@Arbutus   I think that the linguistic difference is more likely to be between Swiss French on the one hand and Quebecois  and French French on the other.  The French I learned was that spoken in France and one of my brothers has lived in that country for nearly 45 years, and the terms you used are the ones I am familiar with.  Souper is supper…[Read more]

@Arbutus   Pudding/dessert   – the ‘common language’ problem again, although ‘dessert’ is also sometimes used on this side of the pond to mean the sweet course of a meal.  Originally, though, ‘dessert’ meant the fruit and nuts, perhaps with a sweet wine, after the table had been cleared of the main meal.  That was in the days when dinners were s…[Read more]

@janetteB  Anzacs are little known over here, other than among the Aussie and NZ expats.  As far as I know they are not available in shops – certainly I have never seen them on sale – and no one who encountered them in our house seemed to have heard of them, although many asked for the recipe. They are, as you say, very easy to make and were a gre…[Read more]

@purofilion  @janetteB   While reminiscing on the subject of afternoon tea, I suddenly remembered that one of the staples when we had it at home was anzacs. Do you know what I mean? – the antipodean equivalent of flapjacks, and to my mind far nicer.  I think my mother got the recipe from her mother-in-law, my paternal grandmother, but goodness kno…[Read more]

@janetteB  @purofilion   Interesting that Harrods and Fortnum & Mason are now calling afternoon tea ‘High Tea’.  It must be a fairly recent development, I think, and certainly contrary to the usage I am familiar with.  I did once have afternoon tea at Fortnum’s but it was a long time ago, around 1968/9, and they were certainly calling it ‘aft…[Read more]

@purofilion   I have just realised that I meant to answer your query concerning Bovril,  It is essentially a very concentrated beef extract and looks much like Marmite; even the jars in which it comes are of similar shape and size.  Used sparingly it could be spread on toast or bread, but I remember it chiefly as a drink – a teaspoonful in a mug o…[Read more]

@Arbutus   teapot/pot/saucepan   Ah yes!  the pitfalls of the ‘common language’.  Once, when an American to whom I had just been introduced was, for my benefit, explaining something she had just said, I made her laugh inordinately by assuring her that it was OK, I was pretty much bilingual.  But not entirely so, it seems   🙂

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@purofilion   mmmm…donuts.  I don’t eat them these days, but once, for a bet, I ate 12 large cream donuts  (i.e. large donuts, split and filled with whipped cream) at a sitting.  The bet was for a bottle of Irish Whiskey, and I won, but for some reason I have never felt quite the same about donuts since then  😕

Maybe you could eat a whole…[Read more]

@purofilion  Vegemite?  Vegemite?  Phooey!  just a poor imitation of Marmite, the food of champions – not surprising, since it is a by-product of the brewing industry.  An acquired taste, certainly, but not so much if you were introduced to it in infancy.  I have an American friend who loves it., and I used to take large jars of it over when I…[Read more]

@Whisht   @Bluesqueakpip   If I made a habit of drinking builder’s tea I suspect I would be permanently insomniac and would have no stomach left.  If the tea is strong enough to dissolve a spoon – and that is the definition of builder’s tea which I, also, recognize -, just what do you think it does to your innards?

@Arbutus  You are proba…[Read more]

@purofilion  @janetteb   Ah, cider! that takes me back to the 1960s and the summers I spent working as a supervisor on an excavation in southern England, on the borders of the cider heartland.  The excavations were on a huge scale, employing around 150 volunteer workers at any one time, including people from many countries.  The largest over…[Read more]

@purofilion   If it is any consolation at all, Clarke has just received a huge ovation from the Trent Bridge crowd, no doubt in honour of his past record and his graciousness in defeat.  Not a dry eye in the house!

@fortheloveoftheatre   @purofilion    Re the expression ‘it isn’t half … ‘ you aren’t half …’  I think it probably comes within the definition of litotes  i.e. a figure of speech or rhetorical device in which an affirmative is expressed by understatement or by negating its opposite  – similar to ‘This isn’t bad’ meaning ‘its good’.…[Read more]

@pedant   The Guardian shop is offering a T shirt printed with a summary of the innings somewhat similar to that tweet.  I also enjoyed the series of tweets yesterday which showed shocked looking vegetables and fruits, plus an onion – English, obviously – the cut face of which had a positively evil grin 🙂

@pedant   Was that tactful?  Was it kind?    😈

At around 12 am yesterday I looked in on the Live Updates on the BBC website, just to get an idea of how things were going, and my jaw nearly hit the keyboard.  Not that I am a particularly avid follower of the game or anything – I am not sufficiently knowledgeable for that – but several…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

 the usual reason for realising God isn’t calling you to be a monastic

As no less a person than Tom Baker could no doubt testify 😈