‘Tis the season…
I’m sure you’ve heard of Guy Fawkes Night in the UK, which is celebrated on November 5 with fireworks and the burning of Fawkes in effigy (or, more traditionally, the Pope in effigy, since the conspirators were Catholic). It commemorates the foiling of a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
Which doesn’t look like such a very bad idea these days.
But I digress.
The holiday is a bit different in Sussex. There is a GIGANTIC November 5 celebration in Lewes, a kind of Mardi Gras with more fire, less nudity. Most of the major towns in the county (and parts of Kent) have bonfire societies which come to march through the town for the big one.
In return, each of the towns and villages has its own Bonfire Night and everyone comes to march in their celebrations, too. So they have to stagger them. Between late September and November 5, there’s a bonfire somewhere in the county pretty much every weekend.
And very pagan-y affairs they are, too. There are elaborate and spooky costumes, and torches and fireworks, and they pull the guy (the various guys, which are effigies of people in the news. I believe Dubya got immolated a time or two) through the town. At the end, there’s a HUGE bonfire (usually made of hundreds of wood pallets) and they blow up the Guy and several kzillions of pounds (in weight and/or money) of fireworks.
The first big one is tomorrow night, in Hastings. I don’t think we’ll go this year, but we’ve gone before. It’s most impressive. Last year, they saw it in France and sent out the lifeboats.
Oh, and the tiny village of Icklesham insists on defying local custom and having theirs on November 5 each year, so none of the other villages will show up or advertise for them. Go Icklesham!
October 16, 2009 — 8:31 pm
Comments: 18
Taking the crazy train to Crazy Town
Uncle B’s mom took us to dinner tonight. She goes back tomorrow. I’m stuffed to the gills with good food and good booze, there’s a howling gale beating against the windows, and you damn well won’t get much sense out of me tonight. But I had to share — when we got home, they all had THIS conversation:
Uncle B: Right. You’ll be catching the 13:37 to King’s Cross Station tomorrow.
Old Granny B (peering into her pocket diary): it was the 13:36 last year.
Uncle B: well, you can’t go by that. They’ll have changed the schedule several times since then and just because it’s the near same time doesn’t mean it’s the same train. The important thing is, you want to switch to the fast train from London. There’s a fast train and a slow train. The fast train stops on the South side of the tracks and there are stairs. The slow train stops on the North side and you wouldn’t have to cross over.
Young Master B, the nephew: or you could go one stop beyond. The next station down the line doesn’t have any stairs at all, and the cab ride wouldn’t be any farther!
And that’s when I knew I was in Monty Python country.
September 2, 2009 — 7:12 pm
Comments: 19
Mad old bats in stereo
Uncle B’s mother is in the hizzouse. Okay for me; I get along with her just peachy, but I think the poor bastard feels like he’s in a mad old bat sandwich, and he’s the olive loaf.
Today, we all drove to the beautiful, haunted town of Winchelsea in East Sussex. Old Winchelsea was a large and important medieval town, until it was swept into the sea by a massive flood in 1287. Edward I ordered Winchelsea rebuilt on the hill above. A newfangled planned town, with the streets built on a grid.
The new Winchelsea was likewise a thriving port. But it was sacked by the French and the Spanish a few times and especially hard hit by the Black Death of 1348. When the harbor silted up in the 16th C, that was pretty much it. Winchelsea today is tiny and spooky and lovely and full of terribly, terribly rich people.
The surviving church — actually, the surviving chunk of the surviving church — is at the center of the grid, and it’s spectacular. For two months in 1855, John Everett Millais stood about where I’m standing inside and painted L’Enfant du Regiment, a wounded little girl asleep on the tomb of a knight (from a fictional story about an orphan adopted by her father’s regiment).
Well, he painted the tomb on this spot; he painted the little girl later in his studio. And a damn fine job he made of it, too. Millais is hit or miss — when he’s good, he’s very, very good and when he’s not, he isn’t so much. This one is very fine. It’s oil on paper laid on canvas mounted on board. It lives in Connecticut at the Yale Center for British Art.
