Sep 4 2022 - British Cake

 

The Globe and Mail's Opinion section had an article titled "Britain bakes itself a sickly cake"  It says "Cakeism - a nonsense of that half-eaten scone of a man, Boris Johnsonson - emerged from his Brexit negotiations, when the Prime Minister promised that his country could have its cake and eat it, too.  It turns out that there's a long list of cake quotes when it comes to England.  How did I miss the "ambushed with a cake" defence of Boris Johnson?  He tried to play down his role at his birthday party on June 19 2020 saying he wasn't involved in planning the event and was caught by surprise.   That followed on the theme of one of Boris Johnson’s most famous lines which predated Brexit.  It often re-surfaced after the referendum. “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it,” he said this while serving as Mayor of London.  It is a phrase which  started to become shorthand for his approach to politics.   Others picked it up.  Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond quoted former German leader Ludwig Erhard, who said, “compromise is the art of dividing a cake in a such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.”  Hammond added that these were “wise words with some applicability to the Brexit negotiations, although I try to discourage talk of cake amongst my colleagues.” Bank of England chief Mark Carney weighed in by saying: “Before long, we will all begin to find out the extent to which Brexit is a gentle stroll along a smooth path to a land of cake and consumption.” Who would believe that Michael Caine would have something to say about cake and politics:  “When it comes to politics, I believe you have to cut the cake so that everybody gets a piece, but at the same time, you have to keep in mind that somebody has to make the cake.”  Margaret Thatcher:  "The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone." Looking further I find that  the Chinese had their own cake theory.It is listed in Wikipedia.  In  relation to the problem of the wealth gap, in 2010, one side of the debate thought that development should focus on 'dividing the cake more fairly,' while the other that development should be focused on 'baking a bigger cake.'

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Feb 16 2020 - What Time is Sunday Dinner

Sunday Dinner used to happen after church in our house, That would have been around 1:00pm.  My brother and I were trying to figure out how it all worked.  The stove oven could be preset to start at a set time.  That made for the robust smell of roasting beef and potatoes when we came back from church.  That's a great Sunday dinner experience.  The Sunday Roast is a traditional British main meal to be eaten after church on Sundays.  My research says that a Sunday Roast should be served at 3:15pm in the afternoon. That information comes from a poll reported by House Beautiful in their article on Sunday Dinner.  The poll also reveals the meal itself:  There should be three slices of beef, four roast potatoes, and gravy all over the plate.  In Britain, one would have Yorkshire Pudding or stuffing as well.  There would be vegetables such as peas or brussel sprouts. And of course a dessert such as apple crumble.  Another UK poll found that Sunday Dinner is ranked second in a list of things people love about Britain.  Do you know what they ranked first?  The 'bacon butty' is number one - that's the name for a bacon sandwich (Hp sauce, worcestershire sauce, white bread, butter).  Number 3 was a cup of tea.  Doesn't this speaks for what the British love the most - food and their culture. Here are the top 20: 1. Bacon sandwiches 2. Roast dinners 3. Cup of tea 4. British history 5. BBC 6. Big Ben 7. Buckingham Palace 8. Countryside 9. Fish & Chips 10. Yorkshire Pudding 11. English fry up 12. British sense of humour 13. Cheese 14. Lake District 15. The Queen 16. Sunday lunch 17. Aston Martin 18. Cornish pasties 19. Stonehenge 20. National Heritage Harry Potter takes 38th place over Stephen Fry who is in 48th place.   But then James Bond took 32nd place. When I looked at this list reported in the dailymail.co.uk  I could immediately see how the British voted for Brexit.  I think of this as going beyond self-appreciation to the point of narcissism (it is called collective narcissism - a belief in national greatness).  My prediction for Britain after Brexit - the big surprise on finding out their nation's importance and true worth isn't what they decided it should or would be.  The Bacon Butty is going to cost more soon.  But then, we're on the topic of the tradition of the Sunday dinner and there's much to appreciate in the tradition they gave us.   One of Brian's Lilycrest Lilies is on show today.

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Britannia is a girl and so are her boats

A Maritime Museum in Scotland has announced that it has begun referring to boats as 'it'.  While the Museum Director says this had begun earlier, it was announced after continued vandalism of signs - where 'she' has been scratched out of information signs.  This is where everyone got involved.  It is part of the current social frenzy over free expression. The article in the Independent.co.uk demonstrated this with a nonsense sounding quote by the side against the change: "Political correctness is getting out of hand, the few are trying to bully the majority," said Harry Silvers. "There is room in this world for everyone." Not all cultures view boats the way the British do. It turns out that in Russia, boats have the opposite gender. The world authority on boats is a British firm - Lloyd's List. The weekly shipping publication which has been in print for more than 250 years,  abandoned centuries of seafaring tradition by calling all vessels "it" starting in 2002. It did it to bring the paper into line with most other reputable international business titles.   We have a simple black/white decision in English.  The week.com tells me that if we were in Luganda, "there are ten genders: people, long objects, animals, miscellaneous objects, large objects and liquids, small objects, languages, pejoratives, infinitives, and mass nouns. But in Chinese, Finnish, and quite a lot of other languages, there are no genders at all."  It explains this in much more detail for those of you who love grammar.   This same article says this:  The problem is that the Old English word for "ship" (they spelled it scip) was neuter. The Old English word for "boat" (bat) was masculine. So was the word for "whale" (hwæl). And they didn't have a word for "car" (since people a thousand years ago didn't have cars). The use of the feminine pronoun in those instances isn't a holdover at all! It comes from more recent attitudes towards the things referred to.   Little did we know that this week's angry mob would include the Admiral Lord West. Switching topics.  We have continuing news each week on Grimsby coyotes: yesterday two people were bitten by coyotes walking along the street in town.  Coyotes live on the escarpment and above the escarpment - and anyone who has a house backing on to the escarpment hears them howling at night. These biting coyotes are living in the South Service Road and Maple Street area. They started chasing people on the town streets a few weeks ago, so the newspaper reports and warnings have been constant.  People have been pretty surprised - we're supposed to be the dominant species in town.  They don't realize that coyotes have no such rules.  Here's my boat of the day: