LiR - I'd strongly advise you to get it seen to as quickly as possible. I had a small hole in a gutter that caused rain-water to dribble down the outside of the house - so no actualy water penetration - and yet I'm still, six months later, having to repeatedly paint over the black mould patches that regularly appear on the inside bedroom walls. The defective gutter was fixed months ago (February) but the effects of the original water penetration are still with me ... even on a south-facing wall and in the sunny south of France.

Meles Meles, you are probably right.  I've been looking at the portal about building regulations and I don't think I need permission to repair like for like.

I made a bit of a detour to the look (at Wikipedia though I know it's not perfect) at the history of copyright law.  I haven't taken it all in yet.  I mentioned something about Othello tangentially on another thread and from my admittedly rusty memory of what I learned in my schooldays, Shakespeare borrowed liberally from other sources.  In the story Othello was based on, Desdemona died much more violently I recall (not that being strangled is peaceful).

Lady,

I don't know what happened with my complete message. I have sent it or was in the preview phase just before sending. And now I see that you edited something...

In any case I start again...

"Thanks to Paul for the info about the French/German border (and other peoples' contributions).  I've bought my new fridge/freezer which will be delivered over the next few days and have contacted someone about the roof.  The bad news is  the gent can't come (i.e. about the roof) until 24th Sept as he's going on holiday tomorrow.  I've ordered some tarpaulin 4m x 10m though I think I really need a bigger sheet.  It's not coming till Monday - it's not supposed to be raining today but there's rain forecast tomorrow.  Maybe I can get some cheap and cheery plastic tablecloth stuff in the meantime (and move anything electric away from a possible leak).  It's the sort of job that would have been suitable for the hot weather in the summer but since I've had the coeliac disease I get very fatigued sometimes and forgetf"
"I'd noticed a bit of damp in the kitchen but didn't realise it was as bad.  It did cross my mind to ring the chap who fixed it a few years ago to at least get an opinion but I was not 100% healthwise and forgot.  Anyway I've found a video on YouTube that might give me an idea what to do temporarily."

Lady, "vous vous débrouillez pas mal" (you cope not that bad (with the situation)) as our MM in his Southern France...
The important thing is to not undergo the circumstances, but to actively encounter them. To take a decision is better, even if it turns otherwise than expected, than to consider you as a victim and do nothing...in my humble opinion...
And I am glad that you will have your new fridge.

"I've ordered some tarpaulin 4m x 10m"

never heard about "tarpaulin"
But now I see:


We call it in our dialect a "bâche", but that is French and I found in my dictionary: a "dekzeil" (covering sail) and in the Dutch-English indeed a "tarpaulin"
But sometimes you have to wait for a craftsman to fix your trouble...don't say it to me: 30 years in the home refurbish business...yes patience is a good virtue...I learned it in the army as a conscript and in the clinic for all the tests on my body to be sure that I was fit to receive a transplant kidney...
(and I wanted first to use "temperance" which due to my French-English from 1929 means also patience, tempérance, modération, sobriété. Yes sometimes you have to be moderated in the wake of a situation which has to be solved immediatly...we say: one can not shoe a running horse (men kan 'n paard niet al lopend beslaan).
You english speaking ones correct me if I am wrong with my explanation of "temperance"...

BTW: while thinking about temperance...where are nordmann and Temperance suddenly...again...

Kind regards from Paul.

Maybe nordmann and Temperance are on holiday.  I've taken delivery of my new fridge/freezer today (and had the old one taken away).  I'd had the old one since 1995 so if its replacement does as well as that I should be okay considering I'm in my late 60s now.  Still there was a French (I think) lady who lived to be over 120 (this might be back in the 1990s) who had sold or bequeathed (or devised?*) her house to someone for his use after her death and in the event she outlived him!

* I always get those words mixed up (in the context of leaving something in a will) - not in the idea of devising an idea.

Paul, I am linking to the Merriam-Webster definition(s) of temperate as it's a word with more than one meaning
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temperate

Lady,

yes you seem to be right: no "patience" as in the 1929 English-French dictionary...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temperance
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/temperance


But yes perhaps the 1929 French dictionary meant with "patience" the restreint that one has to have at nearly "boiling point", when a carpenter promised to be on a certain  hour at your house in construction (with a heavy timetable about the workload) and he don't arrive even after one or two hours...that I really call "patience"...
We have also an expression: "you have to have patience with that man" meaning to have restraint with that man, even if you are in your thoughts nearly strangling him...

Kind regards from Paul.

