The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

There was certainly one (Chinese Restaurant) in Romford about 1967 -1968. That was where my eccentric Uncle took us. It was near the station (in Victoria Road, if memory serves)

There were certainly Indian a ChinesecTakeaways in Huddersfiel in 72.  However one rid notbquestion quite which mammal supplied the meat in Chiefy's curries on Bradford Road.  Therecwascalso a chinese in Hounsliw in 71 as well asca very early KFC.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

27 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Ok I'll bite. If that's stumpy what's the other one called?

Lucky

[BoD]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I'm currently trying to deal with various utility companies about Dad's house being empty. I say trying because none of them appears to employ enough people to answer phone calls - "We are experiencing higher than usual........." A rough translation I suppose would be, "We can't be ar*ed to employ enough people as we are a bunch of money grabbing, tight fisted barstewards so you'll have to wait ages while we play this cr*p music.

 

Is this a rant?

 

Yes

 

Dave 

Check to see if the particular companies you are dealing with have a bereavement department.  When I dealt with them when mum passed away in January there was a separate number to phone and the people at the other end were both sympathetic and efficient.

[Tony_S]

45 minutes ago, BoD said:

Check to see if the particular companies you are dealing with have a bereavement department.  When I dealt with them when mum passed away in January there was a separate number to phone and the people at the other end were both sympathetic and efficient.

Also if the company has a Twitter page, leave a message there. Seem to be more effective than phone or email recently. However getting a number for bereavement dept is best. Unless of course you are dealing with a company that my brother had to deal with. That ex building society’s bereavement dept told him (granted probate) they needed to speak to the account holder. Brother asked phone lady if it was her first day in that department? She said he was being insulting and he asked to speak to her line manager. She said he was very busy. Brother said he wasn’t surprised. 
Tony

[J. S. Bach]

9 hours ago, polybear said:

 

No....

 

I think that you copied the image;

not the link: https://smileyshack.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ssad_100-107.gif

 

Use the "copy link" choice after right-clicking on the image.

 

 

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

One thing I have never got about Anglo-Indian food is why vada/vadai aren't popular in Britain. Vada are basically Indian savoury donuts, served hot and crispy, some of them can have quite a kick. There's a stall in the MRT station for my office that does brilliant vada, 3 pieces for $2, always hot and crispy and come with fresh chillies which simulate the temperature of the inside of the sun, not for the faint hearted but nice!

Most of the Indian restaurants in England are Bangladeshi. Vada seem to be South Indian so unless you find a South Indian restaurant (we went to one years ago in Finchley) they aren’t likely to appear. We found on our cruises that the Indian component of the “Pan-Asian” restaurant was very South Indian. Except for our trip round the Baltic where the kitchen produced a lot of North Indian items. 
On one of the cruises we had opted to have the Indian lunch. This was in a restaurant where you could see the cooks producing the food. We were chatting with the restaurant manager and she was actually an Asian languages graduate from the Philippines but was also learning Hindi to be able to cope with “kitchen Hindi”.  My wife mentioned that Punjabi and Hindi were the languages she spoke as a child. The waiter later said that the chef had told the kitchen staff to mind their language as there was an Indian lady having lunch. Aditi said he needn’t worry, she didn’t know any rude words. 
We will be having Indian food tonight but it won’t be like anything, except for naan, like that served at local Indian restaurants. 
Tony

[polybear]

25 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

 

I think that you copied the image;

not the link: https://smileyshack.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ssad_100-107.gif

 

Use the "copy link" choice after right-clicking on the image.

 

 

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope...

 

Nope....

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope....

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope...

