audere_est_facere

Those post codes are also those most likely to be under three feet of rainwater.

It's grim up north.

flanneruk

Three feet of rainwater?

The July floods abated in the Magic Triangle within 24 hours of the rain falling. Even the elements know better than to mess with us.

The North, as far as we're concerned, is anywhere north, south, east or west of the triangle. Or, as we say of Hampshire, down north.

audere_est_facere

I'm glad to hear that the Cotswolds garagistes are no longer damp. However all i will say is that Jeremy Clarkson lives in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds up north - where it's grim.

sashh

<<Only for the oikiest and most socially isolated Londoners. The three postcodes nominated by last month's Tatler as Britain's poshest and most desirable - GL7 (Faringdon), GL56 (Daylesford) and OX7 (Charlbury) - are all north of Watford.>>

By less than one degree latitude

flanneruk

Birmingham (not to mention Bedworth which is the ultimate in grim post-industria) are both less than a degree north of London. Amazing how quickly you can get into grimmery here.

And, yes, Clarkson does live in OX7. Which goes to show how posh everyone else must be, with a drawback like that to overcome.

markrosy

flanner

Lewisham is 0 dgerees 0.01 minutes south of London - enough said.

alya

Flanner – I’m not sure what they use to fry the fish but they do have a huge sign with blurb about no trans fat. Perhaps they still use beef dripping – the original owners were from Yorkshire

Isn’t that fishcake better than the fish and potato mashed together and covered in breadcrumbs?
Weymouth? Did you visit Harry Ramsdens? Too many years ago to mention, my DH and myself would have Sunday lunch at the Guiseley branch – this was so long ago that it was their only chippie, we never ate in the restaurant. We always ate outside or in the car if it was raining – sad but true

I agree with sashhs comment that when we bought F&C in the south we always found the skin left on; hmm… that’s wasting half of the batter It really wasn’t a problem since we travelled back to Yorkshire to visit grandparents so often that we really didn’t miss buying them in Middx or Hampshire. It just became part of the tradition.

Audere – no Wallys but I can get quahogs

caroline_edinburgh, MA is Massachusetts and RI is Rhode Island – we actually have to leave our home state and drive into RI to buy these F&C, thankfully it’s only a 15 minute drive and we don’t need our passports .

Our local stores do have ‘international’ aisles so, mushy peas are easy to find but cost $2.69 and Heinz baked beans cost $1.50. I try to find local food that I can eat but these two canned foods??? I’m not willing to compromise on and the main reason is that most baked beans in my local store have pork as an ingredient, you can’t find it but apparently it’s there.

Just don’t start me on the question of good bread

MissPrism
“It offered "freshly caught fish and chips".
I do like my chips freshly caught.”
It was a Thursday and low season, but the place was packed inside and out.

I loved the chip comment, I suppose if the wait is long they can blame it on the amount of time it has taken to catch a potato - The strange thing about this restaurant is that while the place is heaving on Fridays they close at 7:30, this seems to be the latest that they open, they don't open on a Sunday at all. It’s a wonderful place to ‘people watch’. Most people do take out even though they have a huge dining area.

All I can say is that if you like them there is NOTHING like the smell of a F&C shop – this is one of the reasons I love this take out in the US. Sometimes I just want a fish butty and the smell as I approach the restaurant makes me even hungrier.

I have to go now to read the York report – Loving this

caroline_edinburgh

Hi alya, thanks for the info. That's amazing, that you can get tinned mushy peas at local shops - I say this as it's not always easy to get them at the shops here !

Chris_England

As a rule of thumb: the North is anywhere it is common to hear "Aye" instead of "Yes". Before the Midlands was invented, the north started when you crossed the Trent, but since the Midlands came along, the "boundary has moved further north.

Officially, "Yorkshire and the Humber" and the "North West" are the eastern and western regions where the North starts.

Sheffield (where I live) and Manchester (where I comes from) are not all that far north geographically, but being in Lancashire (traditionally) and Yorkshire respectively, they are definitely in the North (ie you would not make friends there referring to them as "the midlands" as many US guide books do).

Of course, people from Newcastle (the proper one) say that anywhere south of the Tyne is The South. But Geordies are just fifth-column Scots, so what do they know?.

fnarf999

Scarborough is delayed. I hit the wrong key and wiped out two hours of writing. I'll have to recreate it.

fnarf999

Scarborough

I was crestfallen to find no parsley, no sage, no rosemary or thyme in this
seaside town, on the opposite side of England from Blackpool (in more ways than
one).

However, I picked my crest up and soldiered on. This was just a day trip; I
know we didn't do York justice, or Scarborough, but I'm a ramblin' man. Actually
I think it was Nancy's idea to come here; I was plumping for Whitby, but it was
too far on the train.

Scarborough has a perfectly pleasant market street running down the center, as
do so many English cities. Is Scarborough a city? The word doesn't have any
official meaning in the United States, but here it does. Town, city, it doesn't
matter; they still have a High Street, with a Debenhams and a Bhs and a M & S
(who mysteriously seem to have dropped the arks and the pencer from their name),
instead of the huge gaping maw of Wal-Mart in 100,000 square feet out on the
highway.

I stopped in a quite good bookstore in the pedestrian center and loaded up my
day bag with heavy books. It's important to get this done early in the day, in
preparation for a long day trudging up and down cliffs. I was able to pick up
several interesting volumes of photographs of the coal mines of Yorkshire, which
will help with my wife's chronic insomnia.

We then headed towards the sea. The center of Scarborough is at the top of a
high cliff over the sea. The prospect at the top is stunning: the broad ocean,
the curving beach, the boats bobbing in the adorable inner harbor, the pretty
buildings along the promenade, the beautiful manicured gardens leading down the
face of the cliff, and the looming, preposterous hulk of the Grand Hotel,
perhaps the Victorian era's most impressive decorated cake, sitting at the top.

There's some sort of tram running down that the guidebook recommends, but we
walked down through the gardens, at each step getting closer to the seaside
action, which just got prettier as we went. What a chocolate box! Scarborough is
Great Britain's oldest seaside resort. 250 years ago, the gentry came here not
to swim in the water but to drink it. Supposed to be good for the digestion or
something. I've swallowed enough mouthfuls by accident in other oceans to know I
didn't want to here, but the beach was very tempting.

The tourist shops and restaurants along the front aren't necessarily better
quality than Blackpool's; it must be the people. We didn't see the trackies or
the "ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound sack" that you get on the other
coast. Don't get me wrong; I loved Blackpool. But Scarborough is just nicer.

We went straight to the chrome and formica glory that is Alonzi's Harbour Bar.
It was closed. They have an unfortunate newish sign that might have been
designed with a computer, but inside it's the original 1950s apotheosis of the
milk bar. We couldn't sit inside, but we were happy to discover that the
streetside window was open.

I had a vanilla cone. I'm not ashamed to admit it; I love vanilla ice cream. Someday if you are very unlucky you will get to hear my drunken rant on the way computer and telephony people (and sex radicals) use the word "vanilla" to mean "plain", "boring", "featureless". Vanilla isn't plain; it's a flavor, the best and most penetrating flavor (aside from chili peppers, which you probably don't want in your ice cream).

But I have to say this: your soft ice cream (as opposed to the hard stuff) in England is <i>different</i>. It's much less sweet. It tastes like, um, how can I put this without giving offense? It tastes like our whipped cream. A bit...buttery.
I'm sure there are lots of English people who have traveled in the US and had the reciprocal shock at our version. It's not <i>bad</i>; I grew to like it. It's just different.

We ate fish and chips (before the ice cream; we're not <i>total</i> philistines) upstairs at The Fish Pan. I can't verify whether it was fried in drippings in the traditional Yorkshire way, but it was delicious. And the view was spectacular. Apparently The Fish Pan is former Top of the Pops presenter Jimmy Savile's favorite --

Hang on. Jimmy Savile is a KNIGHT? Not just an OBE -- JIMMY SAVILE is a KNIGHT?

I will never fully understand the British.

Scarborough's harbor is so picturesque, and out in front is that British icon, the cluster of pensioners frowning in various attitudes in their nylon jackets on the concrete benches, reading the paper, going nowhere in particular. Don't think I'm making fun; I just like seeing them there, like pigeons, enjoying the last of the summer sun.

We walked around the headland to the North Bay. Scarborough is a funny kind of peninsula, carved out between two bays, with little besides a narrow road and a promenade between the castle ruins atop the knob in the middle and the sea. The views to the north are spectacular.

At North Bay we found a road leading up the cliffside, and walked up it past that other British icon, the pensioners sitting reading the paper in their car, parked on the side of the road by the sea. Brits sure like their newspapers; I might too, if mine featured the same pulchritudinous photography.

At the top of the hill, we walked a few of Scarborough's back streets, full of peeling Victorian terrace houses in various states of repair. Gentrification hasn't struck here yet, but there are enough building vans and ladders around to suggest that it's about to.