And LiR, nearly the whole evening busy with "constructing" a message on the French messageboard:
http://passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=40954&start=15

Kind regards from Paul.

Well, "temperate" and "temperance" are different words, one being an adjective and the other a noun.  Shakespeare's sonnet 18 (as folk probably already know) runs (well the first two lines do):-

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate".

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Well, "temperate" and "temperance" are different words, one being an adjective and the other a noun.  Shakespeare's sonnet 18 (as folk probably already know) runs (well the first two lines do):-

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate".

Dear LiR,

Do not overestimate - all - of us, I am one of these mostly conversant with only the titles of - some of - the works of WS.
My favourite being "Much ado about nothing", when commenting on the implementation of 'new' policies in local and national politics.

Dear Nielsen, your English seems to be better than mine...
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/much-ado-about-nothing

I only read about Shakespeare from the works we had to "do" in classroom as Macbeth and all that stuff...what a gap with the English speaking ones overhere...I hope they are aware of the gap... ...

Kind regards to you from Paul.

My tarpaulin has come (the one being delivered).  It's heavy (I've not unpacked it).  I've been busy doing some audio typing.  It's typing a 3-way conversation and not very clear speech.  It's a slog so I've come over to Res Hist for 5 minutes or so.  Paul on the map you kindly provided on the Germanic/Romance border thread I recognised "Oudenard" (sp?) from school days - one of Marlborough's victories (in the time of Queen Anne - his wife was as thick as thieves with Queen Anne for a time, but then they fell out).  At school we used the nemonic B-R-U-M - (Brum being a shortened name for Brummagem i.e. Birmingham) for Blenheim, aka Blindheim in Bavaria, Ramilles, Oudenarde and Malplaquet - to remember Marlborough's main victories (well they were victories as far as the English were concerned anyway).

I couldn't quote Master Wobbleweapon's sonnet 18 but I tend to remember it (in the sense of knowing of it) because of the line "Rough winds do blow the darling buds of May".  In the UK we quite often get "rough winds" in May.  the writer H E Bates also used the title The Darling Buds of May to write about a family in rural Kent, the Larkins.  It was made into a TV series in the early 1990s and starred a couple of stalwarts of British TV, David Jason (Del Boy from "Only Fools and Horses") and Pam Ferris.  It was also the series that made Catherine Zeta Jones well known at least in the UK.  (I sometimes see her name written as Catherine Zeta-Jones but as Zeta is a forename it doesn't seem that it should be hyphenated - unless she changed it by deed poll).

LadyinRetirement wrote:

....

I couldn't quote Master Wobbleweapon's sonnet 18 but I tend to remember it (in the sense of knowing of it) because of the line "Rough winds do blow the darling buds of May".  In the UK we quite often get "rough winds" in May.  the writer H E Bates also used the title The Darling Buds of May to write about a family in rural Kent, the Larkins. 
...

I think you may be a few yards to the windwards of me, Lady, unless you're thinking of the esteemed PM of your country, when mentioning "rough winds in May" and "The Darling Buds of May", and even then I'd be in for some hard seas?

Perhaps I'd better get me coat.

It took me a short while to appreciate that you were joking, Nielsen.  I can remember a particularly blustery day in May when I was but a lass and a lilac bush was being buffeted.  My father said "Rough winds do blow the darling buds of May".  Though he tended more towards the mathematical*, well he taught maths, but he did know some English literature.  Mrs May is beleaguered at the moment but I prefer her to BoJo**, but that's an opinion.

* I didn't inherit his ability - I can work out maths with pen and paper but I'm not one of those who can do things quickly in his/her head. I know the right buttons to push on a calculator or computer though.

** Boris Johnson.

If Temperance was here she might provide a copy of Shakespeare's sonnet 18 in quotes and italics but as it's casual me all I'm providing is a link.  www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html

Transferred comment to another thread but this can perhaps be a placeholder till I have something pertinent to put in this thread.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I have heard the phrase "diamond in the rough" of course.

And that's not to mention 'polished rice'. I'm currently faced with a puzzle regarding rice pudding. In the olden days (i.e. about 2013) one could pop down (with or without a weasel) to the grocer's or supermarket and buy half a pound of tuppenny rice along with half a pound of treacle etc. Now it seems that shops no longer sell 'pudding rice' so one is left guessing which is the best strain of rice for making rice pudding. A quick look online is no help and just throws up more questions than answers. Some people suggest Bomba (i.e. Valencia or paella rice) while others suggest Arborio. Some say Carnaroli while other swear by Basmati. Then there are those who say one can use any short grain rice and others still who say just use any rice.

