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Math with Stoaty!

british free range turkey

petrol station

 

Hiho, minions! Let’s play the Merry Christmas Exchangemathemohoogical drinking game!

One kilogram = 2.20462262 pounds
One gallon = 3.7853118 liters
Today’s exchange rate is $1.98440 to £1

Calculators ready? That turkey up there weighs 18.2432521805 pounds. It costs $8.09197722blahblahblah per pound. So the price tag on that bad boy is $147.619516.

Merry Christmas! Take a swig!

Okay! Petrol (isn’t that a charming word?) is £1.03 a liter (I’ll give ’em the .9 for free). That’s $2.04932 per liter. Which works out to $7.7371243blahblahjesuschristouchthat hurts per gallon.

Merry Christmas! Take a swig!

People wonder why Britons drink. I haven’t even made it to the parsnips and I’m pissed as a newt.

I wouldn’t dream of living here if I could do math in my head.

 

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 21, 2007, 8:13 pm

Hm. I just caught sight of this page from across the room, and those two turkeys side by side…don’t look like anything very nice.

I risked life and limb for that photo, too. They take a dim view of people taking pictures inside their store, so I’m told.


Comment from Lokki
Time: December 21, 2007, 11:52 pm

Fade in…..

I loves my chicken, baby;
Lord how I loves them thighs
I stole one last night, and the night before,
Gonna go back and steal ten or nine more,
I loves my chicken baby,
Lord how I loves them breasts

Cause I loves my chicken, baby;
Lord I wanna nibble them thighs
Gonna nibble all night an’ then nibble some more,
They’s got dat sweet juicy meat that I adore
I loves my chicken baby,
Lord how I loves them breasts

Yeah, I loves my chicky baby;
Come on baby, don’t you get all shy
I kissed ya once last night, and the night before
Come on closer now baby and I’ll kiss ya some more
Cause I loves my chicky baby,
Lord knows I loves you best …

Fade away…

500 Songs About Food


Comment from porknbean
Time: December 22, 2007, 1:05 am

Seriously, who pays that much for a turkey? That’s nuts. Can average folk afford that?


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: December 22, 2007, 4:16 am

That really does look like an old man’s bum cleavage wrapped in cellophane. I assume.
Never tried a turkey made out of bronze before.
Holy fuck, 74 squid. I could buy another 2GB of fast RAM for that and it wouldn’t give me constipation.

‘Can average folk afford that?’

I suspect, given the 5 stars sticker doodad, the ‘Free Range’ boast and the fact that this was bought down south somewhere, that on average they’re slightly cheaper.
Of course that’s just a guess since not only do I no longer eat meat, I’ve also never cooked a whole turkey in my life.
Also, it’s probbaly worth bearing in mind that the UK’s farming sector is i) a shadow of its former self, and ii) miniscule compared to that of, say, the US’, and that apart from lunchmeat, pre-prepared food, and so on, the only time a whole turkey would be cooked is at Christmas. all of which would conspire to drive the average price of a turkey up.
Anyway, if I were American, I’d be a lot more concerned about the fuel price, specifically the price of petrol/gasoline. Put it this way, we don’t drive around in 4-cylinder, low-displacement, high-revving, front-wheel-drive little cars because we don’t recognise the coolness of a big, lazy V8.
But then, weasel – as far as I can tell – has had at least a decade to get used to it, so maybe the culture shock is dampened somewhat.
Jesus, that really does look like somebody’s arse.
‘Yes, what is it Reg? Can’t you see I’m busy?’
‘Sir, sorry to bother you, but there’s an inebriated American woman taking photographs of the turkeys in the meat and poultry isle and laughing hysterically.’
‘Dear god, not again.’


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 22, 2007, 9:46 am

Grief! I when I logged in and saw what Stoaty had posted, I thought I’d stumbled on a gay porn site. Arse cheeks in Saran wrap!?

What’s scary is that I was standing next to her and didn’t see her take that picture. And she wonders why people say weasels are sneaky.

Gibby’s mostly right. That was a ‘luxury’ free-range bird from a poncey store (no, we didn’t buy ours there). A frozen, mass market turkey, stuffed with sage, onion and tetracycline would be a lot cheaper.

Even so, shopping with the stoat is an endless litany of ‘Holy fuck! How much?!’ and ‘Back home, for the price of that there bag of potato chips, I could buy the state of Nebraska, a Lincoln Continental, all the Democrat votes in Congress and still have enough left over for a Big Mac and fries!’

