This week's kitchen gadget review in the Guardian is for a radish shaper. Now, admit it, you all thought Good god, isn't rhaphanidosis bad enough without the radish being specially shaped? And anyway, isn't testing torture or S&M equipment a bit radical, even for the Guardian?

But no, it's a daft device to turn your radish into a mushroom.

Mushroom Shaper

I've done exactly as MM, and ID, and what Trike suggests.

By error I have just clicked in to the report a post place - what an enchanting selection of subjects we are presented with. Has anyone ever used it? Aside from complaints about me, that is - and there is that sort of option there, of course.

All these years and I never knew that this jolly little facility is so filled with potential. My mind is racing already.......

I have only ever seen one post "reported", and that was by an anonymous guest who objected to my rather hastily thought-out recommendation that someone should shoot Philippa Gregory before she did much further damage to history. I commuted the lady's sentence in the offending thread to bodice-ripping and even got a nice private message of thanks from her fan club afterwards (who obviously live for such violent treatment of undergarments, satiating their literary desires accordingly between the covers of PG's assorted assaults on historical verity, and are addled enough when it comes to assessment of reality to think that any thread title here may in fact have a consequential meaning).

Welcome back sir! Is it too early for a welcoming snifter? A Bloody Mary or Buck's Fizz peut-etre avec le petit-déjeuner?

Welcome back

Yes, well, mmmm, hmf I had better sing a soft rendering of 'Nunc dimittis' at this point - nah - Where de hecklers at den? Huh? Yep, Back seat for me - agen. An' singing 'Deus misereatur, ducky.

PS Take care with that welcome mat, master. I did not curl the edge.

No need to sing 'Deus misereatur' Priscilla. And neither is there any need to write out 1080 lines saying 'I must not feel persecuted by the BBC test card clown.' Rather (and to add to Meles' splendid suggestions) one could also have a seasonal Blackberry Gin Splash:



Cheers!

I shall sing the 'Deus' whenever I like....... even on the 12th of the month. That, for some obscure reason, is not allowed. I wonder what will happen to me then? The gin looks good. They must be frozen blackberries because mint at that seasonal stage has gone....... just saying.......not trying to raise a storm of protest. Perhaps I ought to back off over the rumbled welcome mat for a while.

Serve according to taste P. You can use chilled berries or frozen berries, spearmint or peppermint, garden grown or sunroom grown or no sprig of mint at all. Whatever rumples your mat.

Our blackberries tend to be shop bought. We have a good bramble patch tucked away on a bank underneath a couple of alders and a guelder rose but, between the wood pigeons and the neighbour's children, we often miss the harvest.

Or you could use mulberries which usually ripen in July, so just about when mint is in its prime. Black mulberries - not the white ones which are from a related tree that is grown, not for its fruit but for the leaves to be fed to silk worms, or simply as a suitable shade tree - look and taste very much like blackberries: indeed here they taste better than autumnal blackberries, which, lacking the damper and cooler British climate, generally do not have much flavour at all and certainly no juiciness. In fact in French un mûrier can mean both a mulberry tree and a blackberry (bramble) bush, and mûrs are the fruits from either. It all very confusing when labelling jars of home-made jam!

nordmann wrote:

...though now I reckon it has just become generally silly to have a thread in which nothing much is being achieved except opportunity for offence, perceived or actual, to be taken by some of those participating, with little else of value being said.

The interesting subjects which were alluded to deserve discussion in more obviously dedicated threads, I think. I'll therefore close this thread accordingly and invite those who raised those issues earlier in conversation to consider starting new threads if they wish.

Oh heck, I now feel like a Year 11 student - bright, but with an unfortunate tendency to be led astray by others - who has been presented with a stark choice by a stern Head of Year: either do the serious work of which you are clearly capable, or accept that you have no place here. The choice is yours.

I feel utterly mortified - honestly - and am trying to make my mind up whether to defect to Instagram or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century.

I think I'll compromise and just do the ironing.




Seriously, sorry for being so dreadfully silly.

Temperance,

And now "oh heck", I was already that used to your "what the heck" (correct me if I quote it the wrong way). I had already taken it in my vocabulary, learned from you on this messageboard...BTW I learned already a lot from this messageboard...