Even Premier Foods (the makers of Ambrosia Creamed Rice) are no help. Their website simply refers to 'pudding rice':

Ambrosia Centenary

I did learn from that web-page, however, the interesting fact that Ambrosia Creamed Rice is actually cooked in the tins - i.e. the uncooked rice and milk is put in the tins, the tins are sealed and then heated. Presumably the labels are then put on after cooling.

But which is the best rice for making rice pudding - any advice?

I always used 'pudding rice' but if as you say that no longer seems obtainable, I guess any short-grain white rice would do like a risotto or paella rice.

Old cookbooks didn't seem to specify the rice either.

'The Forme of Cury' (circa 1395) just has,
For to make a Potage of Rice - Tak rice and les them and wasch þem clean and seth them tyl þey breste and þan lat þem kele and seth þan cast þer'to Almand milk and colour it wyth saffron and boyle it and present it forth.

Robert May in 'The Accomplisht Cook' (1685) says,
To make Rice Puddings - Boil your Rice with Cream, strain it, and put to it two penny loaves grated, eight yolks of eggs, and three whites, beef suet, one pound of Sugar, Salt, Rose-water, Nutmeg, Coriander beaten, &c.

Hannah Gasse in 'The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy' (1747) gives three recipes but all just using "rice".
To make a Rice-Pudding. Take a quarter of a pound of rice, put it into a sauce-pan, with a quart of new milk, a stick of cinnamon, stir it often, to keep it from sticking to the sauce-pan. When it has thick, pour it into a pan, stir in a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and sugar to your palate, grate in half a nutmeg, add three or four spoonfuls of rose- water, and stir all well together; when it is cold, beat up eight eggs, with half the whites, beat it all well together, butter a dish, pour it in and bake it. You may lay a puff-paste first all over the dish. For change put in a few currants and sweet meats, if you chuse it.
A second Rice Pudding - Get half a pound of rice put to it three quarts of milk, stir in half a pound of sugar, grate a small nutmeg in, and break in half a pound of fresh butter a dish, and pour it in and bake it. You may add a quarter of a pound of currants for change. If you boil the rice and milk, and then stir in the sugar, you may bake it before the fire, or in a tin oven You may add eggs, but it will be good without.
A third Rice Pudding - Take six ounces of the flour of rice, put it into a quart of milk, and let it boil till it is pretty thick, stirring it all the while; then pour it into a pan, stir in half a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of sugar; when it is cold grate in a nutmeg, beat six eggs with a spoonful or two of Sack, beat and stir all well together, lay a thin puff-paste on the bottom of your dish pour it in and bake it.

While the redoubtable Mrs Beeton in 'The Book of Household Management' (1861) also gives several recipes, including this one, but again doesn't specify the type of rice.
Baked Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 1 small teacupful of rice, 4 eggs, 1 pint of milk, 2 oz. of fresh butter, 2 oz. of beef marrow, ¼ lb. of currants, 2 tablespoonfuls of brandy, nutmeg, ¼ lb. of sugar, the rind of½ lemon.
Mode: Put the lemon-rind and milk into a stewpan, and let it infuse till the milk is well flavoured with the lemon; in the mean time, boil the rice until tender in water, with a very small quantity of salt, and, when done, let it be thoroughly drained. Beat the eggs, stir to them the milk, which should be strained, the butter, marrow, currants, and remaining ingredients; add the rice, and mix all well together. Line the edges of the dish with puff-paste, put in the pudding, and bake for about ¾ hour in a slow oven. Slices of candied-peel may be added at pleasure, or Sultana raisins may be substituted for the currants.

Perhaps the reason Mary Jane refused her rice pudding was because it was the wrong sort of rice, "Oh no, nanny's made it with arborio rice ... yet again!"

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's crying with all her might and main,
And she won't eat her dinner - rice pudding again.
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

AA Milne 'When we were very young' (1924).

MM, I knew it. One had to ask it to you.

Kind regards from Paul.

Thanks for those pointers Meles.

I felt a bit like Mary Jane (or maybe Goldilocks) because the pudding I made earlier this evening was a bit too sweet for my taste. Inspired by Hannah Gasse's second recipe I threw in a handful of sultanas which probably tipped the balance. Normally I follow a much more basic recipe. I'm surprised to see that she, Robert May and Mrs Beeton also all put eggs in theirs. Oh, no, no. But there must be so many different recipes when one thinks about it. Robert May using bread crumbs and Hannah Gasse using rice flour would suggest a very thick end product with a consistency, perhaps, similar to that of bread-and-butter pudding.    