She’s right, of course, but I console myself with the thought that this is Good British Food we’re talking about, not stuff extruded from polyester beans in a plant somewhere near Akron, Ohio, guaranteed not to trouble the taste buds and with the all the nutritional value of cardboard.

It’s a vile untruth, of course, but such lies taketh away the sting. The truth is, we’re just skinned alive for everything in this damned country – petrol and food are just two glaring examples, but it goes for everything from postage stamps to the price of the average hit man. It’s got to the point where things are expensive because things are expensive, fed at the roots by a succession of filthy socialist governments. Even the Conservative ones.

So, anyway, we have a turkey and a tree. Stoaty is currently eating sponge cake for breakfast. She was highly pleased to find a runny-babbit flavoured one in said poncey grocery store.

I added it to the mortgage.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 22, 2007, 10:07 am

Uncle B was like, “at least paint out the shiny bits.”

And I’m like, “you know what I’m NOT going to do this Christmas? I’m not going to spend an evening Photoshopping the shine off a turkey so it looks less like man ass.”

I keep the Nikon slung over my shoulder, quietly flick it on and hit the button. Very discreet. I get a lot of funky pictures like that. Some of them are neat and they don’t all look like elderly bottoms.

Our turkey is a somewhat more modest bird. This is another one of those places where Uncle B and I are wired backwards. Me, I go into the first store, squint at the poultry section, grab something about the right size, and I’m done.

Yesterday, we went to Tesco, then to Waitrose, back to Tesco and then the poncey local store above. We poked turkeys. We hefted turkeys. We read labels. We discussed the relative merits of white and dark meat, whether organic really means anything and what ‘bronze’ means, exactly (it’s a breed). In the end, we got a…ummm…oh, dear. I don’t really remember.

Uncle B says it’s a Tesco’s Finest…3.395 kilograms…£25.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 22, 2007, 10:30 am

Oh God. I’ve been outed. Shopping at Tesco!

And it’s only because I refuse to talk French, so have absolutely no idea what a bloody kilogramme is, that I have no idea whether that was an expensive turkey or not.

It’d better be good, though!


Comment from jwpaine
Time: December 22, 2007, 11:06 am

“Nine Arse Cheeks In Saran Wrap”
Didn’t Zelazny write a whole series of books under that title?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 22, 2007, 12:03 pm

I was gone. Now I’m back.

Whoa. They’re puttin’ price tags on men’s bum’s now? Eww.


Comment from Gnus
Time: December 22, 2007, 5:34 pm

My bum would be bronze, but they frown on nudity at the beaches hereabouts. Amongst other things.

Somehow a bronze bum doesn’t seem like it would be worth a place on the sexual offenders list, but that’s just me.


Comment from porknbean
Time: December 22, 2007, 7:28 pm

Uncle B says it’s a Tesco’s Finest…3.395 kilograms…£25.

Whew…that is a little better for the digestion. Somewhat. Maybe.
Since porknbeans don’t care for dark meat, I usually purchase a 6-8 pound Perdue turkey breast (supposedly corn fed, no antibiotics/hormones, beasts), at about $2.39 per pound. Still crazy pricey compared to whole turkeys of other brands but nothing like nearly 50 bucks for your bird.
Isn’t socialism delightful?
*thinking of the suicide rate in Sweden and neighboring socialist utopias, and not wondering why*


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 22, 2007, 8:10 pm

Ugh! That’s a really interesting comparison, porknbean.

As it turned out, our turkey wasn’t really that much cheaper per pound that the poncey one, but I’ve been put off buying meat from them anyway, after The Incident With The Pork Chops.

Auntie was quite keen on buying a breast and I would have done, only if you think British prices are wicked for whole turkeys, you’d have a fit if you saw what we get charged for the abridged verions.

Meanwhile, I have learned something interesting about our hostess. With my hand deeply immersed inside the brute, earlier this evening (that’s the turkey, not our hostess), extracting the little plastic bag containing its entrails (no canopic jars for our lads), I turned to inform the other mustelid what I was doing, only to see her looking the other way. She didn’t seem awfully interested in my anatomical descriptions, either.

They talk a good game, these weasels, but when it comes to blood and guts, we badgers have got ’em beat every day.

Oh dear, sorry. Will somebody get some smelling salts for Gibby, please?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 22, 2007, 8:18 pm

Meh. Entrails. Americans don’t eat ’em (well, at least, *I* don’t).

