aw shucks you make me blush. yeah shuies ok too. ahahahahaa.
what is an american bisquit anyways?
Leads?
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Aug 28, 2008 10:00 a.m. XRAYCAT:
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Aug 28, 2008 1:19 p.m. Deed Eddy:
My brain always gets the "biscuit/bisquit" thing wrong. It comes from an American baking product called Bisquick, and it's just embedded in my personal dictionary of incorrect spelling mistakes. (we all have 'em)
Here is a photo of an American biscuit. If made properly, they are heaven on earth. If made incorrectly, you can tie your boat to one. Not a sweet desert item, but rather a savory baked item. Down here, and I do mean in the Southern states, restaurants can be given 5 stars just for the quality of their biscuits, alone!
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Aug 28, 2008 5:12 p.m. XRAYCAT:
no way that looks GOOD. what would you have with that?
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Aug 28, 2008 5:32 p.m. Deed Eddy:
Wait, let me find the Cracker Barrel menu...
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Aug 28, 2008 6:37 p.m. Proteus:
But how am I going to explain it to my friend Keith who lives in Leicester?
Oh, you mean Lester?
Most terrifying infernal rabbit-hole on the face of the earth. Where each spoke on every inscrutable roundabout leads not to a road related in some predictable, or at least discernible, manner to all the others, but an entirely different dimension. You can NEVER just go back the way you came.
On the map, it appears a fair-sized city of the sort that in America would take maybe 45 minutes to negotiate either via outerbelt (I think limeys call them "ring roads") or an interstate right through – roads with a consistently related numbering scheme, I might add, signposted by someone who understands you might want to actually get through/around the place TODAY.
But nooooo. Count on several hours of mystification to thread your way through this dread precinct, including several stops for directions at petrol stations where Brits of both Anglo-Saxon and Indian extraction give perfectly clear directions (to another Lestrian, no doubt) in a dialect even other Brits can't understand (with or without the Indian or Pakistani overlay).
Even reading about the place is scarifying, and had I done so before I left Bath, I never would have tried to get to Grantham, where the kindly keeper of the B&B at which we arrived several hours late asked "Trouble?"
"Lester." I said. "It took three hours."
"Ah yes, I should have warned you. It takes me two. Dreadful place."
Then he served us bisquits, scones, and tea without ice.
(Actually, I belatedly realize why "Leicester" is pronounced "Lester." In England, you can't get ice in what Americans bloody well know are supposed to be cold drinks, so the i, the c, and e are silent: "Leicester" minus "ice" equals "Lester." If only someone had told me this beforehand, I might have been spared the Indian counterman's blank looks and my own embarrassment when I asked how the hell I could get through "Lie-chess-ter." I thought I was giving it a fair shot.)
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Aug 29, 2008 1:44 a.m. XRAYCAT:
"lie-chess-ter!" priceless
yep most inner city roads in England are terrible theres no excuse. Except I guess that some of the citys have been there for centuries. Still youd think we'd have it sussed by now. you have to already know where you have to go to get anywhere it seems
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Aug 29, 2008 2:05 p.m. Shuie:
Tea WITH ice. No no no no no!
Leicestershire has not only the worst ring road (to be forever referred to as the outerbelt, something I thought only REALLY overweight folks wore) in all Christendom but a few of the more bizarrely unpronounceable placenames in the country. It's as if the hobbits of the Shire did it on purpose to torment American guests.
Ever been to Belvoir Castle? Sounds quite suave and French, eh? Sorry, it's pronounced 'Beaver'.
The prize must go to Loughborough. This, in a twist of sheer devilment is pronounced, 'Luff-bora'. How the hell can this be right?
Tea, however, simply has to be served hot.
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Aug 29, 2008 2:23 p.m. Proteus:
HOT tea is fine. COLD tea is fine. Tepid tea is ... tepid. Tepid SOFT DRINKS...I don't know how y'all do it.
(And SWEET tea, of course, is an abomination under the Lord in any accent and at any temperature. But I digress...)
Ever since y'all got over post-war privation, you've been nostalgic for ways to suffer, is that it, and hit upon beverageous hair shirts, as it were?
I do seem to recall the Belvoir Beaver.
But Luffbora makes sense to me. You'd be squeamish about saying "Loo-bora," after all. One pictures a Municipality of Toilets (which sounds like it could be a mid-80s XTC song).
Our Louisville, you know, is pronounced Loo(a)vul (the a is barely there); we don't take everything literally, oui yanquis.