"or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century."

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

PS: what is the etymology of "heck"?
PPS: I asked it already to you and Nielsen...something about "edit"...For me "edit" is compose an article, but sometimes you and Nielsen "edit" something on the board meaning that you erase your post from the board?

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Temperance,

And now "oh heck", I was already that used to your "what the heck" (correct me if I quote it the wrong way). I had already taken it in my vocabulary, learned from you on this messageboard...BTW I learned already a lot from this messageboard...

"or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century."

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

PS: what is the etymology of "heck"?
PPS: I asked it already to you and Nielsen...something about "edit"...For me "edit" is compose an article, but sometimes you and Nielsen "edit" something on the board meaning that you erase your post from the board?

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Hello Paul,

To me 'edit' is not just erasing, it is also when I discover when the composition of a sentence end with it saying something I didn't intend, perhaps after having sent it, and I then reopen and change or erase words - and correct spelling mistakes.

To the die-hards there would of course always be Edit(h) Piaf, 'Non, je ne regrette rien', but that's a different kettle of fish.

Kind regards to you too.


Edited two times - so far.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Temperance,

And now "oh heck", I was already that used to your "what the heck" (correct me if I quote it the wrong way). I had already taken it in my vocabulary, learned from you on this messageboard...BTW I learned already a lot from this messageboard...

"or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century."

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

PS: what is the etymology of "heck"?
PPS: I asked it already to you and Nielsen...something about "edit"...For me "edit" is compose an article, but sometimes you and Nielsen "edit" something on the board meaning that you erase your post from the board?

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Regarding "heck", when I was a child in the middle of the last century, adults would frown upon children using swear words. 
When and where I grew up regular swear words would relate to religious matters - not like present days where they most often, perhaps derived from US-English, relate to physiological excretae.

Examples could be that an adult could say "damn it", which a child could translate into "darn it", my suggestion regarding "heck" then is that it stems from "Hell".

Kind regards to you.

Paul wrote:

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

How kind you always are, Paul: I assure you I do not deserve it. I find philosophy very difficult and may be relied on to utter nonsense when I try to say anything remotely connected with such a complex discipline.

What is interesting me at the moment is the influence of German thought on novelists such as George Eliot. Eliot had lost her faith before she wrote her translation of Strauss's Das Leben Jesu, but, according to her friend Cara Bray, she nevertheless became very distressed - "Strauss-sick" when she had to work on his (Hegelian?) dissection of "the beautiful story of the crucifixion". But Hegelian thought is everywhere in her work - I think. Something I'm struggling with.

Emily Bronte too was clearly influenced by the Germans (she studied German in Brussels with Professor Héger). She was a mystic, but refused to go to Church or help in the Hawarth Sunday School. Lord, were those great German thinkers important - for better or for worse - but so hard to understand!

This is too serious for here - been in trouble for being silly, don't want now to be reprimanded for being too serious. But won't start a thread - just wanted to say thank you for your kindness. Bit of kindness means a lot at times.

The thread had become silly, you have to admit. Were you also being silly? I hadn't understood it that way.

I'm always a little perturbed when I hear the term "losing one's faith". I see it more as a loss, if loss indeed is the proper word at all, of one's ability to suspend disbelief - which is not in itself an altogether bad thing if one is interested in pursuing truth (an admittedly difficult concept to pin down but one never pinned down through what is classed by many as "faith", which by definition is the acceptance of something as being true without any evidential logic behind that supposition). Unlike many actual losses such loss also comes with some measure of potential intellectual gain, which can't be an innately bad thing in itself to a thinker.

German non- theological philosophy - of which there were several distinct strands in the 19th century - tended to address the value (or absence of value) of intellect. Either the thing had a grand purpose, or it was in fact totally immaterial. Not for them the grey wishy-washy interface of "on the one hand ..." type solutions to the intractability of the question regarding what use intelligence may or may not have. However once one gets over the inevitably dogmatic rhetoric that resulted there are some quite revelatory deductions which those lads arrived at all the same which at the time were novel enough - and no doubt very attractive on that basis. Schopenhauer's rather gloomy noumenotic view of purpose, life and belief, for example, would have appealed to any independent-minded female of the early Victorian era, I imagine. In fact, for different reasons, I'm beginning to warm to that analysis myself when faced with the general stupidity of humanity these days.

Schopenhauer also regularly tore strips out of Hegel for his sycophantic and vacuous justifications of what woo-woo merchants were spouting then (just as now). Even before I knew about his views on poodles, homosexuals, pederasts and women's rights I knew I was on his side. If I was Emily Brontë I might even have had a poster of the lad on my bedroom wall.

Good post, despite the Schopenhauer bits: here, you can have a Guinness, as drunk by the Overmen:



Schopenhauer was a bit of a grumpy old bugger, I believe - but yes, Emily Bronte, who had absolutely no time for ridiculous women, would no doubt have admired him (Professor Héger said of Emily that "she should have been a man..." He (Schopenhauer, not Héger) would have upset the gentle, pretty, feminine Anne, though. Schopenhauer's essay On Women is a bit - er - challenging. But he did love animals and not just his poodles - and taught, I believe, that we should always be kind to them. Can't fault him on that.

http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/onwomen.html

I was being a bit silly, if I am absolutely honest, but then, as Schlegel points out, a bit of "transcendental buffoonery" is not always a Bad Thing. Helps keep one sane - sort of.

EDIT: I thought all that noumenon stuff (das-Ding-in-itself or something) was Kant? I don't understand it at all, although it seems linked to Plato's forms. But I haven't actually got a clue.

Right cheery pair, these two - makes you depressed just looking at them, let alone reading them.

Reading through all this I clearly did not understand your post - especially this:

nordmann wrote:

Schopenhauer's rather gloomy noumenotic view of purpose, life and belief, for example, would have appealed to any independent-minded female of the early Victorian era, I imagine.

I actually thought you were being sarcastic, but, although one can never be certain of what lies behind your words, I have found an academic article online entitled Heathcliff's Queer End and Schopenhauer's Denial of the Will. Frustratingly, the link will not copy and it is also impossible to copy the relevant paragraphs which back up, I think, what you were trying to say. I am still confused, but will keep trying to make some sense of this German stuff.

But the Bar is not the place for such questionings - just wanted to thank you for making me aware of Schopenhauer's possible influence on EB.



I continue to live and learn.

nordmann wrote:

The thread had become silly, you have to admit. Were you also being silly? I hadn't understood it that way.

I'm always a little perturbed when I hear the term "losing one's faith". I see it more as a loss, if loss indeed is the proper word at all, of one's ability to suspend disbelief - which is not in itself an altogether bad thing if one is interested in pursuing truth (an admittedly difficult concept to pin down but one never pinned down through what is classed by many as "faith", which by definition is the acceptance of something as being true without any evidential logic behind that supposition). Unlike many actual losses such loss also comes with some measure of potential intellectual gain, which can't be an innately bad thing in itself to a thinker.

German non- theological philosophy - of which there were several distinct strands in the 19th century - tended to address the value (or absence of value) of intellect. Either the thing had a grand purpose, or it was in fact totally immaterial. Not for them the grey wishy-washy interface of "on the one hand ..." type solutions to the intractability of the question regarding what use intelligence may or may not have. However once one gets over the inevitably dogmatic rhetoric that resulted there are some quite revelatory deductions which those lads arrived at all the same which at the time were novel enough - and no doubt very attractive on that basis. Schopenhauer's rather gloomy noumenotic view of purpose, life and belief, for example, would have appealed to any independent-minded female of the early Victorian era, I imagine. In fact, for different reasons, I'm beginning to warm to that analysis myself when faced with the general stupidity of humanity these days.

Schopenhauer also regularly tore strips out of Hegel for his sycophantic and vacuous justifications of what woo-woo merchants were spouting then (just as now). Even before I knew about his views on poodles, homosexuals, pederasts and women's rights I knew I was on his side. If I was Emily Brontë I might even have had a poster of the lad on my bedroom wall.

I join Temperance Nordmann...