Uncle B threw the giblets out back for the foxen and the crows, and they don’t seem to be eating them either.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 22, 2007, 8:46 pm

What! No giblet gravy?

No little pot simmerin’ on the back burner with all those unidentifiable bits and chunks of essential turkey-function cooking away? No long neck-like thing (always looked like a dog’s wiener to me) cooking it’s little neck-muscles off?

Waaa!

I am chagrined.

No chunks of god-knows-what bio-part floating (or sinking) in the creamy turkey gravy? Those nice li’l bites that give it body and bestow gravitas to an otherwise mundane drippy concoction will be absent?

Oy!


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: December 22, 2007, 10:37 pm

Giblet gravy is extrememly good I must say. Dad cooks up a pot just exactly as McGoo describes every Thanksgiving. I make a concentrated effort to ignore what’s actually in it though. Kinda like sausages and hotdogs.

We cook a big spiced ham for Christmas Eve dinner and it’s always amazingly good. Tomorrow night it’s hot out-of-the-oven cherry pie and ice cream!


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: December 23, 2007, 3:06 am

*Smacks smelling salts away*
I’m not passed out, I’m just resting my eyes.
I’m not one of those angry, ‘ZOMG meat is teh murderz!!1!’ fairies. In fact, I prepare and cook meat for the people I kidnap and keep in the loft. I don’t even call myself a ‘vegetarian’ because that sounds like you’re part of some little group. And it is. And most vegetarians (outside of the Indian subcontinent, who do it because of religious concerns) are Reds or other undesirables.
Come to think of it, I can’t even remember why I am a non-meat-eater.
Anywho – giblets. Dog + giblets = solution to the problem of what to do with the giblets. Gravy sounds like a good idea, but there’s one giblet – the liver I think it is – that looks like a little cock. And nobody likes cock gravy. Well some people do, but I try to stay away from them.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 23, 2007, 9:21 am

Report from 12 hours later:

Damnit! Weasel was right. The entrails are still decorating the garden. Must have some damn picky foxen out here. And the crows are suspiciously quiet.

I’ll have to hang them on the tree, instead. They say that’s how the tradition began.

Wonder what Stoaty will say?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 9:51 am

Shoulda cooked ’em first, I guess. The foxes of Great Britain are picky beasts. Comes from all that fox-hunting, no doubt.

Or its the God of Giblet Gravy – laying a curse upon you.

I know! Go back outside and get them, cook ’em with some chocolate, and a parsnip, and give ’em to your neighbor. Tell them it’s a ‘Merican custom, and see if they eat them.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 23, 2007, 10:10 am

I just saw a robin pecking at the offal! I tried to get a picture, but he flew off before I could get the camera.

British robins are a different species entirely. They’re fat little birds, though they do have reddish orange breasteses. Brits regard them as emblematic of Christmas; you often see them on Christmas cards (which confused me mightily at first).

So, on the one hand, awwww….Christmas! Robin! On the other hand, ewww…pecking at a raw liver!


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 10:17 am

Well – ya know, in the wild, it’s liver die…


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 23, 2007, 10:21 am

Our neighbours are crows, at present. The farmer has moved his sheepseses out of the field by the kitchen window for some reason.

Might have thought I looked a bit hungry, I don’t know.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 10:34 am

Well, there’s no accounting for strange neighbors. Always keep the neighbors puzzled and guessing – that’s my motto.

Have you started building your trebuchet or catapult yet? Be sure to keep it aimed at his house at all times. And remember – you need to be seen pacing off the distance to his house, notebook in hand and military range-tables book under your arm.


Comment from Lokki
Time: December 23, 2007, 3:25 pm

Well – ya know, in the wild, it’s liver die…

Steamboat – that pun was just offal! I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself…. I know I am.

Having bragged about the greatness of America in another thread just now, I will post this little example of America at her worst. I warn you – do not go here, unless you are some hours away from eating….(either post or prior will do)… Oh, the horror, the horror.

http://www.tastetheworld.org/blog/2006/02/finger_lickin_good.php


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 5:01 pm

Lokki – I think that between the two of us, we stunned the Badger household into silence.

Harumph!

I expected a bit more pluck from them.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: December 23, 2007, 5:51 pm

Stunned? Not in the least McGoo – just been out for a walk, then fetching wood, lighting fires (it’s ok, the fire brigade put them out and not many were hurt), wrapping presents and eating and ooh, look! It’s drinking time!

