The Night Mail

[rockershovel]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indeed, it's not a question of whether the actor looks anything like the historical person they are representing but whether their acting is good; do they effectively evoke the expression and feeling of the character, as envisioned by the dramatist. In Shakespeare's day people went to hear a play. (Stage lighting being rather primitive.)

another fence at which the black Anne Boleyn fell heavily....

[rockershovel]

16 hours ago, Willie Whizz said:

I read recently that the authentic Cockney accent is dying-out, even in the heart of the East End of London. You can suggest reasons why that might be; but what it does demonstrate is that Eastenders is in fact entirely correct and up-to date!

 

Some 40 years ago my job required me to share a Staff Room at lunchtimes with up to nine lady colleagues. They were (mostly) lovely, but the only topic discussed at these times was “what happened in last night’s soaps, and what comes next?”  If I wanted any conversation at all I had no alternative but to start watching them too. And after a while they did become curiously compelling …

 

Haven’t watched an episode of any of them in full for about 25 years though, and don’t feel the lack. 

The "authentic Cockney accent", whatever that might be, is long gone from London. 

 

Sam Weller's strangled phonetics have long since gone the way of "rhyming slang". Nor have I ever heard anyone say "Gor blimey, guvnor" despite being born within the sound of the proverbial bells. 

 

Alistair McGowan had a joke about Dot Cotton being Albert Steptoe in disguise, Wilfred Brambell being a jobbing actor of Irish origin....

 

The original cast mostly spoke the "Estuary English" then becoming common. Mike Reid and Barbara Windsor were about the only actual cockneys in the cast and the contrast could be quite jarring. 

 

Even the "Ja-fake-an" youth patois is now fading. Last time I visited my sometime home area, English no longer appeared to be spoken at all. 

 

 

There are still cockney speakers in the New Towns of East Anglia, where they migrated en masse in the 1960s and early 1970s but they are of pension age now. 

[rockershovel]

Re il Dottore, Saipem have long had a disgraceful reputation for their catering on board. I first encountered it in the early 80s in the Mediterranean (where they treated their mostly Portuguese crews abominably). 

 

Bearing in mind that actual mariners on board construction or drilling vessels are a minority of POB (persons on board), catering on these vessels is usually quite good. It's life's main pleasure, after all. 

 

I did a short contract on board a trawler out of Hull, a few years ago. The food largely consisted of potatoes, frozen veg, meat pie and fish but it was abundant and freshly cooked and I rather enjoyed it. 

[Happy Hippo]

9 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

I always relate Tamsin Greig with 'Black Books', the first series was genuinely hilarious.

Debbie Aldridge in the Archers was another character she played,as well as the long suffering wife Jackie, in Friday Night Dinner.

[TheQ]

Malvolio's, yellow stockings with cross gartering, is reference to Shakespeare's own coat of arms..

 

If you go to Thetford today you are no longer likely to hear cockney, you are much more likely to hear Portuguese.

[New Haven Neil]

7 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

other than MaK engines running on HFO and Ruston engines

 

May I add Crepelle to that list, please?

 

A more appropriately named engine is yet to be made, although my late father (C/E/O) would have added Paxman to the list!

[Oldddudders]

19 minutes ago, TheQ said:

If you go to Thetford today you are no longer likely to hear cockney, you are much more likely to hear Portuguese.

They get everywhere. Stopping in a small town in Luxembourg some years ago, the street-cafe we lunched at was owned by Portuguese.

[rockershovel]

17 hours ago, TheQ said:

Sadly UK military cooking has been outsourced, so the good food bases now serve crap food, and the crap food bases also serve crap food.

 

I remember a jaguar squadron came back to coltishall very unhappy,  a detachment trip to Italy when the men were mostly on compo rations.. Some comedian sent them with boxes and boxes of the daily ration box containing as the main meal....

 

 

 

Spaghetti in tomato sauce...

Compo ration, there's a blast from the past. 

 

In my CCF days, there was a superabundance of it. No camping trip or field day was complete without it. 

 

Cheese, processed; sausages, which came in a block of grease so that the tin required heating before attempting to extract them; blocks, oatmeal - which were great; hard biscuits which came packed in large tins like the ones used for poster paint in primary schools, best eaten fried in the grease left from the sausages;  bacon, streaky - otherwise known as "pyjamas"; a foul, salty,  shredded mass described as "ham and eggs"; sweets, boiled; milk, condensed.....