 

😭

 

[Happy Hippo]

[Dave Hunt]

All this talk about cuisines various is making me hungry. Although my teenage years were in the early/mid 1960s I don't honestly remember the food in UK being dire; I was lucky, though, as my Mum was a good cook, we had a really good chippy nearby, and the restaurants I remember going to seemed to serve tasty fare. OK, we had quite a lot of meat and two veg type meals but we also used to have a fair amount of seafood as well as things like spag bol, Chinese dishes various and even Indian grub (as a matter of interest the first Indian restaurant in Britain opened in 1810 in London). I spent most of my time between 1968 and 1980 in Singapore, Netherlands and Germany with trips to Malaya Hong Kong, the  Phillipines and most of the rest of Europe. During that time my culinary horizons broadened quite a lot but whenever I returned to UK it seemed that the standard of cuisine was at least acceptable and there was increasing evidence of overseas influence. Working in California from 1983 to 1986 obviously brought with it American and Tex-Mex experience, some good, some not so good, then being on loan to the Italian Airforce in the mid-90s opened my eyes to what proper Italian food was like - again some good, some not so. Hence my tastes in food have had many influences over the years but I still maintain that there is really not a lot wrong with 'traditional ' UK food providing it is cooked properly and that the commonly held belief that before some arbitrary date in the closing years of the 20th century we all lived on stodge and overcooked mush is just plain wrong.

 

Dave

Edited July 18, 2022 by Dave Hunt

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, BoD said:

Check to see if the particular companies you are dealing with have a bereavement department.  When I dealt with them when mum passed away in January there was a separate number to phone and the people at the other end were both sympathetic and efficient.

 

I agree that the bereavement departments, once I got to speak to someone there, were very helpful, sympathetic and efficient. It was just the hideously drawn out process of finding out what their numbers were (none of the companies I contacted advertised the dedicated numbers) and getting through to them that was the ba**s aching bit.

 

Dave

Edited July 18, 2022 by Dave Hunt

[Dave Hunt]

Welsh rugby. Never the same since they dropped Charlie Faulkner.

 

(retires behind blast wall to wait for incoming)

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

4 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

All this talk about cuisines various is making me hungry. Although my teenage years were in the early/mid 1960s I don't honestly remember the food in UK being dire; I was lucky, though, as my Mum was a good cook, we had a really good chippy nearby, and the restaurants I remember going to seemed to serve tasty fare. OK, we had quite a lot of meat and two veg type meals but we also used to have a fair amount of seafood as well as things like spag bol, Chinese dishes various and even Indian grub (as a matter of interest the first Indian restaurant in Britain opened in 1810 in London). I spent most of my time between 1968 and 1980 in Singapore, Netherlands and Germany with trips to Malaya Hong Kong, the  Phillipines and most of the rest of Europe. During that time my culinary horizons broadened quite a lot and but whenever I returned to UK it seemed that the standard of cuisine was at least acceptable and there was increasing evidence of overseas influence. Working in California from 1983 to 1986 obviously brought with it American and Tex-Mex experience, some good, some not so good, then being on loan to the Italian Airforce in the mid-90s opened my eyes to what proper Italian food was like - again some good, some not so. Hence my tastes in food have had many influences over the years but I still maintain that there is really not a lot wrong with 'traditional ' UK food providing it is cooked properly and that the commonly held belief that before some arbitrary date in the closing years of the 20th century we all lived on stodge and overcooked mush is just plain wrong.

 

Dave

 

Quite agree with that Mr Hunt.

 

I think the assumption is made that because we didn't have all the different types of food then then our food and diet was poor.

 

It's a simplification again. It's either black or white when  actually it was grey.

[J. S. Bach]

26 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope...

 

Nope....

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope....

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

Nope...

 

😭

 

Use this link:

 

https://smileyshack.wordpress.com/

 

Here is a screenshot of the main page:

 

 

Here is another screenshot of one of the smiley selections:

 

My favorite from that page:

 

this is what shows up when I paste the link into my post:

 

 

NB: There may be some smileys listed that are not animated.

[iL Dottore]

46 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I still maintain that there is really not a lot wrong with 'traditional ' UK food providing it is cooked properly..