At least in Ireland, the Gaelic was OBviously unpronounceable. They didn't torment us with the possibility that we might be able to make sense of it.
While we're Britting out, in this thread about guitar CABLES (leads are something you stomp on a pedal and play in the middle of a song while pretending the chicks are staring moony-eyed at you), which has wandered to travel and language, it's probably an ideal time to ask about the BBC series To The Manor Born, which looks to be from the late 70s, early 80s.
The missus brought it home on videotape from the local library, and we watched it right through, every episode. I thought it was marvelous, and enjoyed the gently mocking view of classes and roles in transition during that period, as well as its light touch on immigration, gentrification, industrialisation, urbanization, etc.
The characters were a hoot, I thought.
Way better than 'murrican sitcoms.
(To tie the detour in with at least one of the subthemes of the thread, where in the country was it filmed?)
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Aug 29, 2008 2:48 p.m. Deed Eddy:
To the Manor Born was filmed on location in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset, and in a studio. The Manor, Cricket House, was at the time of the original series owned by the father-in-law of Peter Spence, the show's creator and writer. Some interior scenes were also filmed inside Cricket House. The Old Lodge, which on screen was at the end of the Manor's drive, is in fact about one mile away and called West Lodge. A false gatepost was installed to help the illusion that the two are close together.
P.S. Who else on this board has had the happy occasion to visit lovely Grantham, raise their hand.
Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, pick me! Knew a loverly pub there, and the innkeeper's a bass player as well.
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Aug 29, 2008 5:15 p.m. Shuie:
Proper beer should be served tepid. Every other beverage is just dandy when scalding hot or frosty.
When I lived in Leicester, an American asked me for directions to Loughborough. I believe he was marooned on the outerbelt. He said, "Sir, can you show me how to get to 'Low-Bro'". I thought this was perfect. Knowing that he'd be utterly lost again within 10 minutes, I gently put him right on the pronounciation then showed him the way, as best I could.
'To The Manor Born' is so subtle and gentle. It represents a gentry that was almost obliterated, even when the series was made. I've played so many weddings in those sorts of ancestral piles, where the creaking fabric of the once magnificent house is as shabbily concealed as the contempt of the present incumbents at the riff-raff they now must court to keep the albatross in the family. I must confess that I find Penelope Keith utterly beguiling.
Grantham is beautiful. That's a secret. Mrs Shuie's mum is from Grantham. When she was a student nurse, in the mid-sixties, she was badly burnt when a bottle-gas fire she was standing in front of exploded. She endured a long convalescence lying on her front but was comforted by her boyfriend who brought a guitar and sang songs for her. He was Van Morrison.
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Aug 29, 2008 6:17 p.m. yettoblaster:
I tried for a cup of coffee once in the CorK, Ireland train station and was served a tepid cup of dishwater with tea leaves floating in it.
As I recall I spent the better part of two weeks holiday around the British Isles campaigning for a cold Carling Black Label where ever I perched.
Tea time grew on me though...
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Aug 29, 2008 6:48 p.m. Proteus:
Such curious cross-currents.
I visited Grantham when we (wife, son, and I) went to Merry Olde to visit my daughter, who was doing the senior-year-abroad thing – at one of those old piles (actually, faux-old, but that's another story) called Harlaxtan, near Grantham.
One family had answered the how-to-keep-the-albatross-in-the-family question by giving the property to a small liberal arts school in Southern Indiana – who used it to headquarter their senior-year-abroad program, which is how my daughter ended up there.
The place had a brave colonnaded front (which photographs palatially for the brochures), and was in a state of continual renovation, which was slowly gaining ground – but years of benign neglect showed in generally poor repair everywhere.
And under the surface grandeur, it was always going to have been shoddily built in the first place.
An interesting visit. But the area roundabout was lovely (as were Harlaxtan's grounds, for that matter). Of the few mid-size towns we really traipsed about, Grantham was the homiest to a midwestern American.
Do I remember it's the home of both Isaac Newton and Maggie Thatcher? Just think, gravity and grit, invented in the same place!
On to Lincoln, then, for the cathedral and the castle, an original Magna Carta, and a genuine old towne center. The cathedral gave ample matter for reflection to someone raised Methodist, as it would have been the place where John Wesley (from near Lincoln) would first have experienced High Church. (From his subsequent history, it was not to his liking.)
Presumably it would also have been the native stomping ground for his brother Charles, who pretty much wrote the Methodist Hymnal – a collection of music the melodies and cadences of which are part of my musical DNA.
A white van pulled up and parked on the flagstones near the cathedral during our visit, and a gang of workmen piled out with very impressive extension ladders. I don't recall the name of the renovations company worn by the van, but I remember the tagline: "Residential. Commercial. Estate. Cathedrals. Castles. No job too big or too small."
You don't get that much here...
Bath and Salisbury also impressed, and of course the area around Stonehenge.
When I got back to the US, our rural areas looked not just unkempt, but like ragged wilderness. In England every blade of grass, every bush and fencerow, have been under continual care since the 16th century...
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Aug 29, 2008 6:48 p.m. Proteus:
I DID actually, finally, get cold ice tea...actually I think near Cork. Kerry, maybe.
The waitress at the little pub didn't even bat an eye.
Of course, she was from Indianapolis...
So...Shuie...your mother-in-law is Van Morrison's ex-girlfriend?
Do tell!
I was quite taken by Penelope as well. I suppose she represented a particular British type...I believe that sort of blustering brassy bossy Woman of Enormous Heart translates differently in American culture.
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Aug 29, 2008 9:14 p.m. Shuie:
Pro,
She was close with him shortly after he came to England and was beginning to make an impact with 'Them'. He was, of course, rather different from his rather grumpy and evasive public persona. She hasn't seen him for many, many years. She's too much of a lady to tell me much more.
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Aug 30, 2008 3:04 a.m. Johnson25:
Shuie said: Proper beer should be served tepid. Every other beverage is just dandy when scalding hot or frosty.
Adding an Aussie bent to the current UK/US cultural exchange I consider the above quote to be blasphemous to all beer Gods... In particular James Squire, for may his Amber Ale quench my thirst for many a year... :)
Now I knew girl in Nashville at one time who would often mention having biscuits and gravy with nary an explanation. Having finally understood that biscuit = scone, care to explain the gravy?
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Aug 30, 2008 4:09 a.m. XRAYCAT:
do i win something for most derailed thread?
I saw one of your bridges on shuies guitar , proteus! nice cant play it though, hes a lefty.
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Aug 30, 2008 10:27 a.m. Proteus:
XRAY, they fit on righties too, iffen you want one!
Ahh, gravy. Biscuits and gravy are a true American delicacy (in a very undelicate way). I don't know how the gravy is made - someone will surely chime in - but on biscuits it's always a white gravy (flour, water, and secret spices?). It has to be the right weight and consistency: though successful gravy can vary across a range of viscosities, it can't be runny and it shouldn't be gloppy. And it must have chunks of sausage in it. But again, details can vary.
It's most famous for breakfast, though it's good any time of day. And for a post-bar gig meal, at a restaurant at 3 am, there's NOTHING like it...
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Aug 30, 2008 10:50 a.m. Deed Eddy:
Good mornin', y'all! Mmm, mmmm, mmmm. Let's see now...Scrambled eggs, hashbrowned potatoes, bacon, biscuits and sausage gravy, iced tea with six packets of sugar, paramedic waiting outside...Let's eat!
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Aug 30, 2008 11:13 a.m. Mark Synchro:
Just your typical low-carb southern meal.
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Aug 31, 2008 10:21 a.m. XRAYCAT:
mmmm nice. any of you mericans tried toad in the hole?
drove through lie chess ter yesterday to get to a gig, it was surprisingly well signposted.
I celebrated getting home safely by ordering one of those WOW guitars
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Aug 31, 2008 7:30 p.m. Jeff O(nly My Opinion):
deed said: My fourth grade teacher would kill me. I should have written, "As cookies are to biscuits."
I thought you were from the south, so you did use proper grammar.
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Sep 1, 2008 5:20 a.m. Johnson25:
Deed Eddy said: Good mornin', y'all! Mmm, mmmm, mmmm. Let's see now...Scrambled eggs, hashbrowned potatoes, bacon, biscuits and sausage gravy, iced tea with six packets of sugar, paramedic waiting outside...Let's eat!
Aaaaah k thanks... Might have to give it a go if ever I travel the weary boards in the US, I mean I'll still approach it caution, fork raised and all, but I'll give it a go...
XRAYCAT said: I celebrated getting home safely by ordering one of those WOW guitars
There is a 'World of Warcraft' guitar now? How does it play??? Pictures Pictures!!!
Apologies in advance
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Sep 1, 2008 5:51 a.m. XRAYCAT:
oh dear
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Sep 1, 2008 5:52 a.m. Gigatron:
Mmm! In Lobro I might have a breakfast like that with some Wooster sauce.
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