I'm also intrigued by the Forme of Cury recipe. Almond milk? One wonders if that is milk flavoured with almonds or else a 14th century version of the vegan product popular today. Does 'breste' mean swell up? And what does 'kele' mean - to simmer?

P.S. In the end I used paella rice which worked okay.

Fourteenth century almond milk was generally just a fairly thick creamy mix of finely-ground almonds and water, so a milk/cream substitute only in so far as it was a tasty thickening/binding agent. It didn't usually contain any milk as it was primarily of use on obligatory fast days, ie about a third of the days of the year, when no meat or dairy was permitted ... nor eggs, and I notice that the recipe is coloured with very expensive saffron rather than cheaper egg yolks. But expense wasn't a problem for the author(s) of 'Forme of Cury' as their day job was cooking for Richard II.

'breste' or 'berste' - the e and r swapped places as Middle English developed into more modern English - means 'burst' or as you correctly guessed, to swell-up and soften.

'kele' mean to cool - "and seth them tyl þey breste and þan lat þem kele þan cast þer'to Almand milk and colour it wyth saffron and boyle it and present it forth." - ie. seeth (simmer) them until they burst and then let them cool then cast/add thereto almond milk and colour it with saffron and boil it and present it forth.

Does the disappearance of pudding rice mean more people are buying their rice pudding ready made rather than cooking it from scratch?  Surely if there was a market for something the supermarkets and smaller shops would be pleased to stock it?  I must admit I haven't cooked a rice pudding from scratch for a long time.  It was never my favourite "afters" but since I've had to keep off gluten rice is one of the  cereals I can take but I tend to use it for savoury items (often just as a change from potatoes).

Sorry, I am going to be of absolutely no assistance to Vizzer about rice here - yes, I know on that matter I'm as useful as a chocolate teapot.

A few days ago I mentioned Shakespeare's sonnet no. 18 and have found a clip where David Tennant speaks it.  I apologise that it is not of brilliant quality because it is a clip of somebody watching DT on a smartphone (I think).  It's one of the sonnets that Master Wobbleweapon wrote for a young man rather than his dark lady.  I remember being surprised by a lecturer many years ago asking the group (over a different sonnet but one dedicated to the young man nonetheless) "Do you think Shakespeare was bisexual?".  I must admit I'd never thought about it.  I know there is another school of thought that holds Shakespeare might have had a paternal feeling for the unnamed young man (his own son having died).  I doubt we'll ever know.  Another William (Wordsworth) was never my favourite poet but in one of his works he made a point that sometimes if poems are over analysed "..we murder to dissect".  From what I recall WW didn't like his time at university.

I was just thinking about how much broadcasting has changed in my lifetime.  Admittedly when my parents first purchased a small "haunted fish tank" there was no overnight TV (even the radio used to close down after the Shipping Forecast) and children's TV was about one hour in length.  There used to be relatively intelligent programmes such as The Brains Trust.  There was Twenty Questions on the wireless though I wasn't so keen on that.  I'm sure Freddie Grisewood (the chairman) was a perfectly nice gentleman in real life but when he told anecdotes it was always along the lines of someone speaking to him and addressing him as "Sir" (it was my Dad that noticed that everybody called him "Sir" in the anecdotes).  There were plenty of daft programmes of course.  I haven't tuned into Question Time for a heck of a long time but it doesn't appeal to me - and I can't help it but I loathe Grand Designs.  Is it just me, or has daytime TV become lacklustre?  How many programmes about antiques, about going to auctions, about buying a house in the country (before the nearby town expands and that bit of country isn't country any longer) or about cooking etc. are needed?  Or am I just becoming "grumpy old woman"?  Then again, if the TV shows are bad I have no excuse for procrastinating about doing my housework.

The Brains Trust came into my thoughts because I'd read something about Helena Bonham-Carter taking over the role of the late Princess Margaret in The Crown and Wikipedia informed me HBC was the granddaughter of Violet Bonham-Carter who I remember from The Brains Trust.  I hadn't realised that an aunt of HBC had married Jo Grimond who of course was the leader of the Liberal Party for some time.

I tend to use this thread for my random musings.  Thinking about languages, and with Game of Thrones being one of my guilty pleasures, I know that there were two languages made up for the show, namely "Dothraki"and "Valeryan"* but I know of only one made-up language for real life i.e. Esperanto. 

