the process of running a May-style low energy, low competence campaign. If he scrapes home he will be weakened, just as May was.
Your stuff about May in 2017 is revisionist nonsense. There was an exceptionally high two-party share in 2017 due to Lib Dem and UKIP weakness. The situation is more fragmented in Germany, and obviously nobody is likely to get 42%. But there's no serious question that May fell well short of expectations due to a terrible campaign and was badly damaged. She survived it but never really recovered.
May still won most votes and seats in 2017, Laschet might not even match May on that front if the latest poll is correct.
I was very surprised the CDU/CSU did not choose Söder in the first place. Even considering Laschet's major flaws I'm surprised at the scale of the CDU/CSU implosion and that they've fallen below 25%. The Greens have also made an error in not choosing Habeck as their Chancellor candidate although they will probably still poll 15-18% with ease due to strength in major urban centres such as Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart etc.
It will be interesting to see if the SPD can maintain this momentum especially in East Germany.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Ah. Phew. For a moment I thought you were a terrific lightweight. Disappointing.
Monkey 47 is an excellent gin. Pricey, tho - and foreign. I prefer patriotic British gins just because. Gin is our drink. We stole it from the Dutch but we made it ours.
Plymouth is my go to. Cotswold Dry is also good. And Chase - distilled in Herefordshire.
I've gone off Bombay and not hugely keen on Hendricks and Sipsmith, partly because the silly bottles put me off. I love the bottle shape of Plymouth gin: genius marketing.
Tanqueray 10 is good but bloody strong.
That is the end of my thoughts on gin. For now.
yeah the Hendricks is all about marketing that Dickensian gin vibe but I do like the taste.
Monkey 47 I last had in Paris where it was served neat, on a silver tray with prongs for this, that and the other and I felt like I was expected to say a prayer before drinking it hence I was slightly put off.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Aside from Sipsmith I quite like Hendricks also.
"PoliticalBetting - the Official Blog of Sipsmiths"
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
Yes, more like May circa 2019 but without the seriousness and without having won 42% in a previous election as she had.
No, I'm saying May at the 2017 election.
Laschet went into this election as clear favourite and is in the process of running a May-style low energy, low competence campaign. If he scrapes home he will be weakened, just as May was.
Your stuff about May in 2017 is revisionist nonsense. There was an exceptionally high two-party share in 2017 due to Lib Dem and UKIP weakness. The situation is more fragmented in Germany, and obviously nobody is likely to get 42%. But there's no serious question that May fell well short of expectations due to a terrible campaign and was badly damaged. She survived it but never really recovered.
May still won most votes and seats in 2017, Laschet might not even match May on that front if the latest poll is correct.
I was very surprised the CDU/CSU did not choose Söder in the first place. Even considering Laschet's major flaws I'm surprised at the scale of the CDU/CSU implosion and that they've fallen below 25%. The Greens have also made an error in not choosing Habeck as their Chancellor candidate although they will probably still poll 15-18% with ease due to strength in major urban centres such as Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart etc.
It will be interesting to see if the SPD can maintain this momentum especially in East Germany.
Indeed, the Union made a huge own goal not picking Soder.
However having said that the Union have been in government and have won most seats and votes for 16 consecutive years so even if they do lose in September they would still have had a pretty good run by normal standards.
The pendulum always turns eventually.
Coincidentally the previous time the Union was in power was also 16 years, 1982-1998
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Case rates are very dependent on people's behaviour. Part of the reason we didn't see cases go up to 100 000 a day is because people didn't modify their behaviour that much on relaxation of the rules. Which was useful from governments' point of view. They could declare liberation safely because people chose not to be that liberated.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Aside from Sipsmith I quite like Hendricks also.
Hendricks is very good. A simple idea done well.
Portobello Road is my current go-to straightforward London Dry gin
A bit embarrassing for Labour that their German sister party takes the lead before they do, when you consider the SPD were averaging 15% a few months ago.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Ah. Phew. For a moment I thought you were a terrific lightweight. Disappointing.
Monkey 47 is an excellent gin. Pricey, tho - and foreign. I prefer patriotic British gins just because. Gin is our drink. We stole it from the Dutch but we made it ours.
Plymouth is my go to. Cotswold Dry is also good. And Chase - distilled in Herefordshire.
I've gone off Bombay and not hugely keen on Hendricks and Sipsmith, partly because the silly bottles put me off. I love the bottle shape of Plymouth gin: genius marketing.
Tanqueray 10 is good but bloody strong.
That is the end of my thoughts on gin. For now.
Beafeater gets a bad press but is the last major London Dry maker actually making in London. I went on a tour of their distillery in Vauxhall
They store samples of the botanicals in one large room together, the smell is just sensational.
One more thought on the Germans: there is a significant anti-CDU vote out there, akin to the anti-Tory vote in Britain, and as in most quasi-PR systems there is less fanatical party tribalism than in places like the US. As the SPD progress, it's possible that more of that will flock behind them, at the expense of both the Greens and Die Linke.
is there such a thing as efficient vote for any parties in Germany? can you get most seats even if you don't get most votes?
One more thought on the Germans: there is a significant anti-CDU vote out there, akin to the anti-Tory vote in Britain, and as in most quasi-PR systems there is less fanatical party tribalism than in places like the US. As the SPD progress, it's possible that more of that will flock behind them, at the expense of both the Greens and Die Linke.
is there such a thing as efficient vote for any parties in Germany? can you get most seats even if you don't get most votes?
It's designed to be very proportional according to the party vote (once you've cleared 5%). That's why the total number of MPs can vary so much.
On the 1950s, I think it's easy to forget just how much more religious society was back then - for example, over 80% of people identified as practicing Christians (atheism would have been a bit like veganism today) and regular church attendance was over 10 million. Also, society was also socially stratified and deferential and people were constrained by that but to also to some extent secure in it.
The British Social Attitudes survey is instructive on this:
"People lived in relatively stable societies, in which they formed strong bonds and affinities with those with whom they lived and worked, and in which there were clear lines of moral authority. Now(adays), people have to navigate a fluid, diverse social environment in which they are free to choose their identity and moral code; individuals have to create their own lifestyles, rather than living out one inherited from their parents and reinforced by their social interactions with others."
It's a rise of secularism and individualism. Now, there are lots of positives about (in fact, mainly positives in my view) but let's not pretend it's a one-way street.
A bit embarrassing for Labour that their German sister party takes the lead before they do, when you consider the SPD were averaging 15% a few months ago.
The SPD have been second party for 16 years, Labour only 11 years so far.
Labour is also polling more than the SPD still, albeit Germany has PR
...CIA director William Burns, met secretly with the head of the Taliban on Monday in Kabul, in the highest-level diplomatic encounter since the militant group took over...
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Aside from Sipsmith I quite like Hendricks also.
Hendricks is very good. A simple idea done well.
Portobello Road is my current go-to straightforward London Dry gin
Harris Gin is delightful. The bottle is beautiful too.
A bit embarrassing for Labour that their German sister party takes the lead before they do, when you consider the SPD were averaging 15% a few months ago.
The 1950s couldn't have been as bad as some people like to say for non-white people, because so many of them voluntarily decided to move here during that time. In fact, many of them probably moved to the UK because — at that time — it was a far more liberal and open-minded place than the places they were leaving. The Caribbean, for instance, would have more far more socially conservative in the 1950s than the UK. The same would have been true for most places in south Asia.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Friend of mine went to the doctors for a check up. Doc asked him do you drink a lot? And my mate said well yes I do drink quite a lot, to which the doc said: "ok what time in the morning do you start drinking?"
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
It was still quite normal to have many pints and drive in the 70's
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Isn't he more to CDU/CSU what May was to the Tories?
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
I think Northern AI means just as unelectable. Like May in 2017 if Labour had had someone better than Corbyn.
Thanks - I did. I merely meant that Laschet, like Corbyn, looks like a bad choice. No deeper than that.
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
In which case America is totally f*cked. They'll never get Trump out again except in a pine box once he gets his hands back on levers of law and government.
The US constitution under the 22nd amendment limits Trump to no more than 2 terms. So even if he won again in 2024 unless 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures agreed to change the constitution to let him run for a third term he would have to leave office in 2029.
The US military swears an oath to defend the US constitution
I think he would have a jolly good go at president for life
He would need the military to do it.
They swear an oath to support and defend the US constitution but also to obey the orders of the US President so would be conflicted if he won in 2024 and tried to run for a third term in 2028 and refused to leave office.
Though as he would likely not be put on the ballot in most states and assuming the Congress did not object to the winner of the EC becoming the next President the constitution would likely still win out as their oath would then apply to the newly inaugrated President from 2029
Oh I don't think he would succeed, but I think he would like to have a go and maybe thinks that he could. I wouldn't put anything past him. Let's face it he came far too close for my liking this time around.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
I have just started drinking again after 15 years teetotalism. The best new thing is small tins of craft IPA, not overly strong, which I am presently getting ridiculously cheap in pound-a-can new customers only deals which target me on facebook.