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I am melting here in Shanghai, I will be glad to get back to the pleasant cool of Singapore......

 

The seasonal swings in much of China are crazy, it veers from being in a furnace in summer to Arctic conditions in winter, similar to Japan. If given a choice visit in spring or autumn. 

We are lucky on this side of Eurasia to have the Gulf Stream.

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

There are still cockney speakers in the New Towns of East Anglia, where they migrated en masse in the 1960s and early 1970s but they are of pension age now. 

Not many of them around either nowadays but here in Basildon being not that far from rural Essex you are just as likely to hear an Essex accent. Being Essex born and bred I slip into the Essex accent from time to time though my accent now is mostly Estuary English which is a mix of Cockney and Essex. 

Edited August 16 by PhilJ W

[Hroth]

16 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

We are lucky on this side of Eurasia to have the Gulf Stream.

 

Wait until global warming switches the gulf stream off, then the British Isles and other northern European countries with an "Atlantic" coastal exposure will suddenly end up with a Canadian climate...

 

Brrrrrr!!!

 

[petethemole]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Compo ration, there's a blast from the past. 

 

In my CCF days, there was a superabundance of it. No camping trip or field day was complete without it. 

 

Cheese, processed; sausages, which came in a block of grease so that the tin required heating before attempting to extract them; blocks, oatmeal - which were great; hard biscuits which came packed in large tins like the ones used for poster paint in primary schools, best eaten fried in the grease left from the sausages;  bacon, streaky - otherwise known as "pyjamas"; a foul, salty,  shredded mass described as "ham and eggs"; sweets, boiled; milk, condensed.....

 

1963, CCF camp at Longmoor, aged 15.  On an overnight exercise I received a tin full of Fruit Gums, my favourite sweet at the time.  Imagine my disappointment at having to share it with the section.

[Happy Hippo]

On 03/07/2020 at 12:59, jamie92208 said:

No wonder you gave phobia problems if you like things from Swindon. Everyone knows that engines should be red not green

 

 

I think you are slightly mixed up!

 

It's a gentleman's appendage that should be red not green.

[Winslow Boy]

12 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think you are slightly mixed up!

 

It's a gentleman's appendage that should be red not green.

I take it you're speaking from experience there.

Edited August 16 by Winslow Boy

[Winslow Boy]

Just now, Winslow Boy said:

I taking you speaking from experience there.

 

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Wait until global warming switches the gulf stream off, then the British Isles and other northern European countries with an "Atlantic" coastal exposure will suddenly end up with a Canadian climate...

 

Brrrrrr!!!

 

At least we won't be complaining about it being too hot.

[Hroth]

13 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think you are slightly mixed up!

 

It's a gentleman's appendage that should be red not green.

 

Only if its been firmly trodden on... 😟

 

1 minute ago, Winslow Boy said:

I taking you speaking from experience there.

 

He must be... 🤔

 

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

I take it you're speaking from experience there.

About 8% of males have red green colour vision deficiency .

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

About 8% of males have red green colour vision deficiency .

 

I wonder what a Hippos visual characteristics are? 🤔

 

[Happy Hippo]

24 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I wonder what a Hippos visual characteristics are? 🤔

 

Complete characteristics:

 

Grey, short sighted and bad tempered.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think you are slightly mixed up!

 

It's a gentleman's appendage that should be red not green.

Bruised or abraded????

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Bruised or abraded????

Medium raw for me but more often than not cindered.

 

We are talking about our sirloin aren't we?

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Only if its been firmly trodden on... 😟

 

 

He must be... 🤔

 

Your not envious are you.

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Wait until global warming switches the gulf stream off, then the British Isles and other northern European countries with an "Atlantic" coastal exposure will suddenly end up with a Canadian climate...

 

Brrrrrr!!!

 

 

3 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

At least we won't be complaining about it being too hot.

It will be like it was before the 1960's

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

I wonder what a Hippos visual characteristics are? 🤔

 

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=210&t=1064552

[pH]

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Wait until global warming switches the gulf stream off, then the British Isles and other northern European countries with an "Atlantic" coastal exposure will suddenly end up with a Canadian climate...

 

Brrrrrr!!!

 

 

You may not have to wait too long:
 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests