We are well into a year after when the EU and UK Governments started to realise that Covid 19 was real. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew all about it. He takes over from Tennyson for our starter: he wrote, in a Poem from 1841 entitled 'Rainy Days'.
This is both a statement of fact, and an acknowledgement that the human condition has its ups and downs. Living here, we don't get nearly enough of the former, but by analogy, for the past year plus we have had at least a constant dribble of the metaphoric pain. Ella Fitzgerald expanded on the theme with her rendition of her song.
The role of Nurse Mills was reprised by Katie Holmes (later Mrs Cruise) in the later Hollywood film version.
Now I will add the videos of both scenes - not for gratuitous voyeurism of course, but there is the option to leave the clips unopened, if you think you may be offended or your mental health may suffer! It is just an example of the rain in Dan Dark's miserable life lifting for a while. In the film version Philip Marlow is called Dan Dark and played by Robert Downey Jr. The TV series in my opinion is far superior, but it is a toss up between the two greasing scenes!
First the TV Series with Michael Gambon and Joanne Whalley:
This is an excerpt from Episode 1/6, 'Skin'. Taken out of context it is rather hard to understand, but the whole series can be found on the net. If you do manage to watch the whole episode, you may notice a lot of similarities in voice and language between Gambon's character and a recently deceased member of the AWW and WAGS.
The same scene from the film with Robert Downey Junior and Katie Holmes
Now how on earth did I stray off track, ( like certain WAGS Leaders - there's the link!!) so far and so easily.
Anyway, when thinking of a theme for the blog, as we are still a bit light on walking tales, I began to dissect what I have been doing with my time. Apart from once a week when I settle down to write the Blog, and the daily round of sorting and replying to emails and WhatsApp chats, it is a GroundHog day of shopping, cooking, eating, watching TV., a short walk for exercise, and sleeping. Many days there is not enough time for this vigorous activity. Highlights may be a visit to the dentist, or Doctor, a journey to the pharmacy, or a video call with relatives or friends. It does not sound much, but it fills the 18 hours until bedtime. In a way, there are few decisions to make so it is fairly stress free apart from any nagging doubts caused usually by health. I considered making a daily timeline, but I probably haven't got enough time. Then it hit me - one of the greatest songs ever written, in my opinion is 'A Day in the Life'
I will play it first in case you just want to treat it as a nice melody and you can read about the various interpretations and the analysis and background of the story, which I found quite interesting. Some links are; Here and Here
Extremely rare photo of Robert Ho, and wife Melanie Suki Potier, model, muse, and longest lasting companion to Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. The pair would tragically both die in a car crash in 1981, leaving behind two toddler daughters.
Antje x
"The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree... As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications."
Inaugurated a month ago, during the peak of confinement. It is allowed to open daily because it sells essential foodstuffs for survival!! 🤣
Turkey eggs are more pointed on one end and smaller than we thought, but still larger than our XL chicken eggs. One of the reasons we don't eat them, I decided, is that the shell is so thick and the membrane underneath it like the plastic they secure tooth brushes in, that it is hard to get one into the pan without smashing the way in and scrambling it!
Ah, now I remember. The subject of Dracula had come up, in particular the book written by Bram Stoker, part of which takes place in Whitby although most of it is set in Transylvania. I have never been to Whitby (although I have been to Guiseley) so I decided to look the town up on the internet before continuing the email correspondence. And apart from the Dracula connection, I found that
“The town also claims to be famous for fish and chips, numbering among its several well-known chippies The Fisherman´s Wife, The Quayside, Silver Street Fisheries, and Mister Chips.
No doubt they are good enough, but I doubt if they can beat the original Harry Ramsden´s chippy in Guiseley, near Leeds.”
This modest expression of praise for Harry Ramsden´s drew the following response:-
“One small thing: how could you leave out THE fish and chips eatery to end them all? Ye Olde Magpie Café! Next time you travel to the UK, it is a must, quite simply!
Harry Ramsden is a ‘pile’em high’ factory when compared to that gem of a plaice! I cod go on and on carping about it but you’d soon become crabby…”
(Am I the only one to detect something a bit fishy about that sentence? )
I could only put this down to some ancient rivalry between the Ridings of Yorkshire, which were North Riding, West Riding and East Riding. (There was never any South Riding because you couldn´t have four Ridings, Riding being an old Viking term for a third part,) Whitby is in North Riding and Harry Ramsden´s Guiseley is in West Riding.