And tomorrow? Dunno yet. Presumably, two old bats and Olive Loaf hit the road again…
August 25, 2009 — 6:55 pm
Comments: 2
It’s official: Brits are pussies
I miss chipmunks. I did a lot of day-hiking around Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the old stone farm walls are alive with the little chirping, fur-headed bastards. If you sit very still and make clucking noises, their curiosity gets the better of them and they’ll come out to see what you’re up to.
Not because clucking noises make sense to chipmunks; they come out to see what the hell is the matter with you, lady?
A woman in a shop today was telling us about an article she just read: a new and dangerous invasive species has been spotted in the UK. Yup. Chipmunks. Siberian chipmunks, bought as pets in France and escaped into the wild. They’re coming through the Channel Tunnel.
Now, I’ll give them this: chipmunks can carry Lyme and rabies, two diseases I have spent considerable energy trying not to get a dose of and was ever so grateful to get away from. So, okay, this isn’t good news news, even to a sentimental, rat-lovin’ weasel. But
“They look cuddly and harmless, and this makes them particularly dangerous. If startled, they can give a nasty nip, especially when cornered.”
??? I mean, c’mon. Chipmunks.
She gave me the newspaper, which goes onto say that the latest sighting was on the Isle of Sheppey (East of London). A chipmunk got into somebody’s kitchen and was chowing down on the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes (yes, they specified).
And the family’s pets were left traumatised by the invader — which caused the latest in a series of ‘chipmunk alerts’ [chipmunk alerts!] issued after fears that a species from Siberia which carries diseases had reached these shores.
The creature left Bryan and Susan’s two cats shaking — and they and the family’s dog now can’t go into the garden.
Mum-of-four Susan, 44, from Minster, said: “It was terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Honestly! I know two pussycats and a certain beautiful fairy princess who need to cowboy up a little…
August 12, 2009 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 18
You gotta read the fine print…
We stopped at a tiny cafe for a burger last week and I picked up this flyer. Other than the name of the cafe (which is sponsoring this, I guess) and the address, this is the whole thing. High-larious.
Speaking of fine print, I was trying to do a graphic about Obamacare when I caught that bug on Friday. It was going to be the Hammer of Reform descending upon the Sore Toe of Health Care. I’d found a nice example of a hammer and I was browsing a selection of toes. When I clicked on one, all hell broke loose.
That’s right. I caught a computer virus on a picture of somebody’s big toe. You’d think for all the grief I went through, it could’ve been some hentai or a filthy limerick or something.
August 10, 2009 — 7:09 pm
Comments: 12
Run away, little girl!
Case in point: the leech (seen here struttin’ at yet another village fête).
We have a sort of moat-slash-drainage ditch out the back that may or may not have leeches in. Exciting leeches. Leeches that would guarantee a raftload of excitable government leechophiles descend on us like a ton of unwashed hippie.
You know what else the prospect of leeches in our ditch guarantees? That I personally never, ever, ever, ever, EVER set foot in that fucking ditch.
So help me, that one scene in African Queen. With the leeches.
July 30, 2009 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 9
Walkies!
This’ll be short and lame. Had a convivial — but tiring — evening with several of the neighbors. We walked the fields of a local farmer’s land (got thoroughly rainèd upon) and then repaired to his house for food and drink. Oh, I say!
One of the features of his farm is a raised square-ish area, about a hundred feet on a side. Archeologists have told him, based on local history, it’s probably something from the 12th Century, but they’re not sure what. He’s not allowed to dig into it to find out.
Huh. One ancient house we looked to buy “probably” has a smugglers’ tunnel connecting it to the ancient inn across the street. But we wouldn’t have been allowed to dig for it. And there’s this whole town nearby where the terms of sale say you aren’t allowed to dig in your own back garden any deeper than a foot or so, because you’d almost certainly hit Roman ruins.
Folks, if it were me? I’d be out there with a flashlight and a teaspoon before you could say curiosity sent the weasel to prison. Who’s with me?
July 29, 2009 — 6:41 pm
Comments: 20
Cream of Mutant Soup
It’s the funniest things that throw you, when you’re a immigrant. Like pickles. If you think pickles is pickles, then you, sir or madam, are a booboo.