Nordmann, I will start a new thread on Schopenhauer with my low level philosophical knowledge...
Perhaps there you can explain what you meant with:
"Schopenhauer's rather gloomy noumenotic view of purpose, life and belief, for example, would have appealed to any independent-minded female of the early Victorian era, I imagine."
On the big internet of Google (not the dark net) I found only one entrance to the word "noumenotic"
https://goo.gl/PxBmy4
"Schopenhauer also regularly tore strips out of Hegel for his sycophantic and vacuous justifications of what woo-woo merchants were spouting then (just as now). Even before I knew about his views on poodles, homosexuals, pederasts and women's rights I knew I was on his side. If I was Emily Brontë I might even have had a poster of the lad on my bedroom wall."

OOPS without warning my last paragraph is gone (no mode specified)...
Start again:
"tore strips out of Hegel" did you mean with that "criticized" Hegel? Nordmann I have to get used again to your typical style...
"sycophantic" I looked in my paperback English Collins and for that we say "gatlikker" (arse licker) (it is perhaps South Dutch) The word was not in my rather non colloquial Dutch-English dictionary and on the internet I found exactly for "gatlikker" the word "sycophant".
And I understand that in this nearly scientific context this colloquial word would rather be a misnomer...

No time to elaborate further (only arrived at home on 10h30 PM) See you tomorrow.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Paul, check out noumenon (pl. noumena) - see below. In the article I mentioned yesterday evening (the one from which I can't copy anything, not even a link), the author says quite a lot about this, but relates it to Schopenhauer, not Kant. If you google Heathcliff's Queer End and Schopenhauer's Denial of the Will and scroll down past a lot of the Wuthering Heights analysis, you'll find some mention and reasonably clear explanation of noumenon stuff. I'm really interested in how these German guys influenced English writing in the 19th century, so, as I said above, thanks to nordmann for making me find out more. But gosh, all this does make my brain ache - must be with me being a frivolous and foolish female, as no doubt dear Schopenhauer would point out. Irony that it was a woman, Emily Brontë, who studied the new thinking that had come/was coming out of Germany and was then able to use it with such brilliance and imagination in her ripping yarn about them weird folk living up int' North of England.

Could I respectfully suggest that a thread on Schopenhauer alone could be a bit restrictive? How about something more general about the influence - for good or evil - of all those baffling German thinkers - not just on religion, but on just about everything and everybody? I remember Augustus in I, Claudius saying that there was something about the dark and gloomy regions of the Teutoburg Forest that drove men mad: I think he had a point. Did the German philoophers ever laugh at themselves?


https://www.britannica.com/topic/noumenon


Noumenon, plural Noumena, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.

The relationship of noumenon to phenomenon in Kant’s philosophy has engaged philosophers for nearly two centuries, and some have judged his passages on these topics to be irreconcilable. Kant’s immediate successors in German Idealism in fact rejected the noumenal as having no existence for man’s intelligence. Kant, however, felt that he had precluded this rejection by his refutation of Idealism, and he persisted in defending the absolute reality of the noumenal, arguing that the phenomenal world is an expression of power and that the source from which this power comes can only be the noumenal world beyond.

Clear now?  

These exchanges seem to have emptied the Bar. Wonder why? Think we had better move elsewhere asap!

It's hot enough in here to boil a monkey's bum.

The only memorable, accurate and completely understandable interpretation of German (and fellow) philosophers that I have ever come across ...

And I'm really glad the Greeks thrashed the Germans in that match. Nobby Hegel was a lousy skipper.




And nobody has ever been able to tell me whether Socrates was actually offside or not - and I've asked about that at least ten times now. I don't believe any of you blokes know yourselves.

Nielsen wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Temperance,

And now "oh heck", I was already that used to your "what the heck" (correct me if I quote it the wrong way). I had already taken it in my vocabulary, learned from you on this messageboard...BTW I learned already a lot from this messageboard...

"or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century."

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

PS: what is the etymology of "heck"?
PPS: I asked it already to you and Nielsen...something about "edit"...For me "edit" is compose an article, but sometimes you and Nielsen "edit" something on the board meaning that you erase your post from the board?

