Entertainment For Lively Minds
New podcast features results of "Did we really drink *that?*" survey
Posted by David Hepworth on 23 January 2009 - 7:42am.
We've been talking about your contributions to the Drinks We Have Drunk thread and compiled our top ten list of libations we can't believe we ever voluntarily drank. And lots of other things including Aretha Franklin's diction and the home life of Kenneth Williams. You can subscribe to the podcast for free here or stream the latest one below.
Gentlemen, it was very enjoyable.
David Hepworth ranting and Mark Ellen giggling are high on the list of life's great simple pleasures.
Absinthe
For years I have received nothing but ridicule at my pronunciation of 'absanthe' rather than 'absinthe' (Absanthe? Oh, aren't we posh? Pardon me mater, I'm awff to pley the graand piarno, I say 'absanthe", etc, etc). Thanks to David Hepworth, I feel better now.
Yes, but it's a bit like
going to a MacDonalds and asking for a fillay o' fish isn't it?
Not really
People only started pronouncing it incorrectly once it became readily available in this country, I think. And besides, 'fillet' is an acceptable English term, isn't it?
I was just kidding
It made me laugh that people called you posh because you pronounce the word correctly.
Don't worry
I don't take things that seriously. Then again...
More absinthe, vicar ?
I think poshness and an affinity for absinthe are a good match, meself ...
q.v. Rowan Pelling http://www.newstatesman.com/200610230052
Duck Press
Apropos of the mirth around this "classic" dish from Rouen, I thought you should be aware of this: http://www.sharpknives.com/duck_carcass_press.htm
Drinkers, problem drinkers, comics, problem-drinking comics
Can't go wrong with that lot really but, agreed, a wildly entertaining 'cast. Keep up the good work, chaps.
This would seem an appropriate place to share with the massive one of my favourite Onion articles, I'm Like A Chocoholic, But For Booze
don't you find that onion titles
are so good you don't need the story.
as in "America to add umlaut to name to toughen up image"
For sure
This week's 'Time' Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece being a case in point.
But you're still guaranteed some stuff inside – viz: "No news publication has dared to barely scratch the surface like this before," columnist and campaign reporter Michael King wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday... to "stand it up".
The Onion knows its target, almost always the media, intimately and parodies it with millimetric precision.
From the mouth of Kenneth Williams
I wish I could remember her name but there was a program on Radio 4 about how one of the gag writers for Kenneth Horne was a schoolgirl when she started . She was either a Witness or a Methodist to boot . There was some reason her name could not end on the credits and later in life when her husband had been hurt in a work accident she went back to writing for Horne til his death . I may be paraphrasing but she said " I write clean lines and without changing a word Williams makes them dirty "
hooch/two dogs/baileys/mdma
good pod but, there's always a but, a couple of things...
a power shandy was always a smirnoff ice and stella round our way* (London) a few years ago. So you were well ahead of the game if you were on it before the rest of us.
'hooch', or rather its predecessor 'two dogs' was the tipple of choise of any derscerning chap/face/lad/football hooligan round town as was the Baileys that summer
talking of alcopops which was govt.sponsored* to get the youth/kids back into pubs after MDMA usage had seen pub attendances decline rapidly.
*(the Bright Bill that was funded by the breweries to get people in their pubs. The breweries suddenly started doing alcopops and cleared the tables and chairs out and put music on.And now they’re the ones that are paying for it with a nation of binge-drinking teenagers, when you could have had a nation of E-takers, but not causing any problems. Having a great time. Now they’re stuck with every casualty in every major city with glassings, stabbings and policemen being sorted. No one got sorted at Sunrise and it’s the same kids. Without doubt there was a definite ‘boardroom’ decision taken by people. It’s not a conspiracy theory, but they said, ‘we’ve gotta get them out of these fields and back into our pubs, how we gonna do this?’)
Background music
Re: background classics, couldn't but be reminded of the tale of Joshua Bell's experimental busking of a Bach violin Partita in a DC Metro station, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR200704...
and clips therein ...
Re: Brian Matthew, good to hear he's still going - a great fave of my brother and clearly a true gent. Mind you, the brother would probably say the late great Ray Moore was the soul of R2 ...
Let's hope...
..they don't play 'The Rite of Spring' through the loudspeakers at Turnham Green. Could be a bloodbath.
Ads we have known ,,,
Great thread re drinks and their advertising. Reminded me of the days when:
1. " [Kingsley Amis] ... the poet laureate of alcoholism ... [when] working as an ad copywriter, ... once suggested for a client the slogan “Bowen’s Beer Makes You Drunk”"
http://thehighhat.com/Marginalia/007/drinking_pierce.html
2. Technics (I think, or maybe Philips) actually advertised a hifi system with the slogan "it'll make your girlfriend go weak at the knees" (late 70s, natch).
Please inform Mark Ellen
that "ram'n'spesh" is still very much a current favourite in Youngs pubs. And my own personal top tipple.
It is made from a bottle of Youngs Ramrod Strong Ale (I prefer mine chilled from the fridge)and topped up with their Special Premium Ale.
Very good, particularly in winter, and really quite strong.
When I used to live oop north, favourite tipple in my late teens was either Mild (which is going the way of the dodo) or, if I was feeling particularly outre, a pint of Mixed - half mild, half bitter.Cocktail society indeed.