*Apparently folk can now learn Dothraki if they wish https://www.livinglanguage.com/dothraki and High Valeryan https://www.duolingo.com/course/hv/en/Learn-High-Valyrian-Online  Well, it's up to them how they spend their time and money.

I had some friends older than me, no longer with us, who had studied Esperanto.  Out of interest does anyone know if there were any other composed languages in real life (rather than literature)?

Meles meles wrote:

'kele' mean to cool - "and seth them tyl þey breste and þan lat þem kele þan cast þer'to Almand milk and colour it wyth saffron and boyle it and present it forth." - ie. seeth (simmer) them until they burst and then let them cool then cast/add thereto almond milk and colour it with saffron and boil it and present it forth.

Ah! I had skipped a step in my reading of that, having thought that seth meant 'set' i.e. soak or steep in cold milk as the Scandinavians do (did?) with porridge oats. But as 'seeth' (I'm unfamiliar with that as a word, no doubt the stem of seething, is seeth still dialect in some parts?) then it makes much more sense. Still can't get over almond milk being used in 14th Century England though. One for the plus ca change thread perhaps.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Does the disappearance of pudding rice mean more people are buying their rice pudding ready made rather than cooking it from scratch?  Surely if there was a market for something the supermarkets and smaller shops would be pleased to stock it?

It seems that way LiR. I'm sure that some places must still stock it only I've had difficulty sourcing any recently. Neither does it answer the question of what rice it is that constitutes 'pudding rice'. What variety is it and which country/countries does it grow in? In the mean time I'll guess at Bomba and/or Arborio.

I found a very short article about pudding rice online and the opinion proffered there is that "pudding rice" is a generic term for "short grain, plump roundish rice".  https://www.cooksinfo.com/pudding-rice

I take it that nobody knew the answer about the teeth I posed on the myth busting thread yesterday.  Another query (if it's been answered on another thread perhaps the good folk of Res Hist could point me in the right direction [even if I took part on the original thread and have forgotten - which is not impossible]).  I heard one story that in the days when fire engines were run by private companies, the fire engines would only put out fires in properties that were insured with them.  Someone else said no that's not true, fire engines would put out a fire wherever because of the danger of it spreading to a property insured with their company.  Does anyone know what the truth of the matter was?

Using this again as my random jottings of LiR thread, I'm trying not to be too much involved in conspiracies - some of them can be fun (some are downright nasty) but you can have too much of something. However I think people know I'm something of a Game of Thrones fan and I'd been looking at the internet to see if there were any real life Arya Stark type characters in history.  (Arya is a tomboy character who has sundry adventures disguised as a boy).  I'm aware that in countries such as Afghanistan if a family has only daughters sometimes one daughter (at least before puberty) will dress up as a boy so that she can go out into the wider world to do the tasks that would normally be done by a son.  I think it is called "bacha posh".   Anyway, I was looking on the internet for information about such things in Afghanistan and somehow I came across something on the BBC website which says that conspiracy theorists in Afghanistan like to blame foreigners, especially the English.  Never having been to Afghanistan and not speaking the languages of the country I can't verify the assertion but here is the link https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43560523  Not that that has anything to do with "bacha posh".

I see I mentioned the "Bacha Posh" on another thread - still not been able to find the book about it at the public library though.

Anyway, I know I have sometimes bewailed the changes in YouTube over the years and blamed some of them on Google - but I came across a "history of YouTube" which if true reveals that YouTube has been owned by Google for a longer time than I thought.  The YouTuber who made the video "Zepherus" hasn't uploaded for a few months but he mostly does explanatory videos and has also explained how some hoaxes were carried out.  His voice sounds young.  Anyway I'll link the history of YouTube video.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I take it that nobody knew the answer about the teeth I posed on the myth busting thread yesterday.  Another query (if it's been answered on another thread perhaps the good folk of Res Hist could point me in the right direction [even if I took part on the original thread and have forgotten - which is not impossible]).  I heard one story that in the days when fire engines were run by private companies, the fire engines would only put out fires in properties that were insured with them.  Someone else said no that's not true, fire engines would put out a fire wherever because of the danger of it spreading to a property insured with their company.  Does anyone know what the truth of the matter was?