Oh, and Happy Solstice of yesterday, everyone.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 6:06 pm

I should have known! No trebuchet for you. You’re going to burn the neighbors out. And you “took a walk” to eye the local terrain and check the wind direction. Clever. Straight from Von Clausewitz.

Was the Winter Solstice yesterday? So – the Sun is rather low now, and for good reason – its all uphill from now on. Poor thing.


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: December 23, 2007, 7:23 pm

Hey, I have a booze bleg for y’all! I need to get something for my parents for Christmas and I’ve decided to get them a high-end bottle of scotch. They both like it and it’s their preferred tipple. However, they’re not really keen on a lot of the single malts. Mom prefers Chivas Regal and Dad likes Dewar’s. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to look for? They generally like to stay away from the real peat-y stuff (Mom can’t drink Johnny Walker Red). Oh, and I’m willing to pay around 100 bucks or so.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 7:50 pm

Enas –

Dewars is a good scotch in its own right, says I (a seriously snotty devotee of single-malts).

My recommendations – given low-peat flavor and blend-induced complexity for the two of them are:

The Macallan 18 YO – (my personal favorite – both parents may really like this)

The Balvenie PortWood 21 YO – (a Highland – Dad’ll like this)

The Dalmore 21 YO – (Highland You’re Mom’ll like this)

Auchentoshan 21 YO – (No peat – and the best Lowland scotch IMHO – both will like this)

Highland Park 25 YO – (an Orkney Isl and very good)

Springbank 15 YO – (if they’re not snooty about drinking a Lowland scotch)

Two others are Cragganmore and Oban – both fine single-malts.

That’s my $0.02


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 7:53 pm

Oops – I got the “dad’ll like” and the “mom’ll like” scotches backwards, I think.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 23, 2007, 7:57 pm

Glenmorangie is my favorite, by far. And I’ve sampled a fair number. I don’t know what it costs, though — Uncle B buys me a bottle at Christmas that I stretch throughout the year.

The specialized versions — aged in port or sherry casks — are extremely nice and more expensive.


Comment from porknbean
Time: December 23, 2007, 8:03 pm

Hee hee, offal. The times I purchased a whole turkey, had to have the husband pull out the innard packets and the neck as the neck is still kinda stuck in with ice crystals and one must have a good grip to yank it out. *shudders*
You don’t want to know what my imagination thinks a turkey neck looks like.

Now my in-laws are them old Germanish folk and loved the giblets and neck parts. Uncle Joe would suck the neck bone clean. Couldn’t look down at his end of the table without getting lightheaded.

We are having a ham this Christmas. Paid $19 for a nine pound cured porker. And McGoo, it was Missouri born and died – Double G. – leaner and better tasting than Kretchmar. Slop some brown sugar and pineapple in him and he’s good to go.

Uncle B, maybe you guys can free-range some birds of your own in future? Pay the farmer to butcher one after you fatten ’em up.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: December 23, 2007, 8:24 pm

Stoaty – I thought of Glenmorangie 12YO ’cause of the good port wood finish (one of the best – IMHO), but I figured it might be a little peaty for Enas Dad. But it’s on my personal top-ten list.

Naturally, Lagavulin and Laphroaig were out of the running right away. Sometimes I think Laphroaig is all peat, and Lagavulin is 1/2 peat and 1/2 smoke.

And PnB – ya don’t get any better than a Double G Missouri cured porker for xmas. There’s a nice sliced-up chunk in my fridge right now. There was more this morning, but – well, ….

Yeah! Badgers Free-Range Birds! That has a ring to it. Just keep Covington out of the bird house.


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: December 24, 2007, 6:07 pm

Well, I kinda punted with the scotch. It’s my Mom who is really sensitive about her flavors – my Dad not nearly as much. So I decided rather than get one $$$ bottle I got two $$ bottles instead. I got 18 YO Chivas Gold Signature for Mom and the 12 YO port casked Glenmorangie for Dad. I almost decided to go for the 21 YO Royal Salute Chivas Regal at $210 and be done with it, but there’s an outside screwball chance my Dad might pick that one up himself as a present for Mom and there are NO refunds or exchanges at the liquor stores around here. I saw some of those other brands you mentioned McGoo – man there’s a WHOLE lot a price difference between 15, 18 and 21 YO hootch!

Merry Christmas everybody!


Pingback from S. Weasel
Time: December 24, 2008, 6:40 pm

[…] course, last year’s bird had the charm of looking like proctology waiting to […]

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