And this feels a good point to open the discussion out further to old and odd pub snacks. I was in Iowa in the States recently and behind the bar they served Pickled Turkey Gizzards. They were rather nice, actually, and in the tradition of pickled onions and eggs which grace the best English pubs but wasted on the American beer - would have worked a treat with a pint of Ram'n'Spesh.
i miss Youngs pubs...
i remember a very understanding barmaid down the White Cross in Richmond. One Friday, suitably refreshed, I asked for a pint of Wanklespank.
Bless her, she didn't have me chucked out, but gave a knowing smile and handed over a Waggledance, which was a truly lovely ale. I love living in Ireland. The Guinness down in my local is wonderful, but I do miss the array of ales that there are in the UK. We have bog all in the line of cask ales at all here; you folk should cherish what you have, although I suspect it's a losing battle, is it?
And a near relation of the Warmer shandy
Which was Ramrod and Winter Warmer, which if my memory serves me well, is bottled Ramrod and draught Ramrod, appearing only at winter, when the energetic activity of copious vomiting was the only way to keep warm when I was at Uni.
I have never seen draught Ramrod
They do a Winter Warmer beer in, funnily enough, the winter and I guess it was a mix of this and a bottle of Ramrod you were drinking.I am going to the pub tomorrow & I will try a pint of Ram'n'Warmer - and report back!
Sounds good and potent and tasty.
Sorry, I misexplained........
I think the bottled equivalent of Youngs Winter Warmer is Ramrod. I seem so being told at a Shareholders meeting I went to in 1978. 5 shares were required, it was held in Wandsworth Town Hall, and there was some difficulty evacuating the premises afterward, due to the number of thirsts well slaked.
did you get free beer at the agm?
do you still?
I haven't been since that fateful day........
Free beer? Lashings, together with free wine from the importer that John Young had bought that year. Free sauage rolls and canapes too, to, fail to soak it all up. Police were called, largely inneffectually, as many of those supping were Policeman, and those who weren't were medical students.I still have the 5 shares tho', but have changed address so many times since that time, if still eligible for invitation, it has long since lost me.....
Shame.
Or is it relief?
Youngs Brewery
As a teenager, I signed up for a tour of the Youngs Wandsworth brewery through my work back in the 1980s. At the end of it, they left us in the tasting area and apologised for the fact that we could "only" have an hour in there. We were encouraged to help ourselves to as much beer as we liked and left us to it. After an initial 5 minutes of polite, controlled tasting, glances were exchanged and then we started to really rip into it. Most of us did not return to work that day - and those that did so were too bum-faced to be of any use.
I tried it last night. Very nice too.
Splitting head and dehydrated tongue this morning.
Job well done.
Surprised to see no mention of the 'Chinese'...
...a curious tipple once popular on Merseyside, being half of lager and half of bitter in the same glass. Never really saw the point myself.
Also the 'Black Velvet' in its downmarket form, being a half of Guinness made up to a pint with Cider. Yummy.
And in the league table of 'no-longer-available-but-often-used-to-get-drunk-quickly-and-cheaply-when-in-early-teens', I give you 'Pomagne', a cider-ish fizzy sweet brew that fancied itself as a cheap Champagne substitute. For 14 year olds.
Thunderbird wine - the stronger fortified version
Of no merit other than cheapness and high alcoholic content, as in often used to get drunk quickly. Not sure if this is still available?
I've never seen Thunderbird in the UK.
I just assumed it was an American drink as in the song Talking Thunderbird Blues by Townes Van Zandt.
Who said Townes only did morose songs...hehe!
Thunder bird
"not even the w**kers on the sites drink" thunderbird. if memory serves came in 2 colours red and blue one was stronger/drier and deemed the one to get.
Ian Dury. Sweet Gene Vincent.
"shall I mourn your decline
with some thunderbird wine"
I used to drink this in my early 20's. Not pleasant but effective. Available usually in the scuzziest of offy's. I haven't seen it for years. Must have grown up.
Thunderbird - cheeky little aperitif
Half a pint of Thunderbird was the perfect warmer-upper to a night on the sauce at Bristol University in 1990/91.
Not that I remember a single thing about it.
You can't rise to a crescendo...
... as was said in the podcast. A crescendo IS a rise.
Otherwise it was great. Here endeth the pedantry.
Ooh, I bet....
Alexandra Burke can. She can fall to a rise.
Accidental tipple
Anyone else been threatened with ejection from a pub by accidentally making a snakebite? It was a Young's pub, mid-90s - the old haunt of Q magazine (may still be for all I know) - and I had drunk my pint of draft Young's Pils down to the halfway mark. I requested a half from whichever hack was getting them in. In the confusion of sharing the drinks out back at the table, I accidentally picked up half a pint of cider and gaily poured it into my lager. The eagle-eyed landlord spotted this and informed me that his pub did not serve snakebite and that if I persisted in making it myself I would be barred. My pleas of "It was an accident!" cut little ice. I was about 30 at the time, approximately 13 years too old for snakebite.
I once knew a gent...
...whose saliva contained an enzyme that actually turned cider cloudy. Many establishments barred him for surreptitious snakebite manufacture. Oft times he had to prove his innocence by taking one sip from an especially procured half, while bar staff and interested punters stood around as the drink went cloudy. Very strange.
Can't remember his name, but I seem to recall he was Canadian.
Funnily enough...
Funnily enough, but Mark Kermode tells the same story in this week's Mayo and Kermode podcast. Were you with him at the time, Andrew?
Montreal Curry Houses ...
... still serve pints of Double Diamond. Perfect accompaniment to a Chicken Jalfrezi.
Errrmmm...
John Lennon single handedly invented punk rock?
I like Lennon, but try comparing "Run for Your Life" with "My Generation".
Or
You Really Got Me, a year earlier.