My hankering for a big fat kosher dill ran into a brick wall of gustatory mixed metaphors when I bit into my first British pickle. I did not know the pickles I’m accustomed to are preserved in garlicky brine with just a soupçon of vinegar. British ones? 100% vinegar. Looks like a pickle, tastes like what the fuck??
Hence, Uncle B very kindly grew me some gherkins for pickling. So, ummmm…any gardeners out there grown gherkins? Google was no help at all. Do they turn orange when they’re overripe? Like Ticonderoga pencil orange? Like, line-down-the-middle-of-the-highway orange? Because I plucked a mutant off the vine this afternoon that looked like a knobbly safety vest.
I ate it, of course. I cut it up with a couple of the ordinary green kind some herbs and junk from the garden, and I made soup. And very tasty it was, too. I feel okay so far.
Only, my farts could strip wallpaper.
July 28, 2009 — 5:55 pm
Comments: 30
Twirlin’, Limey style!
These poor girls haven’t fallen down or anything. This is a deliberate part of their baton-twirling routine, thenkyewverymuch. It was the worst exhibition of twirling expertise I have seen since…ummm…the one before it.
Yep, it’s the village fête season! Do we have a similar phenomenon in the States? In the Midwest, perhaps? I don’t know.
I remember we had a state fair in Tennessee, which was a big ol’ 4H-meets-midway-carny kind o’ thing. Seems like every year, they announced on the news that somebody had found a black widow in the bathroom. I got lost at that fair one year, when I was five. That was fun.
Then there was the Fiddlers’ Jamboree in Smithville, which was a musical cornpone county fair sort of dealie.
But here, pretty much every village around picks a Saturday in Summertime and holds itself a little fair, in varying degrees of size and lameness. They’re built around stalls selling baked goods and used books and knick-knacks. Local charities are usually represented. There are a few rides, maybe. Perhaps some livestock or other beasties. The antique car people turn out to show off their handiwork. And then some kind of live performances; a band, performing animals. Twirlers. Lawnmower races.
There must be a dozen of them inside our usual roaming territory. Sadly, we can’t go to them all — they cluster on particular weekends.
I can only imagine what I’ve missed…
July 27, 2009 — 6:20 pm
Comments: 16
Uncle Badger had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
a youthful primrose yellow colour which cooks to a pale honey. Once cooked, the papery skin rubs off easily, while underneath the flesh of this salad potato usefully keeps its shape when cut or squeezed.
Let the potato cool slightly after cooking and then squeeze it lightly. There’s an immediate hint of fresh cut grass and a delicate earthiness. This is followed by deliciously buttery aromas, as if the potatoes had already been topped with sweet, unsalted butter.
In the mouth it is full-bodied, and tastes equally fresh and buttery, with a lingering note of sweetness. The flavour is remarkably long and persistent. The texture is firm to bite, but it gives way immediately to a supple, velvety melting quality.
That near-pornographic potato tasting comes to you from the British Potato Council. They are referring to a potato called Charlotte, which we will be growing next. The crop in the picture is a variety called International Kidney. And very nice they are too, even if they haven’t got a “hint of fresh cut grass and a delicate earthiness.”
Or maybe they have. How the fuck would I know?
We’ve done very well out of the garden this year, considering he has very little actual land under cultivation. We’ve had potatoes, peas, spinach, carrots, onions, broccoli, lettuces of several varieties, green beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, gherkins and cukes, with cabbages and cauliflower and godnose what else yet to come. And that’s not counting the fruitcage, with rhubarb, red currants, black currants, white currants, strawberries, loganberries, raspberries, gooseberries (two kinds!) and blackberries. Or the herbs in pots. Or the flowers, which I only eat when he’s not looking.
We could be entirely self-sufficient for the summer, if we had a taste for runnybabbit and I didn’t mind disemboweling and skinning adorable fluffy buns in the sink.
I’m not a very good weasel 🙁
July 13, 2009 — 7:23 pm
Comments: 15