Lady in Retirement,


After The Great Fire, the first fire insurance company called the, “The Fire Office”, was established in 1667 by Nicholas Barbon.  His Fire Brigade employed small teams of Thames watermen as firefighters.
 Other similar companies soon followed his lead and this was how property was protected until the early 1800s. Policy holders were given a badge, or fire mark, to affix to their building.
 If a fire started, the Fire Brigade was called. They looked for the fire mark and, provided it was the right one, the fire would be dealt with. Often the buildings were left to burn until the right fire company attended. The Hand in Hand Fire Insurance Company was later to supersede ‘The Fire Office’ Company.
 Eventually, many of these insurance companies were to merge.


Dirk

Dirk, while you are here have a look to the Wilhelmus, m'n Sarie Marijs related to the American civil war, the Greater Netherlands and Léon Degrelle
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t755-does-accuracy-in-films-matter-to-audiences
and also to the "beer drinking" thread about hop picking
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1295-beer-drinking

Read also the whole Max Nelson book now and wanted to ask something to nordmann about Gildas, the native British Church as opposed to the Roman one, but too late to start about that this evening.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Dirk, while you are here have a look to the Wilhelmus, m'n Sarie Marijs related to the American civil war, the Greater Netherlands and Léon Degrelle
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t755-does-accuracy-in-films-matter-to-audiences
and also to the "beer drinking" thread about hop picking
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1295-beer-drinking

Read also the whole Max Nelson book now and wanted to ask something to nordmann about Gildas, the native British Church as opposed to the Roman one, but too late to start about that this evening.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Dirk, while you are here have a look to the Wilhelmus, m'n Sarie Marijs related to the American civil war, the Greater Netherlands and Léon Degrelle
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t755-does-accuracy-in-films-matter-to-audiences
and also to the "beer drinking" thread about hop picking
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1295-beer-drinking

Read also the whole Max Nelson book now and wanted to ask something to nordmann about Gildas, the native British Church as opposed to the Roman one, but too late to start about that this evening.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Yesterday I went to a "fun folk" night.  I was just audience but one lady was a retired music teacher who said she still does some volunteering with primary school children and also with older people with conditions like Alzheimer's with some overlap.  She said the children sometimes like some of the older songs.  She referred to an English version of the song I am going to link "I love to go a-wandering" being popular and indeed I remember hearing it on the radio on a Saturday morning round about the time that songs like "The Runaway Train" and "Cowboys and Indians" were played.  (There was a Saturday morning music programme for children on the radio at one time - when there were a lot less radio stations than there are now).  The song reminded me that when I went to German lessons at night school (which language I have largely forgotten - maybe it would come back if I studied it again) one teacher had us singing "Mein Vader War Ein Wanderschman".  I think it did me good to go out and sociise.

I inadvertently left the site and lost my original message.  Anyway I had said that I had socialised less over the last two years since the coeliac disease was diagnosed.  I manage it through diet but I still get tired sometimes and when I've planned on going somewhere informally I just don't feel like it.  I think it did me good to get out yesterday and not spend too long on the internet, though the internet like any tool can be useful if used properly.  Another song we used to sing at German class was Roslein auf der Heiden.  I had thought it was a lot faster but I heard a few versions on YouTube and they all sounded relatively slow.

Lady,

"I inadvertently left the site and lost my original message.  Anyway I had said that I had socialised less over the last two years since the coeliac disease was diagnosed.  I manage it through diet but I still get tired sometimes and when I've planned on going somewhere informally I just don't feel like it.  I think it did me good to get out yesterday and not spend too long on the internet, though the internet like any tool can be useful if used properly.  Another song we used to sing at German class was Roslein auf der Heiden.  I had thought it was a lot faster but I heard a few versions on YouTube and they all sounded relatively slow."


"socializing" that's the word...if you stay always at home you are dead...and a virtual circle of friends as over here can help your brain to a certain "amount" , but nothing better than the real "vlees en bloed" (flesh and blood?)...after all we can't come over to help you with your window abnd roofing of the flat ceiling...to give but one example...

And you did "German" in evening school...so did I...English and German...although I knew already a lot about those languages and spoke them...but from the factory we received some "reasonable" amount of money to do that and the school courses were "gratuit"...but later Russian, also (they translate that single word  "gratis" by in English) free of charge...but Russian is another kettle of fish...no words ressembling to the Germanic or Romance languages or it has to be "butterbrot" (slice of bread) from German or ship terms from Dutch...jabloko (appel, Apfel (apple))
BTW. If you learned German...nearly all the German words are Dutch, while in English one half is Dutch and the other half is French or Latin (Greek)...
Beautiful song: Roslein auf der Heiden (Rosalien? op de heide)
As for your "Wandersmann", one would think in Dutch: "wandelaar" (walker) but instead is it "reiziger" (traveller). yes translation from German to Dutch is many times tricky. And you have also in English "wander" in Dutch: "dwalen" (stray, wander) in German: irren, streif aber auch wandern...