As a foodie/amateur chef I have very much been a proselytiser for British food. And I have constantly amazed my Swiss friends when they have come to dine and have been served a British dish or two. Often the reaction is “is this really a British dish? It taste so good“

 

As I see it, the drawbacks with British cuisine are the following: it really does need high quality ingredients – in British cuisine there is quite literally no place to hide substandard ingredients (unlike a certain country - south east of Britain and north-west of Switzerland – that has a load of sauces for camouflage, n’est ce pas); plus many British dishes are not very forgiving and often challenging to cook  perfectly. A classic English cheese, onion and tomato tart is hard to get just right –  for one thing  making the pastry shell so it is not too thick or too thin, overbaked, underbaked or with a soggy bottom can be quite a challenge (but there are also many British dishes which are very forgiving and are ideal to serve to friends who have only the haziest notions of punctuality – a good steak and kidney pudding being a great example)

Britain, a bit like Switzerland, is very good at hiding local specialities. Unfortunately, the rise of the chain supermarket has meant that many wonderful, local, dishes get overlooked and sometimes all but forgotten (both here in CH and in Blighty). For example It wasn’t until Mrs iD bought her flat in the Obergoms and we started  to go to small village shops that we found out about Cholera (the local pasty like dish, not the disease) -  which is made by a small local company and not shipped beyond the local area.

46 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

before some arbitrary date in the closing years of the 20th century we all lived on stodge and overcooked mush is just plain wrong.

You have obviously not eaten at my grandmother’s house….

[polybear]

Copy image link:

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

 

Copy link:

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

 

 

But if I do a "Copy image link" and paste it into a Firefox Address Bar (I'm using Edge), copy it again from the F/F address bar then paste it into the RMWeb page (that's open in Edge) it works.  Must be an Edge thing maybe?

 

 

Which means....

Bear has his  back!!

 

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

55 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Welsh rugby. Never the same since they dropped Charlie Faulkner.

 

(retires behind blast wall to wait for incoming)

 

Dave

You'll wait a long time. I sometimes think the selectors are somewhat blinkered in their vision.  The same can be said about selecting coaching staff.

[Erichill16]

6 minutes ago, polybear said:

Copy image link:

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

 

Copy link:

 

Smiley Shack: Image (wordpress.com)

 

 

But if I do a "Copy image link" and paste it into a Firefox Address Bar (I'm using Edge), copy it again from the F/F address bar then paste it into the RMWeb page (that's open in Edge) it works.  Must be an Edge thing maybe?

 

 

Which means....

Bear has his  back!!

 

 

 

 

I thought the emoji was just a happy smiley character but I can see it’s much more sinister.

[iL Dottore]

Worth a try

[iL Dottore]

Yep, it worked

[PhilJ W]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

There was certainly one (Chinese Restaurant) in Romford about 1967 -1968. That was where my eccentric Uncle took us. It was near the station (in Victoria Road, if memory serves)

There were several Indian and Chinese restaurants in Romford in the 1960's and some of them were very good. One in particular just off of the High Street had a very good reputation, I went in there to be told all the tables were taken quite often. Sadly the premises they occupied were scheduled for and demolished about 1971 and they moved to Gidea Park. Apparently Indian restaurants have been part of British life for a very long time, since 1810.

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-British-Curry/#:~:text=Excerpt from 'The Art of,Street near Portman Square%2C Mayfair.

 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Yep, it worked

 

Now see what you've been and gone and done JSB - iD's gonna be doggie walkin' all over TNM and ER'ers.  Next thing we'll know is the place is gonna be covered in steamers...

 

[Erichill16]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Now see what you've been and gone and done JSB - iD's gonna be doggie walkin' all over TNM and ER'ers.  Next thing we'll know is the place is gonna be covered in steamers...

 

Isn’t there enough of that stuff on these pages anyway?

Edited July 18, 2022 by Erichill16
Spelling

[newbryford]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

Heatwave related.

Some may have already seen this:

 

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

You have obviously not eaten at my grandmother’s house….

 

I rest my case.

 

A good example was my grandfather nipping up to my mum's in order to raid the fridge because she was a better cook than his wife.

 

I think what has changed, along with the variety and quality of cuisine, is that people are no longer able to pass of stodge as being acceptable. What is disappointing though is that is that they still try.

[simontaylor484]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

It reminds me of a joke involving Iraqis found in his pool but its not for publication