Interestingly, that friend I mentioned earlier has now gone completely teetotal. We do say surely a glass of wine can't hurt but he is quite adamant that he doesn't want to have anything. I can understand.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
Am pretty much sticking to weekends and as you say not Fridays in winter. I had forgotten how delicious and varied the stuff is. The best drink is proper bitter at an English pub in summer. Dry martinis also in with a shout, and the Dom Perignon I had for the first and only time in my life on my 60th birthday.
Fantastic! I had to buy all those Seedlip/Sea Arch expensive waters because my preferred gin is Sipsmith from the freezer, full fat fevertree tonic from the fridge - no ice, no lemon and jeez after a couple of those the following day is a huge challenge.
Let me get this right. You are incapacitated by..... two gin and tonics??!
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
Of course I move onto wine afterwards you banana.
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
Not seen Salcombe gin stateside. Can get Plymouth, which is my preference (not too surprising given I was born in the parish of St Jude's)
Aside from Sipsmith I quite like Hendricks also.
Hendricks is very good. A simple idea done well.
Portobello Road is my current go-to straightforward London Dry gin
Harris Gin is delightful. The bottle is beautiful too.
Comments
Mr. Leon, also, lots of water was drunk. It was just well or rainwater.
On the Newsom recall, this is interesting and seems to be reasonably free from partisanship either way.
My friend recoiled and said you must be kidding. He drank a couple of glasses of wine a night which he thought was quite a lot.
Obviously the doc had a different (and more usual?) idea of what quite a lot meant.
So, yes, there is an element of drudgery, but most pleasurable things have that. Although, I have to admit that I do not voluntarily do housecleaning.
Sounds to me as if he's a competent enough politician but a poor campaigner, lacking the energy and stomach for the fight. Corbyn had the opposite problem - people doubted his ability with good reason, but in fairness he was an energetic campaigner who was surprisingly up for it.
So many bricks a day, so many words a day.
If rainwater collected in a barrel was your biggest problem you were bloody lucky.
And also, re-watching the West Wing, last night's episode (S1) was Leo McGarry saying (about his alcoholism and when asked if he ever wanted a drink): "That's the problem, I don't want a drink, I want 10 drinks."
The count is going on. Result by Thursday.
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1430135961544007680?s=20
Fellow students did such things as teaching in prep schools on their year off (!) or working in industrial bakeries. One of them recalled how a female colleague commented 'Ah, a student' when she saw him; as he had not said a word, he asked how she knew. 'No tattoos!"
I get some of my best ideas in the shower - seriously. I know other arty types who find the same when they are swimming, or even just looking at the ocean
Agatha Christie said she got all her best plot ideas when washing the dishes
"Why We Have Our Best Ideas in the Shower: The Science of Creativity"
https://buffer.com/resources/shower-thoughts-science-of-creativity/
I reached the door, put the bags down and walked out.
Plus if you're drinking eight points your presumably doing so after quite a few hours so your body will be getting rid of some every hour.
So it's a lot still but nothing like nowadays.
Drinking eight points of weak ale over five hours is possibly better than drinking 3-4 pints of Stella and a couple of shots of Jager or tequila in a 2 hour period.
BBC News - Afghanistan: Credible reports of executions by Taliban says UN
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58315413
If this is all "Return from Holiday"/"Back to School" LFT tests picking up asymptomatic cases then everything is fine. If it feeds into hospitalisation then things are much, much less fine.
As ever with Covid data it is far to early to tell. By next week it could all be over in Scotland, orrrrr it could be fucked.
And what's with this fad for hazy beers? The brewery does less work by not having to "fine" their beer and charge more for it...
Stood me in great stead for PB where we have "known" most of each other for ages and most certainly don't get on.
My latest via @FT - stay with me. /1
https://www.ft.com/content/b968dc47-0fd9-44d2-8c2b-9e646817eb2b?shareType=nongift
I was glad not to be doing it long term though.
In 2005 and 2013 the SPD could have formed a government with the Stalinist Linke and the Greens but refused as Linke were too extreme.
Similarly in 2017 Merkel and the Union could have formed a government with the populist right AfD and the FDP but refused as the AfD were too extreme.
If the SPD win most seats and now agree to do a deal with Linke then the era of centrist German politics is over. It would become polarised between leftwing and rightwing blocks.
CDU-Green likely no longer has the numbers
Gruesome injuries, but they also found that medieval wound surgery was more advanced in some respects than they had expected. Some of the injuries were old and had clearly been survived.
I've got a Tiny Rebel special edition box arriving on Thursday.
Laschet went into this election as clear favourite and is in the process of running a May-style low energy, low competence campaign. If he scrapes home he will be weakened, just as May was.
Your stuff about May in 2017 is revisionist nonsense. There was an exceptionally high two-party share in 2017 due to Lib Dem and UKIP weakness. The situation is more fragmented in Germany, and obviously nobody is likely to get 42%. But there's no serious question that May fell well short of expectations due to a terrible campaign and was badly damaged. She survived it but never really recovered.
Just the sort of post I'd expect from a completeConcur wholeheartedly.
https://wordhistories.net/2017/12/16/one-over-the-eight/
I think that the founders of most such things would be horrified if anyone suggested disbanding them, and would consider it a backwards step. However, I don't see how you could ever get true equality if you have anything for one half of the workforce that you don't have for the other.
Contrast with ethnic minority groupings, which will always have a place as long as they are a minority in the wider population, because the purpose is to make networking within communities easier, and to reassure people they aren't the only ones. But, at some point feminists are probably going to have to accept that they aren't a "minority" in the strict sense of the word, and therefore they need to drop the special treatment.
That's how I start the evening. 2 or 3 G&Ts (Salcombe gin is my preference, but hard to get, otherwise Plymouth or Oystercatcher or Monkey 47)
Then I move on to wine
I am talking about in the bath at around 5pm and then perhaps with some anchovy-stuffed olives before supper. And then I start drinking.
On a Saturday.
And Monkey 47? Really?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/24/uk-brexit-safety-ukca-mark-eu-ce
'For him the truth does not exist'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/08/23/gaia-servadio-writer-literary-saloniste-first-mother-in-law/
I wonder if it is service slang from the timing? There are eight bells in a nautical watch of 4 hours, as rung on a RN ship's bell. 'Eight bells' could be, for instance, 11.30 am in the forenoon watch. Then it was a single bell at noon. If you rang nine by mistake you had probably been excessively at the rum, almost certainly. But I can't find any evidence for this.
We've vaccinated those who are willing to be vaccinated.
Anyone who isn't willing to be vaccinated that gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
Anyone who has been vaccinated that still gets sick and dies will get sick and die. It's sad but death comes to us all eventually.
We can't have zero Covid. We need to learn to live (or die) with it.
No more interrupting schools, no more legal restrictions, no more lockdowns.
I do have a small bet at 3/1 on Greens under 15% on this logic.
Monkey 47 is an excellent gin. Pricey, tho - and foreign. I prefer patriotic British gins just because. Gin is our drink. We stole it from the Dutch but we made it ours.
Plymouth is my go to. Cotswold Dry is also good. And Chase - distilled in Herefordshire.
I've gone off Bombay and not hugely keen on Hendricks and Sipsmith, partly because the silly bottles put me off. I love the bottle shape of Plymouth gin: genius marketing.
Tanqueray 10 is good but bloody strong.
That is the end of my thoughts on gin. For now.
On the other hand I tried Japanese Roku Gin the other day and it was awful. Completely over perfumed.
The Japanese are great at scotch now, but gin not so much.
It will be interesting to see if the SPD can maintain this momentum especially in East Germany.
Monkey 47 I last had in Paris where it was served neat, on a silver tray with prongs for this, that and the other and I felt like I was expected to say a prayer before drinking it hence I was slightly put off.
A simple idea done well.
However having said that the Union have been in government and have won most seats and votes for 16 consecutive years so even if they do lose in September they would still have had a pretty good run by normal standards.
The pendulum always turns eventually.
Coincidentally the previous time the Union was in power was also 16 years, 1982-1998
They store samples of the botanicals in one large room together, the smell is just sensational.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/24/taliban-afghan-data-target-allies-506638
The British Social Attitudes survey is instructive on this:
"People lived in relatively stable societies, in which they formed strong bonds and affinities with those with whom they lived and worked, and in which there were clear lines of moral authority. Now(adays), people have to navigate a fluid, diverse social environment in which they are free to choose their identity and moral code; individuals have to create their own lifestyles, rather than living out one inherited from their parents and reinforced by their social interactions with others."
It's a rise of secularism and individualism. Now, there are lots of positives about (in fact, mainly positives in my view) but let's not pretend it's a one-way street.
Labour is also polling more than the SPD still, albeit Germany has PR
CIA director met Taliban leader in Kabul, reports say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/24/afghanistan-live-news-taliban-kabul-us-withdrawal-joe-biden-germany-airport-plane-flights-evacuation
...EU will increase its humanitarian aid for Afghans from €50m (£43m) to more than €200m (£171m). Reuters reports that an EU official said that the aid will be conditional on the respect of human and women’s rights...
...CIA director William Burns, met secretly with the head of the Taliban on Monday in Kabul, in the highest-level diplomatic encounter since the militant group took over...