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Hello Paul,

To me 'edit' is not just erasing, it is also when I discover when the composition of a sentence end with it saying something I didn't intend, perhaps after having sent it, and I then reopen and change or erase words - and correct spelling mistakes.

To the die-hards there would of course always be Edit(h) Piaf, 'Non, je ne regrette rien', but that's a different kettle of fish.

Kind regards to you too.


Edited two times - so far.

Thanks Nielsen for the explaining. I suppose I get it now...And as I have already seen it can you erase a complete message once sent? If you don't stay behind the "teneur" (meaning?) of your message?
My paperback Collins:
- to prepare a text for publication by checking and improving its accuracy or clarity
- (often followed by out) to remove parts of a text, film, etc 

I for instance after used the send button, never "edit" my message, because I have checked it many times with the "preview" before. I don't even know where the button for that action is or how to do it ?
And if the message is nevertheless not appropriate...what the heck...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Nielsen wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Temperance,

And now "oh heck", I was already that used to your "what the heck" (correct me if I quote it the wrong way). I had already taken it in my vocabulary, learned from you on this messageboard...BTW I learned already a lot from this messageboard...

"or post something here about the influence of the German Idealists on loss of faith during the 19th century."

Do it Temperance, do it...
Thanks to you I got interested in religion and philosophy. And I am looking forward to this new post.

PS: what is the etymology of "heck"?
PPS: I asked it already to you and Nielsen...something about "edit"...For me "edit" is compose an article, but sometimes you and Nielsen "edit" something on the board meaning that you erase your post from the board?

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Regarding "heck", when I was a child in the middle of the last century, adults would frown upon children using swear words. 
When and where I grew up regular swear words would relate to religious matters - not like present days where they most often, perhaps derived from US-English, relate to physiological excretae.

Examples could be that an adult could say "damn it", which a child could translate into "darn it", my suggestion regarding "heck" then is that it stems from "Hell".

Kind regards to you.

 Nielsen,

yes indeed an euphimism for "hell"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=heck&allowed_in_frame=0
But also:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110821173107AAT0Ccy


Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance wrote:

Paul, check out noumenon (pl. noumena) - see below. In the article I mentioned yesterday evening (the one from which I can't copy anything, not even a link), the author says quite a lot about this, but relates it to Schopenhauer, not Kant. If you google Heathcliff's Queer End and Schopenhauer's Denial of the Will and scroll down past a lot of the Wuthering Heights analysis, you'll find some mention and reasonably clear explanation of noumenon stuff. I'm really interested in how these German guys influenced English writing in the 19th century, so, as I said above, thanks to nordmann for making me find out more. But gosh, all this does make my brain ache - must be with me being a frivolous and foolish female, as no doubt dear Schopenhauer would point out. Irony that it was a woman, Emily Brontë, who studied the new thinking that had come/was coming out of Germany and was then able to use it with such brilliance and imagination in her ripping yarn about them weird folk living up int' North of England.

Could I respectfully suggest that a thread on Schopenhauer alone could be a bit restrictive? How about something more general about the influence - for good or evil - of all those baffling German thinkers - not just on religion, but on just about everything and everybody? I remember Augustus in I, Claudius saying that there was something about the dark and gloomy regions of the Teutoburg Forest that drove men mad: I think he had a point. Did the German philoophers ever laugh at themselves?


https://www.britannica.com/topic/noumenon


Noumenon, plural Noumena, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.

The relationship of noumenon to phenomenon in Kant’s philosophy has engaged philosophers for nearly two centuries, and some have judged his passages on these topics to be irreconcilable. Kant’s immediate successors in German Idealism in fact rejected the noumenal as having no existence for man’s intelligence. Kant, however, felt that he had precluded this rejection by his refutation of Idealism, and he persisted in defending the absolute reality of the noumenal, arguing that the phenomenal world is an expression of power and that the source from which this power comes can only be the noumenal world beyond.

Clear now?  

These exchanges seem to have emptied the Bar. Wonder why? Think we had better move elsewhere asap!

Temperance,

thanks to you I understand it now...and yes I studied Greek too, but it was more like the "stathmos" of the Anabasis of Xenophon
And yes I feel humble between two such heavy weights as Nordmann and you...

And yes I will try something like: "The 19th century German philosophers and their influence on contemporaneous Europe"
But too late to start now, see you tomorrow. (and have to study it a bit to not come over as too ignorant )

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous message.

Temperance, yes found it.

"If you google Heathcliff's Queer End and Schopenhauer's Denial of the Will and scroll down past a lot of the Wuthering Heights analysis, you'll find some mention and reasonably clear explanation of noumenon stuff."

Yes, in PDF you have that little hand to scroll and not able to copy...I mostly, if the text is not too long, write it down by hand and than type it again...but that is cumbersome...
Will try to do that in our new thread...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Nordmann,

" Schopenhauer's rather gloomy noumenotic view of purpose, life and belief, for example, would have appealed to any independent-minded female of the early Victorian era, I imagine. In fact, for different reasons, I'm beginning to warm to that analysis myself when faced with the general stupidity of humanity these days."

Nordmann, that seems really a subject for this "café".

Thanks to Temperance I learned already something about Shopenhauer in the Emily Bronté PDF...not fully on the subject yet, but is that a transcedent view? But let's it rest till the Philosophers thread?
But that isn't here the point...
I helped already (I suppose!) Temperance in her quest for happiness or has it to be contentment...
And now you with your pessimistical thoughts...
I will recall it in my German philosophers thread because now and here it is too late to discuss it in full

Kind regards from your empathising friend Paul.

PS: even the "empathising" we discussed here on this forum in depth, thanks to Priscilla if I recalll it well...

Paul, I am getting some help today to transfer that article to Microsoft Word - I think it can be done - but I'm not sure how. Probably involves a subscription. It is such an interesting article, and several of the references to Schopenhauer about the difference between this world and the other I should like to quote. It's most definitely not "God-stuff" other world, but links to Plato and the forms, I'm sure. However, I thought, as I've said above, that this was more Kant than Schopenhauer - which is why I should like to discuss it with others who actually - unlike me - know what they are talking about. Schopenhauer apparently developed Kant's ideas, but I don't know how. I am most definitely no "heavyweight", and find my lack of understanding of the philosophical ideas explored in the article extremely frustrating. I think this is all so important from my Eng. Lit. point of view - no one, as far as I know apart from Ronald B. Hatch (author of the article) and Manchester University's Stevie Davies (who looked at the German Novalis' influence on EB), has done any real study of the importance and impact of the German philosophers on Emily Brontë's world view - critics have only been really interested in her reading of the German Romantic poets. Blackwood's Magazine, which we know all the Brontës devoured, ran regular articles and reviews about the philosophical and theological ideas coming out of Germany. Thinking about this has also made me understand more fully the importance of something from George Eliot's Middlemarch. Casaubon, the dried-up old intellectual to whom the young and beautiful  Dorothea struggles to be a good wife, has been working for years on a futile academic endeavour he calls The Key To All Mythologies. His trusting wife's first awareness of Casaubon's intellectual shortcomings dawns when Will Ladislaw, the man who has fallen in love with her, casually but destructively remarks:

"If Mr Casaubon read German he would save himself a great deal of trouble."
"I do not understand you," said Dorothea, startled and anxious.
"I merely mean," said Will in an offhand way, "that the Germans have taken the lead in historical enquiries, and they laugh at results which are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good roads. While I was with Mr Casaubon I saw that he deafened himself in that direction: it was almost against his will that he read a Latin treatise written by a German..."

Not just history, of course: according to A.N. Wilson the Germans "then as now, were the supreme theological geniuses of the Western world. Theology was to all intents and purposes a German subject, as Dr Pusey in England had woefully discovered..."

I find it fascinating that a young girl living in the wilds of Yorkshire, kneading bread in her father's kitchen with a German grammar propped in front of her, could understand this when so many religious bigots (male), studying in Oxford at the time, did not.

I am content - as much as anyone ever is - but am most happy when discussing such things with intelligent people who also have a sense of humour. That's why I've posted here for so long. I am very unhappy at the thought of this place dying a death, and most distressed that my witterings - like this inappropriate one I'm just about to post here in the bar - may have contributed to its demise. I should have started a new thread when nordmann suggested it - or just shut up completely. Hard sometimes to know what to do for the best, even in this strange virtual world.



EDIT: Perhaps if Paul does decide to start a new thread, the Boss would kindly transfer the posts here - from mine of Mon 25 Sep 13.36 to this one - to the more appropriate new home. These long, intense ramblings really have no place in the bar unless they are stashed away in the depths of the cellar along with all the barrels of suspect German beer.

The two Monty Python YouTubes can stay.

30 September 1967, was the beginning of Radio 1.

It was a Saturday. I went to see this. Prestwick Air Show:

Prestwick 30/09/67

The first record played on Radio 1 was:

Does anyone know the history of cocktails? Where were they first drunk, who proclaimed the term 'cocktail'  and where did the recipes come from?

We drank Singapore Slings in Raffles (the old Raffles before the modern refurb) and they were supposed to be dated back to the 1920s. Similarly martinis and manhattans. But did no-one drink such concoctions before the 1920s?

I can't answer I'm afraid but a Singapore Sling would be most welcome right now. Sadly the barman in here has disappeared so all that's on offer is the port that Priscilla has rejected as undrinkable and a pickled gannet for an aperitif.

Ooh ferval, have one of my mint juleps. Please.

We had a holiday in the US this summer which took in Kentucky and the Bourbon Trail (amongst other things). I became extremely attached to mint juleps after a visit to Woodford Reserve.

Binky wrote:

Does anyone know the history of cocktails? Where were they first drunk, who proclaimed the term 'cocktail'  and where did the recipes come from?

Good question. The OED gives the word as originating in the US at the beginning of the 19th century and cites the first recorded use of 'cocktail' as a beverage appearing in 'The Farmer's Cabinet', April 28, 1803:

"Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head...Call'd at the Doct's. found Burnham—he looked very wise—drank another glass of cocktail."

And at about the same time the first definition of cocktail - so presumably it was then a very new word - appeared in 'The Balance' (New York) May 13 1806, when the editor Harry Croswell wrote:

"Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, in as much as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else."

As to the words origin I like the idea that it is a reference to a practice of perking up an old horse by means of a ginger suppository so that the animal would cock its tail up and appear frisky.

William T "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's 1891 book containing 20 recipes for cocktails. The 1934 edition ran to over 170;

Binky wrote:

We drank Singapore Slings in Raffles (the old Raffles before the modern refurb) and they were supposed to be dated back to the 1920s. Similarly martinis and manhattans. But did no-one drink such concoctions before the 1920s?

Just before the 20s according to Wikipedia, Binky;

"D. A. Embury stated in the Fine Art of Mixing Drinks: "Of all the recipes published for [this drink] I have never seen any two that were alike." The Times described the "original recipe" as mixing two measures of gin with one of cherry brandy and one each of orange, pineapple and lime juice An alternative "original recipe" used gin, Cherry Heering, Bénédictine, and fresh pineapple juice, primarily from Sarawak pineapples which enhance the flavour and create a foamy top. The hotel's recipe was recreated based on the memories of former bartenders and written notes that they discovered regarding the original recipe."

Interesting article on the history of Gin based cocktails;

Difford's History of Gin Cocktails

That article is food for thought, Trike.  Gin's got so pricey I usually limit myself to a very occasional gin and tonic tin from the Co-op (I'm sure someone will tell me that's  (i.e. The stuff from the Co-op) not REAL gin and tonic).  Mind you, my garden is so out of control that many years ago an ornamental rose was pruned back to the eglantine root stuff it was grated on to so I have some briar rose hips in the garden so maybe I could make a rosehip concoction of some sort.

Just having a lurk on Res Hist before I try and make myself do some work - either typing or household chores.  I really feel lazy today and have been procrastinating watching silly videos on YouTube (wouldn't have been so bad if I'd watched tutorial videos).  But some of those "truther" videos (I think I chanced upon them while watching home-made soap powder videos) - how can people possibly believe them.  Though they can be like eating too many chocolates - I know I shouldn't watch the silly videos but they're so (sometimes) funny though it's a bit worrying some folk believe them.  Somebody was banging on in one about Arthur Swarznegger being transgender.  Crumbs if I was a "truther" which I'm not and wanted to make a video on such a subject I would at least choose a slightly built actor for my subject matter.  Unless the "truther" was a hoaxer.  Well, must force my reluctant self to do some work of some variety.

Who is Arthur Swarzenegger? Is he Arnold's brother, or possibly sister, being transgender and all....

Perhaps the 'Truthers' were thinking of when Arnie disguised himself in 'Total Recall':

 

Pickled Gannet and a pint of Old Speckled Comorant Barkeeps!

There's yer gannet:



.... but the Cormorant's off. You'll 'ave to make do with fermented chicken:



Welcome back VF ... long time no see.

Has been a while! 3 kids to be precise! 


Err, 

that Gannet looks salted! 

Fermented Chicken sounds  good.

Where did the cormorant go ? Holidays ? Nordmann's oven?!

So what have I missed!

Binky wrote:

Who is Arthur Swarzenegger? Is he Arnold's brother, or possibly sister, being transgender and all....

Probably a Freudian slip, Binky - thinking of Arfur or Marfur......

I should add a belated welcome back to Nordmann, though I see he has asked for a line to be drawn under the subject, but just being polite...

Good grief, VF I recall the bar celebrations when you got engaged! Three children? I ought retire and listen to the hints in that direction. But of course I won't. There's no truth in the claim that I said the port was undrinkable - only that one should be circumspect about who was allowed it. You may have one; small, you understand. I am not responsible for the squashed fowl.. whatever they said.

VF wrote:

Pickled Gannet and a pint of Old Speckled Comorant Barkeeps!

Virtual Fletch I presume...welcome back...
I hope that "fletch" is this:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fletch
And not that:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fletch/

PS: I always thought, I don't know for what reason, that you were a man, perhaps because of the archery...but women are also in that business I have seen...

Kind regards from Paul and cheers...

3 kids VF! Cripes, you have been busy.

Due to lack of demand the pickled gannets are now growing a thick layer of penicillin, well it is green anyway so should be good for you. There may be a barrel of pickled general somewhere though, or was that Titus in the barrel? 

Good to see you btw.

Hello Paul,

Great to be conversing after all these years! Yes I am the poster formally known as Virtual Fletch! I minimised myself to VF a few years back! Definitely male - that hasn't changed! Still read a lot of naval history about the RN from 1900 to 1945.




Hello Islanddawn

It has been a while! I hope you are well and as fabulous as you always are!

Gannets with penicillin kills two birds with one stone (Gannets and Cormorant beer)
If it's the Titus I remember from the old BBC boards he is either very pickled or mummified!

VF, you can probably help me in that case (that is if you are into naval history).

I am enrolled on a short WEA course about the British Empire. The first lecture was about sea worthy vessels, and how a small island (the British Isles) could command an empire the size the world had never seen before (or since). 

Part of the lecture was about how various nations used sails and the winds, and if the wind wasn't in your favour, then tough luck, you weren't able to invade other lands.

This all seems reasonable to me; I might have to check some facts with you later, if that is OK?

The age of sail isn't really my thing, my interest is more around the age of steam.

However it seems reasonable enough to me that if you had the Weather Gauge (which the UK seems to have) then you have a definite advantage in the age of sail. My understanding that was part of the success the English Navy that fought the Spanish Armada was that they held the weather gauge throughout the action and once they had forced the Spanish out of Calais the game was up because they had no other option but sail around England.

I would also argue that geographical location plays a big part and in that Britain was lucky. Effectively the UK shut off the North Sea at its northern and southern exits and also had the advantage of a free run at the Atlantic. Spain was in a similar situation with access to the Atlantic and the Med. France had easy access to the Atlantic also.

The Dutch were in a different position and I do wonder if that is in part the reason that their colonisation was not as widespread as their European neighbours. They had to sail either through the English Channel or North around Scotland. The channel was safest but easily blockaded, the North was treacherous.

So when you look at the league of European colonisers IMHO they come a distant fourth. I suspect that what I mentioned above had bearing on that.