Great Western Coffee Shop

Due to a lot of disappointment with my very unacceptable spelling standards, I have declared them to be no longer fit for purpose.  I am pleased to learn of modern spell checkers; I have got one and it will be an ongoing process to invest time to meet with your aspirations. I note/understand your concerns and hopefully will meet with and equal the standards you yourself apply. Hopefully I will be able to ascertain that as I invest a lot of time into this, you will see a lot higher standard, but I specuate that we'll have much else to talk about and the occasional slip onwards will be acceptable.

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49137619)

Shouldn't Parliament repeal the european legislation banning use of imperial measurements first so as to allow the lowly paid M.P.'s to sell fruit and veg at their local fruit and veg market stall when performing their role as a market trader in their second jobs.

I bet his own wife can't go into her local supermarket and buy potatoes by the pound for his 'bangers and mash' or nutmeg by the ounce for grating onto his 'rice pudding'. Oh!, he hasn't abolished supermarkets yet but when he does his wife will have to go to their local greengrocers for the potatoes, the butchers for the sausages, the grocer for the rice and nutmeg. She'll have to find a milkman to deliver the family's daily milk supply in glass bottles and while shes at it, find a baker to deliver the daily bread, unwrapped, selected from a wicker basket carried on the arm of said baker.

The mans a ?@£$*%^.

I presume that means that about the only country stili using Imperial (?) measurements is USA. Presumably more American trains, and less Japanese? Hope everybody can remember the difference between Imperial and American pints etc.

Imperial pints are served at room temperature and typically contain around 4.7% alcohol. American pints are served ice cold, are much lighter in colour, and are somewhere around 3% ?

Presumably Jacob will demand to be paid his salary in guineas in a drawstring velvet money bag.

This forum would just not be the same without the rich seem of typos from grahame's fingers !

Please Grahame, "carry on as usual"  ;D

Point of order. The EU has never banned the use of imperial measurements in the UK. Metrication began in 1965 under Harold Wilson, eight years before the UK joined the EEC. It was a slow process that eventually led to the Weights & Measures Act 1985 - legislation wholly inacted by Westminster with zero input from Europe. That act was updated in 2000 to ban the pricing and weighing of loose goods solely in pounds and ounces. Dual pricing was, and still is, allowed.

Had the EU mandated the UK go metric then I don't think they would have let us continue using miles and pints. The truth is the EU has never interfered in the UK's slow conversion to metric.

Myanmar, Liberia and the USA are popularly considered to be the only non-metric countries, though Myanmar and Liberia have announced plans to go metric in recent years.

The USA uses 'US Customary' units, which are based on the Imperial system but differ in important ways - a US pint is 473.176473ml, whilst an Imperial pint was 568.26125ml. The US hundredweight is also smaller than its old Imperial equivalent, so whereas a short (US) ton is 907.185kg, an Imperial ton was similar to a tonne at 1016.047kg.

I would prefer Imperial pints to be served a LITTLE below room temperature, in a well designed public house this can be achieved by keeping the beer casks in a natural cool cellar. In more modern premises, a similar temperature may be achieved by MODERATE use of electric refrigeration.

BTW, I am not very keen on duvets either, dodgy foreign invention. Did not some notable person state that duvets, ice cold "beer" and the like,  "should be sent back to the continent where they belong"
No nation that uses duvets has ever won a major war.
The proper bedding for an Englishman is wool blankets.
Does the speaker in the house of lords sit upon a folded duvet ? no of course not! he sits upon the WOOLsack.

You just beat me to it...

This is exactly the sort of drivel that we have been fed for years beyond count, a goodly proportion of which by a journalist who now appears to have conned his way into no.10 Downing Street. Just a few examples of the carp (I think that's the right spelling...)  that we have been treated to in this country for years and years:

EU to ban traditional barometers
EU bans giving dog a bone
EU vote to ban porn
EU to ban diabetics from driving
EU bans dipping olive oil in restaurants
EU bans dipping olive oil in restaurants
EU proposals to ban all cars pre 92
EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration
EU wants to ban you from making your own investments.
MEP plans EU build ban on cars faster than 100mph
EU Plasma TV Ban
EU demands smacking ban in UK
Marmite to be banned by EU!
New EU law could effectively ban motorsport
cherished numbers to be banned?

Those are just a few I dug up this morning from another forum on which I used to contribute. There are plenty of others out there should you care to take a look.

And have you ever wondered why all these stories are written in the future tense ie. the EU is always "going" to ban something. And you ever wondered why the EU never seems to get around to actually banning it?

If more people did the outcome of a vote in June 2016 might have been rather different...