As for your beautiful idyllic songs, they have also the less rural, harsh stuff of the big cities, especially the Berlin of the "Roaring Twenties"
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany/articles/10-songs-that-capture-the-1920s-in-berlin/


Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum.
1920 Berlin When I the blond Inge...Ja, in Deutsch ist Inge "weiblich"...




Kind regards from Paul.

A couple of versions of Marlene Dietrich singing Falling in Love Again in German and then English.  She sounds much less husky in the German version (unless the person uploading the video had a different singer by mistake).

And in English - the day I uploaded the song about the "Wanderschman" it uploaded twice - I think the internet was running slowly and I thought it had not loaded the first time and then when I saw the song was in fact uploaded twice I couldn't delete the second copy so I'll put Marlene singing in English on a different post  

LadyinRetirement wrote:

A couple of versions of Marlene Dietrich singing Falling in Love Again in German and then English.  She sounds much less husky in the German version (unless the person uploading the video had a different singer by mistake).

Lady,

"unless the person uploading the video had a different singer by mistake"
I suppose it is Marlene Dietrich, if you hear these two...up to my hearing, which is not that trustworthy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahyLLX0tmD8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdAPHi0FtKs


Kind regards from Paul.

[url=abolition.e2bn.org/people_37.html]abolition.e2bn.org/people_37.html[/url]
I suppose it's possible a singer's voice would deepen as she ages - and possibly if she smoked a lot.  Ms Dietrich was often photographed smoking but that could have been staged.

But the "Google Doodle" led me to something about a woman who had something to do with the movement for the abolition of slavery, Mary Prince.  She was an ex-slave herself and had been treated cruelly but was given some assistance by the Moravian church.
[url=abolition.e2bn.org/people_37.html]abolition.e2bn.org/people_37.html[/url]

However, sometimes when I can't see any ascii characters they show up after I have posted.  Perhaps it is a peculiarity of my computer.

Yes Lady you could be right about those ageing singers

http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_37.html


Kind regards from Paul.

We do have a welcome thread but I can't find it at present.  I see that we have a new member in Wantage Saxon.  Welcome WS and maybe when you have found your equilibrium you could join us in the comments.

Finally it seems summer has come to an end. I was full last weekend but now everything has suddenly gone quiet and I have no bookings at all for several days. In fact I’ve blocked the rest of this week to catch up on laundry, cleaning and gardening. Also I desperately need to deal with the final glut of tomatoes, aubergines, figs and plums. And on top of that I had a couple of the hunter boys round on Sunday with a present of a whole side of wild boar, which similarly needs butchering, preparing and freezing - and that isn’t a job best tackled when there are guests in the house and I’m looking like a blood-stained assassin. Accordingly, with the last guests having gone about midday yesterday, today I’d planned a leisurely day of baking, bottling, freezing, and jam-making to start getting my stores built up for winter.
 
I’d also planned on doing a proper Caesar salad for lunch. It’s not that this is a complicated or time-consuming dish; it’s just that for once I had all the right ingredients (a nice romaine lettuce, parsley and garlic all from the garden, fresh eggs, anchovy fillets, parmesan etc) and moreover the time to leisurely prepare and eat it. That was lunch planned and so while the washing machine started on the pile of dirty sheets I took Doggy-Dog for walkies.
 
We came back with a whole load of extra goodies to prepare – though I’m not complaining - chestnuts, a variety of ceps and also two mushrooms of a type I’ve never seen growing here before: Caesar mushrooms. As I say I’ve never found them around here, possibly because I think they usually appear a bit before now and so I’ve always been too busy to go mushrooming, but they are fairy distinctive. But as with any mushroom that I’m not 100% certain of I consulted all my books and guides. The trouble with Caesar’s mushroom (Amanita caesarea) is that it is in the same family (the Amanitaceae) as several very poisonous ones like fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), the death cap (Amanita phalloides) and the destroying angel (Amanita virosa), so you do have to get it right. Unfortunately while one book cheerfully and confidently says "Fortunately identification is easy, and there is no danger of mistaking it from the poisonous ones", another book cautions "Amanita species should never be eaten by the inexperienced".
 