I did further research. The original (and I was always referring to the original) Harry Ramsden´s was opened in 1928. For many years it had only the one outlet and laid claim to be the best fish and chip shop in the world. That claim is disputed but certainly at one time it held a Guinness World Record for having served 10,000 portions of fish and chips on a single day in 1952.It could seat 250 people, never mind those queuing outside for the take-away stuff.
When I ate there in the late ´50s or early ´60s, it was still a straight-forward fish and chip restaurant with simple wooden tables covered, if I remember aright, with red and white checked table cloths. Nothing fancy, mind you. I doubt if they had any extras on their menu. Alas, in 1965 it was sold to big business and then became an international fast-food franchise operation with Middle Eastern and hedge fund investors. Now-a-days, a pile´em high factory operation indeed.
The Magpie Café on the other hand is a mere youngster, having only been established in 1937. But whether it counts as a chippy in the traditional sense of the word is open to doubt, not when you look at their website. Certainly you can get cod and chips there, but on the menu there are also haddock, hake, plaice, skate wings, lemon sole, monkfish, halibut, salmon, crab, prawns, mussels, scallops, kippers, calamari, clams, oysters, anchovies, whitebait, and some thing called woof . You can even have deep-fried camembert cheese in batter which must be good for the circulation. There are no less than 23 white wines and 5 red wines on the wine list, would you believe? Sounds more like a very poncey fish restaurant, not a chippy in the accepted meaning of the phrase. Harry Ramsden´s would never have tried to be so posh.
I was however intrigued by that fish on The Magpie´s menu called “woof.” A dog fish, I would thought, from the sound of it, but no. Woof is a variety of catfish also called wolf fish or sea-cat. It lives in deep, near-freezing Atlantic waters and has a natural anti-freeze in its blood. How that affects the taste I don´t know, although I do remember that some years ago Austrian producers of cheap white wines used to doctor their product with anti-freeze to improve the flavour. I´ll probably give the woof a miss.
All in all, rather a pointless debate because, as everyone knows, the best fush and chips come, not from Yorkshire, but from Scotland, where they are eaten with brown sauce as opposed to plain vinegar, with the best chippies being run by Scottish Italian families such as the Demarcos and the Crollas.
While on the subject of fish and chips, although it has become a traditional British dish, some people hold that the dish originated in Portugal and may have been brought to Britain via Holland by Western Sephardic Jews as early as the 16th Century after they were expelled form Portugal. They would have brought with them the practice of preparing fried fish in a manner similar to pescado frito where the fish is coated in flour and then fried in oil.
There is a famous pub in Wapping, in London´docklands called The Prospect of Whitby. I don´t know if they do fish and chips there.
May I ask, as a mere 'furenner, what 'the best fUsh and chips' are?
ReplyDeleteAs tripos go, this is off the old 'scale'!
Och, don't fash yessel' lad: chip off the blog!
I attended a reunion do at the Prospect of Whitby some years ago. I remember we had a private room with a terrace overlooking the Thames, and that Johnathan Aitken MP was a Guest of Honour, before he was convicted of perjury and sent to prison. I can report that at the time it was highly unlikely that fish and chips were available, as it was a very upmarket establishment with very nice provender. It was also sited in the worst part of London to find a taxi after 11pm. Of Yorkshire fish and chips, I have had a takeaway from the Magpie, (it was too long a wait for the restaurant,) and many samples of Harry Ramsden’s finest, including Hong Kong and Gatwick. For me the most memorable was a local chippy in Intake, Doncaster, whose name I can’t recall, but in my formative youth my BFF, Brian lived just across the road. Some of you may remember Brian, as he once joined us on the RTC, and completed it in style apart from an episode at the end of the second day, when he had to rush off-piste to attend to an emergency bowel upset. As you can imagine in the early 60s, the proximity of a chippy to your residence, wasa USP for estate agents, and hungry young teenagers. We were often visiting as late as possible, with the immortal phrase “Have you got any scraps please Mister?”
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