 The idea was that we save up ratty underwear for the trip. Then, we pack six pairs, wash them all halfway through the journey, then toss them out daily the last six days. It worked on paper.
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 What do you do if you are a newspaper competing for readers and your main competition has an extremely popular cartoon character that is stealing your readers away?
That’s what Britain’s Daily Express was facing back in the 1920s, when people still depended on the newspaper to get their daily news—unlike today when our papers are gasping their very last breath and struggling with this internet/social media environment that has forced them to change just about everything they ever knew and understood about the news business. But I digress.  Black pudding is also known as blood sausage. It is made from…guess what? Blood. Curdled and boiled and usually from a pig, to be exact. The blood is mixed up nicely with chunks of pork, spices, onion, fat, and oatmeal, and then stuffed into a casing. Yum, right?
It's true that in England they speak English and that in America we speak English too. But there are quite a few terms and expressions you might want to understand ahead of time. Maybe practice up a little on your family and friends, especially with the wide variety of cuss words and insults.
  Don't you wish you had the job of naming a town or a street? Or fingernail polish? You can't make this stuff up.
 England was the first country to print and use stamps—the first of which was sent from the post office in Bath. I know this is true because of this red sign, which we saw at the Bath post office, where we bought a sixpence for Philip, and which I trust without questioning.
 Is there any game more baffling than cricket? But really, who cares about learning the rules when there are so many more important things to pay attention to: those dapper white uniforms; the tea the spectators drink and the cucumber sandwiches they eat; the word “wicket;” and the cool and genteel nature of the game itself. Who cares how it’s played?
 Maybe you had no idea — I know I’d never even thought about it — but the hedgehog has been around in some form since the time of the dinosaurs. How on earth did they survive? If the sabre-toothed tiger couldn’t hang on, how could a tiny hedgehog?
 If you go to England and miss this meal, you will have missed an epicurean delight. It was at the top on our list. Unfortunately, the first Sunday in Oxford we missed it because we didn't know it's a Sunday meal and not typically available during the week The following Saturday we met a cook on the bus and asked his opinion on the best restaurant in St. Ives for this unparalleled cuisine.
I once read a book about a grief-stricken young man. Problems with a woman? Financial ruin? I don't remember. But as someone started up the stairs (The woman? A money lender? His mother?) to the drawing room where he stood looking out the window and contemplating his sorry life, he made a decision. He jumped. Onto the railings below. Thus ended his sorry grief-stricken life. I haven't thought of that story in years...until I saw these in Bath.  |