 My Caesar's mushrooms (I think):



But trusting to my identification I started my luncheon with an omelette of Caesar’s mushroom before continuing with my Caesar salad - and they were both very tasty. As a meal it would be very suitable as a commemoration for 13th October, which was the date of the Emperor Claudius’s death (in 54AD) when traditionally he was poisoned by a dish of Caesar’s mushrooms to which had been mixed in some death caps.

And talking of suitable dishes-of-the day it occurs to me that I haven’t posted anything on that thread for several months. So now that there’s been a bit of a respite to allow my last postings (waffles?) to fully digest, perhaps it is now time to recommence and serve up a few more courses. I’ll see what I can rustle up (presuming I don’t succumb overnight to mushroom poisoning).

Meles meles I am so glad that you have at the end some time for yourself and even in that time you will know what to do...
I told you about the B&B of the former daughter in law, still in our inner circle and each Friday visit overthere...She says that it don't end this year in Bruges..first year that tourism is fully recovered from the terrorist attacks on Brussels airport and the métro...no for her no break and as the man of the laundry has had an heart attack she does temporarly the washing herself...

I said it already to LiR recently on this board, your nearly literary prose, as only you master it, is fully appreciated overhere.

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

It is a long time since this old trout took herself off to a disco but I remember there used to be a sort of lighting (this would be in the mid to late 1960s to early 70s) where the ladies' bras would show through their dresses.  It was a bit embarrassing.  Most bras were still either white or black back then but when I did a bra-making class the teacher still suggested using white as she said that it was less likely to show through upper clothing than bright colours.

MM, as well as writing well you are a veritable fund of information on flora and fauna.  I'd be too scared to scavenge for fungi because I'm just the type who would collect toadstools instead of mushrooms and that as they say would be that.

I have from time to time thought I'd like to tinker with dyeing a piece of fabric a different colour - I think onion skins provide yellow?

Bruges is a popular town so I'm not surprised there is no respite for Paul's ex-daughter-in-law.

On a more mundane I went out for a Sunday lunch with the appropriately named "Sunday Group" from the local U3A.  I knocked a lady's drink over - I bought another but the previous time the group went out  I knocked my own drink over.  I think I need a flat waist bag  something like this  - though I should have a "bum bag" somewhere which like my new Spanish exercise book I have filed in the safe place so safe I can't find it.  Being a vegetarian I would not use leather if I made the bag myself. 

Meles meles and LiR,

only entered late on the board.
Spent a lot of time on the French board with the distinction between "ville" and "cité" that seems not to exist in English and certainly not in Dutch and German, where it is all "Stadt, stad"...
http://passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=40988


Kind regards from Paul.

Paul, the distinction between town and city may have changed in English in recent years but I think it used to be that cities were settlements with a cathedral.  Lichfield has a cathedral so it is a city though its size is not that different to the size of Stafford which is a borough.

Indeed it was originally that a city was where a bishop had his throne (his cathedra) and hence his cathedral church. As such St David's in Pembrokeshire is still classed as a city although as you can see it's hardly a huge, bustling metropolis (at the 2011 census the population was just 1,841).


The cathedral in the city of St David's, with the bishop's palace beyond but, other than a few scattered farms, not much else.

And not just any old seat either - the "cathedra" came from the Greek "Down-sit" chair developed in the 5th century BCE that was such a huge hit in the classical age that it also lent its name to a certain breed of high-class prostitutes (later "cathedrae molle").



It mightn't look like much but the later addition of arms to an easy-to-assemble chair built from everyday materials was something of an IKEA moment in its time and sent the chair's popularity soaring around the entire Meditereanean, with it suddenly popping up as far afield as Carthage and even Gaul. These days the style is referred to as the "Klismos" chair after its apparent ancient inventor and has enjoyed something of a revival. However, just as with a lot of IKEA stuff, by the Hellenistic period a serious design flaw (the legs bent pronouncedly outwards, all very stylish but it led to them eventually spreading out further and collapsing the whole shebang) meant that it was really only used on special occasions when showing off to the guests and such like, hence later by nobs and bishops etc. Oh, of course, and by high class whores.

Makes one wonder what Greeks sat down on before they designed a sit down thingy ....

Well, I'm never to old to learn something, nordmann, so thanks for imparting the facts about the chair.   I didn't know about the history of this chair.  The series Versailles was mentioned on the accuracy in history thread.  I watched the first two series for the acting but knew some of the things mentioned were decidedly off so I found a blog dedicated to Louis XIV and went there to get some idea of a more accurate background.  The lady who kept the blog said she was annoyed by people other than the King (in the series) sitting in armchairs which wasn't allowed at the time (in France anyway).