History Forum / General / British History / May 2007

Not here.

The major landowners lived in bloody great big houses and the various
farmers lived in their farm houses.

The villages were where the farm workforces and the various specialists
lived.

Then they got converted a very long time ago.

The exteriors are undoubtedly nineteenth century.

There are no signs of blocked up windows (an almost sure sign of seventeenth
century or earlier origin)or extra doors that have been covered over.

So how would you describe a settlement of 400 dwellings with a doctor and a
vicar?

Bigger than a hamlet,  one church,  one pub, no market,  a couple of shops.

Don't forget that we're talking about Victorian England.

Very few villages these days have a doctor because most doctors are in group
practices.

Absolute rubbish. I have lived in or near several villages in my lifetime
and every one of them had at least one GP. Who the hell do you think saw to
the health of the many farms dotted all around the country villages. Then
there were the mining and mill villages. I was born in a tiny hamlet. It had
eight ploughman's cottages Two large farm houses and the large house
belonging to a garage business that relied upon passing trade on one of the
then main Edinburgh/Glasgow roads. Mind you there were no GPs, priests or
ministers who lived there.

Here is more than any reasonable person would want to know about
Guinness....

http://www.panix.com/~clay/guiness.html

Guinness is a joke the Irish played on the English, rather like the
Indians and curry...

My understanding is as you say that American beers are brewed with
less alcohol content than Canadian beers. However, I must say that I
have tasted some very fine, full strength beers from Oregon
micro-breweries which would stand comparison against the best beers
brewed anywhere.

British Columbia-brewed Guinness from New Westminster does not compare
well with the original from Ireland. However, that now seems to have
been remedied by imports directly from the Guinness brewery at St
James's Gate, Dublin in the form of cans which taste just like the
original, to my palate at least. http://www.guinness-storehouse.com/

If you can get it, I would also recommend Pilsner Urquell from the
Czech Republic, considered by many aficionados to be the best beer in
the world. http://www.pilsnerurquell.com/

A Scottish friend, master of a Chinese freighter out of Shanghai, used
to bring me cases in the 1970s when picking up grain cargos from the
Port of Vancouver, of a comparable pilsner from the Tsingtao Brewery
south of Shanghai, (Qingdao) called Tsingtao Beer. The brewery was
leased to Germany during the period of the western powers carving out
spheres of influence for themselves in China after the Opium Wars, and
when the Communists took over, the brewery continued to thrive under
local Chinese management, all trained by the Germans, which of course
meant very well trained indeed.

Today I can buy Tsingtao locally as I live in a Chinese community
where it is a popular local brew and usually costs one to two dollars
a can less than Czech Urquell. It may amuse you to read that the old
Chinese hands swore that Tsingtao was an acronym for "This sh.t Is No
Good To Any One". (In reality Tsingtao/Qingdao means "Green Island").
There is a website at http://www.tsingtaobeer.com/

For history buffs this site is also of interest.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/tsingtao.htm

I cannot forbear to mention a Scottish beer, McEwan's Scotch Ale,
which is sweet-tasting - the Scots are, per head the world's largest
consumers of sugar - and in consequence, the most toothless people in
the world - comes at a pleasant 8% alcoholic strength - it must be
remembered that beer in Scotland competes against Scotch whisky (or in
Glasgow, Vodka). Drinkers' impressions may be read at:

http://www.epinions.com/content_12036509316

I might add that as a steady consumer of MacEwan's as a young man, it
does come with one helluva hangover after the first three or four and
I might do some research some day to determine whether the Scots are
also the world's largest consumers of aspirin...

It may amuse you to know that being blind drunk in Scotland is
considered a fine and noble estate, as well as being the nation's
Number One health problem concerning teenagers. There are all sorts of
euphemisms for the condition in the Highlands (I can't speak for
southern Scotland which is a somewhat separate culture) such as "He's
had a long day" (Translation - he's been drinking like a fish since he
woke this morning); "He's fond of his dram" (dram - a shot of whisky,
Gaelic "Drama") - translation, he is a hopeless alcoholic), and for
women lying on their faces; "she's a bit foolish".

Drunkenness and passing out because of drink are considered part of
normal life and no stigma attaches; in fact there is usually
sympathy for the drunk lying unconscious on the floor or sprawled
across the table with his face buried in the Caesar salad, to my
wife's ill-concealed irritation when it happened. The sprawlee was so
drunk that I put him in the bath (after removing his outer clothing)
and turned on the cold shower. It worked like a charm - something had
to be done; the man had nearly exhausted the resources of our drink
supply.  

In Gaelic the standard term for being drunk is "Tha an smùid air (the
smoke is on him. and one occasionally hears eager teenagers saying,
"Bidh sinn dallta leis an òl a-nochd! - We will get blind drunk
tonight!"(For a glimpse of Gaelic language construction, this
literally says. "Will-be we blinded with the drinking the night). Cf
Scots the Necht, meaning tonight. In the Isles, one can occasionaly
see a typical couple of 14 year old girls at a dance slipping into the
Ladies to drain their shared-expenses half bottle of whisky or rum.  

Another quaint feature of Gaelic culture (in days gone by because of
the price of whisky) was that, depending on the time of day when
bracing oneself against reality with another dram, there is a special
word for the dram taken at any specific time. Thus the dram taken on
awakening is called "sgailc". After dressing, a second small dram,
often called a "nip" in Highland English or "friochd" in Gaelic is
taken to restore one's equilibrium and help one to negotiate the
passage to the dining room.

The order of drinking on rising among the better-off was as follows:

1. An sgailc-uide - a tumbler of whisky, the wakening drink.
2. Am friochd-ullinn - a half-tumbler; the making ready drink.
3. An deoch chas-ruisgte - the drink of the bare feet
4. An deoch bhlèth - the grinding drink. (I don't know why).

The gentleman then sat down to breakfast...      

If a guest felt a little peaky, he might be offered a deoch-maidne; a
morning drink or restorative, consisting of an egg whipped in milk and
a splash of whisky added to