The Dino-Aspie Cafe (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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pub named "Kippers and Spam"

roflmao

I had a dream once to walk Hadrian's wall, stop at every pub along the way and get to know the folks around those parts. Actually had the money to do it, not along ago. Now I sort of feel like, "if it ain't got an escalator, I ain't goin". That is a quote from an old bunky of mine in the army days. He was offered a commison to go to West Point, he didn't take it. One of the smartest guys I ever had the pleasure to meet.

Where do I start. Too many thoughts.

I've just been using Google Earth to try to figure out where my pub was. It was actually under where "The Grand Order of Water Rats" met. Look'em up.

I once overheard an American lady looking at a shop window in Oxford Street - saying "Gee. I do like that Wor'ses'ter'shire plate.

A friend of mine worked as a courier on coarch tours round London. He just had to comment when he overheard yet another American Lady say "Gee. I do like being here in England. They all speak English".

Kippers are medium smoked herring. Enogh to fully get the flavour of the smoke. Not enough to stop them being joyously moist. They must NOT be filleted. Getting the bones out from between you teeth afterward is an essential part of the experience.

How do you pronounce "Featherstonehaugh" and "Cholmondeley"? The town "Godmanchester" has an interesting (affected) pronunciation too.

I miss John - I read "A Spaniard in the Works" when he wrote it, and "In His Own Write". Things to go back to. I also miss Spike.

Oh. And on Google Earth, I looked for my Hampton Court tennis court, but it's gone. You can see a partially erased netball court. The tennis courts were to the south of that, not quite all the way down to the car park, I don't think, which wasn't there at the time. Inside Hampton Court, I don't know, but I suspect they still have a "Real Tennis Court". I nearly played that once in Cambridge. I did knock a ball round the court with a proper racket. A very strange game.

But that doesn't answer my questions. Never mind, you're too young

(Godmanchester can be just God'man'ches'ter or affected as Gum'ster)

OK. This takes a little while to set up.

I used to live in Port Isaac. A small fishing village on the north coast of Cornwall. Cliffs. Nice little harbour with a couple of sea walls to shelter it.

A short (one mile?) drive or (rather strenuous) walk up the hill and down the other side gets you to Port Gaverne (pronounced Gay-verne, not g'verne).

Both have fairly tiny beaches. Parking is limited. There's parking on the beach in both places. In Port Isaac you pay an attendant. As he lets people on the beach he tells them when the tide will be coming in, so they know when to move their car, or have it float out to sea (which happens, regularly, often to locals, who only have the excuse of being highly inebriated).

As an aside, there's a restaurant just up off the beach. One of the few you'll ever see where the owner puts up a sign at lunchtimes - "Closed for Lunch".

Back to the beach and cars... I was chatting to the attendant one day, just as he was packing up to go. I.e. the tide was on its way up, so nothing more for him to do, and I think all the cars had gone.

A car arrives. The woman in it wants to park on the beach. He points at the board that shows the tide is on its way up. He explains that it's not a good idea, unless she only wants to stay for 10 minutes.

She then rather grumpily says "In that case, I'll go and park on Port Gaverne beach. When is the high tide there?".

It's one of those evenings. Someone tell me to shut up.

Ah! The tin mines. My brother-in-law had a job, for a while, capping old Cornish tin mines.

England is a very "lived in" place. Cornwall is riddled with holes in the ground. Played out tine mines that never got onto maps. Just covered over with a log or two, the odd century ago. People disappear... down them.

Some friends in Port Isaac were rearranging a sort of "patio" area at the back of their cottage. In the process they decided to move a slab of slate that they have been walking back and forth over for years.

It was a thin slab. It covered a 20 foot deep well that they hadn't know anything about.

Tin mines??
I thought it was hysterical!

An American GI was in Europe, trying to get home after the war. He had just boarded the train and was looking for a seat, however, the car was full. He finally saw an empty seat towards the other end. As he approached the seat, however, he noticed that a poodle was occupying the seat. He asked the lady in the next seat "Ma'am, can I please have this seat?" She just sniffed and looked out the window. The GI says, a little more loudly and clearly this time, "Ma'am, will you please move your dog so I can sit? I"ve been fighting this war and I'm very tired." But the lady refused to move her dog.

The GI picked up the poodle, and threw it out the window of the moving train.

An Englishman across the aisle said "You Americans can't do anything right. You drive on the wrong side of the road. You cut your meat with the wrong hand... and you threw the wrong b***h off the train".

LOL

Generally speaking, English sense of humour - dry.

But that doesn't answer my questions. Never mind, you're too young