If anyone bans the use of beginning replies to questions with the word "so", I would have one subject less to rant about.

So what I don't understand is this: If we buy petrol by the litre, why do we measure fuel economy in miles per kilowatt-hour? Or am I getting befuddled again?

Ah - you might buy petrol by the litre, but I buy mine in multiples of 4.546 litres. It makes the calculation of miles per kwh much easier

I suppose JRM's chauffeur calculates consumption in leagues per bushel

Blankets will only get you so far - as I remember from the 50s, lying in bed on nights when there was ice in the inside of the windows, you needed to add a quilt - or eiderdown - or even a counterpane. All of which words, like duvet, show how closely linked bedding vocabulary (and maybe usage)  is in French and English.

Duvet in French means down (whether eider or other bird). It's actually cognate with down, from Old Norse dunn.

The object in French is a couette - meaning quilt. Again, these are the same word, from the Latin culcita. (And, if you go back far enough, feather quilts were used under as well as over the sleeper, to soften a straw mattress.)

Another old term for a quilted bedcover is courte pointe, literally short stitch. While it's tempting to see that as the origin (you pull a stitch tight through the quilt) it actually comes from the same source as couette.

Courtepointe meaning a bed quilt was copied by Mrs. Malaprop's Bedding Company as counterpane.

We use eiderdown, in a way that parallels duvet, to mean a bed quilt. In repayment for counterpane we gave the French that one as édredon.

I suspect the history of bed quilts may involve their use without blankets more often that you imagine. After all, the key innovation was just to add a washable loose cover, but sheets can be used instead. Of course the first duvets we had were called continental quilts, and seen as more Scandinavian than French - I suspect they only took them up in a big way around the time we did. So why the change in name, to a word that doesn't mean that anyway?

But as to why French and German pillows are such a silly shape ...

Nice to see one member of Boris's team leading from the front on tackling the real challenges to our nation, the world and civilization. Clearly a real man (person?) of vision and insight.............. ::)

OK OK I know its off topic, but martyjon's post this morning got me going, even if it was written tongue-in-cheek  ;D

I knew there was a list somewhere, and I've now found it. 20 years of fake EU headlines - if anyone believes even one of them they shouldn't be allowed out on their own, let alone have a vote:


    EC regulations to ban playgrounds – Daily Express
    Rolling acres outlawed by Brussels – The Telegraph
    EU to scrap British exams – Sunday Express
    Obscure EU law halting the sale of English oak seeds – Mail on Sunday
    EU may try to ban sweet and toy ads – The Times
    EU to tell British farmers what they can grow – Daily Mail
    EU ‘Bans Boozing’ – Daily Star
    Light ale to be forced to change its name by Eurocrats – Daily Mail
    EU fanatics to be forced to sing dire anthem about EU ‘Motherland’ – The Sun
    British apple trees facing chop by EU – The Times
    EC plan to ban noisy toys – Sunday People
    EU to ban bagpipes and trapeze artists – The Sun
    Children to be banned from blowing up balloons, under EU safety rules – Daily Telegraph
    Straight cucumbers – The Sun
    Curved bananas banned by Brussels bureaucrats – The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express
    Brussels bans barmaids from showing cleavage – The Sun, Daily Telegraph
    Rumpole’s wig to scrapped by EU – Mail on Sunday
    Church bells silenced by fear of EU law – Daily Telegraph
    Motorists to be charged to drive in city centres under EU plans – Daily Telegraph
    EU to stop binge drinking by slapping extra tax on our booze – The Sun
    Brandy butter to be renamed ‘brandy spreadable fat’ – The European
    British loaf of bread under threat from EU – Daily Mail
    Truckers face EU ban on fry-ups – The Sun
    EU to ban Union Flag from British meat packs – Daily Express
    EU seeks to outlaw 60 dog breeds – Europa News Agency
    Double-decker buses to be banned – Daily Telegraph
    EU bans eating competition cakes – Timesonline
    Now EU officials want control of your CANDLES – Daily Express
    21-gun salutes are just too loud, Brussels tells the Royal Artillery – Mail on Sunday
    Brussels threatens charity shops and car boot sales – Daily Mail
    Plot to axe British number plates for standardised EU design – Daily Express
    Women to be asked intimate details about sex lives in planned EU census – Daily Express
    British cheese faces extinction under EU rules – PA News
    EU meddlers ban kids on milk rounds – The Sun, The Telegraph
    British chocolate to be renamed ‘vegelate’ under EU rules – Daily Mail
    EU to ban church bells – Daily Telegraph
    British film producers warn of new EU threat to industry – The Independent
    Kilts to be branded womenswear by EU – Daily Record
    EU to ban double decker buses – Daily Mail
    Cod to be renamed ‘Gadus’ thanks to EU – Daily Mail
    Brussels to restrict drinking habits of Britain’s coffee lovers – Daily Express
    EU responsible for your hay fever – Daily Mail, The Times
    Condom dimensions to be harmonised – Independent on Sunday
    EU wants to BAN your photos of the London Eye – Daily Express
    Corgis to be banned by EU – Daily Mail
    EU forcing cows to wear nappies – Daily Mail
    Eurocrats to ban crayons and colouring pencils – The Sun
    Smoky bacon crisps face EU ban – Sunday Times
    EU outlaws teeth whitening products – Daily Mail
    Domain names – ‘.uk’ to be replaced by ‘.eu’ – Daily Mail
    Brussels to ban HGV drivers from wearing glasses – The Times
    New eggs cannot be called eggs – Daily Mail
    EU to ban selling eggs by the dozen – Daily Mail
    UK to be forced to adopt continental two pin plug – Daily Star, Daily Mail
    EU targets traditional Sunday roast – Sun on Sunday
    English Channel to be re-named ‘Anglo-French Pond’ – Daily Mail
    Brussels to force EU flag on England shirts – Daily Mail
    EU orders farmers to give toys to pigs – The Times
    Firemen’s poles outlawed by EU – Daily Mail
    Euro ban on food waste means swans cannot be fed – The Observer
    Noise regulations to force football goers to wear earplugs – The Sun
    Traditional Irish funeral under threat from EU – Daily Telegraph, The Times
    EU to ban high-heel shoes for hairdressers – Daily Express
    Commission to force fishermen to wear hairnets – Daily Telegraph
    Brussels to ban herbal cures – Daily Express
    Bureaucrats declare Britain is “not an island”– the Guardian
    EU bid to ban life sentences for murderers – Daily Express
    New EU map makes Kent part of France – Sunday Telegraph
    EU tells Welsh how to grow their leeks – The Times
    EU to ban lollipop ladies’ sticks – News of the World
    EU plot to rename Trafalgar Square & Waterloo station – Daily Express
    UK milk ‘pinta’ threatened by Brussels – The Sun
    EU bans ‘mince’ pies – Daily Mail
    Eurocrats say Santa must be a woman – The Sun
    Now EU crackpots demand gypsy MPs – Daily Express
    Brussels to outlaw mushy peas – The Sun, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times
    Brussels says shellfish must be given rest breaks on journeys – The Times
    Pets must be pressure cooked after death – Sunday Telegraph
    EU puts speed limit on children’s roundabouts – Daily Express
    2-for-1 bargains to be scrapped by EU – Daily Mirror
    EU madness: chat up bar girl and pub will be fined – Daily Star
    Queen to be forced to get her own tea by EU – The Sun
    EU tells women to hand in worn-out sex toys – The Sun
    British rhubarb to be straight – The Sun
    EU to ban rocking horses – The Sun
    Scotch whisky rebranded a dangerous chemical by EU – Daily Telegraph
    Brussels ban on pints of shandy – The Times
    “High up” signs to be put on mountains – BBC
    Euronotes cause impotence – Daily Mail
    EU to ban under 16-year-olds from using Facebook – Daily Mail
    Strawberries must be oval – The Sun
    EU orders swings to be pulled down – Daily Express
    Tea bags banned from being recycled – BBC
    British lav to be replaced with Euro-loo – The Sun
    Unwanted Valentine’s cards to be defined as sexual harrasment – Daily Telegraph
    Bosses to be told what colour carpets to buy by EU – Daily Star
    EU says British yoghurt to be renamed ‘Fermented Milk Pudding’ – Sunday Mirror
    EU to ban zipper trousers – The Sun

IIRC the EU DID ban British "port" requiring that Port should only come from certain specified regions in Portugal.
They did not ban manufacture or sale of the product, but it could no longer contain the word "port" on the label.
It is still sold, often described as "fortified British ruby wine"
OK for cooking, or as an ingredient of punch or similar mixed drinks, but a very poor substitute otherwise for the real Port.

A gentleman would confine any such port style wine to the kitchen. I doubt that Mr Jacob Rees Mogg even allows it in the kitchen.

Sadly, a healthy percentage of middle England does!

I remember being cold in bed in severe weather as a child, but this I blame on small, thin, and generally inadequate blankets. I have seldom been cold in bed once equipped with generously sized and thick wool blankets.
I was provided with an eiderdown as a child, but it waited until I was asleep before sliding off and hiding so as to trip me up in the night.
I have no central heating, and very little other heating apart from a wood burning stove in the living room.