We passed by St. Mary's Church, site of Anne Bront&euml;'s grave. Anne, writing under the name &quot;Acton Bell&quot;, was the prettiest but least-celebrated of the Bront&euml; sisters. Not being a Romantic, I was not moved to slash at my wrists and perish under the light of the full moon; but if you were a Goth you couldn't find a better place for it, with the leaning tombstones and the sweeping view down to the harbor.

At Scarborough Castle we decided to spend the money and be tourists for a change. First stop, the gift shop, where I loaded up on toy catapults and cartoon Viking figurines for the cow-orkers back home. Just as I was settling in for a good two or three hour souvenir hunt, Nancy dragged me away and towards the ruins.

If you're considering a visit to Scarborough Castle, your best bet is to consult a guidebook, not me. I can say that they are very old, very ruined, and very beautifully situated up on the high bluff. The ancient stones and acres of green grass seem to disappear into the sea at the edge. The original castle keep is perhaps a bit too well preserved -- the spotlessly clean stones seem to have been stripped of their story, transferred to the readerboards. The wall is quite interesting, and the well is very, very deep -- I admit it, I dropped a coin, and heard it ruffle some vegetation a couple of seconds later, and plonk in water a couple of seconds after that. I hope that offense doesn't interfere with my visa next time I visit. We also enjoyed the tea shop.

While we were finishing our tea, the wind was rising and the sun was getting low. We had a train to catch. We hustled through the town, past the old deco theater and some rough-looking pubs, and made it, barely, and rode back to York.

[The first draft of this was better, dang it! Bizarrely, while it doesn't show up when viewing the thread, a brief portion of it does when you click &quot;reply to this thread&quot;.]

Next: Liverpool

sashh

This post reminds me why I LOVE Scarborough.

fnarf - you have a real talent, I felt I was there, I could smell the fish and chips.

Maria_H

&quot;250 years ago, the gentry came here not to swim in the water but to drink it.&quot;

This is because Scarborough is a spa - it was the spring water that people came to drink, not the sea.

http://www.scarboroughspa.co.uk/abou...th_century.asp

caroline_edinburgh

More great reporting, fnarf ! Make sure to go to Whitby next time, though - it's one of my favourite places, much smaller and IMO much prettier than Scarborough. You will probably know that part of 'Dracula' is set there. It also has a legendary fidh'n'chips cafe, the Magpie.

Without wanting to spark off another round in the &quot;is gelato ice cream or not&quot; wars, I would mention that we get lots of different types of ice cream in Britain. There's mass-produced 'British' ice-cream (for want of any other name for it), both hard &amp; soft varieties - I agree the soft sort is disgusting &amp; I'm sure very few adults eat it. But we also have a lot of locally-produced ice cream, much of which is more like Italian ice cream (since it's often made by descendents of Italians, especially in Scotland and South Wales). Some is very good, some less good. We even have American ice cream !

I once saw a soft ice cream cone someone had bought from a van and dropped in the street - an hour later, it was still there, adding to my suspicion that it resembles shaving foam more than ice cream.

PatrickLondon

I hate to admit it, but there's likely to have been a fair dose of vegetable oil in there somewhere.

Chris_England

Thanks Mr Fnarf.

I'm really enjoying this. I recognised Scarborough exactly from your description - took me right back.

Agree totally about vanilla icecream , it IS a flavour, and the best one.

In Spain they distingush properly between vanilla and plain, by also having a flavour called &quot;nata&quot; - which just means &quot;cream&quot;.

Yes, SIR Jimmy Savile is a knight as well as an OBE. It's a shame they didn't make him an Earl, then he would have been an EarlObe (royalties to Eric Morecambe, or his writers, for that one!).

Lovely misplaced hyphen: I will refer to all my colleagues as Cow Orkers from now on.

The tram thingy is called either the Cliff Railway, or the Cliff Lift - I get a bit confused with the one at Lynton/Lynmouth. It is (I believe) a funicular railway, and has the wheels at the two ends at different heights, so the carriage stays level even though you are going up very steeply.

Oh, and DRINKING the sea water was part of the &quot;cure&quot; as well as bathing in it. But the best place to imbibe healthgiving liquids is now the &quot;Hole in the Wall&quot; a fantastic real ale pub.

More, More !

fnarf999

Yes, they really did drink the seawater.

My chronology is a bit off; it's closer to 400 years, since 1626, when a Mrs. Farrow started advertising her mineral spring on the beach to the fashionable set. It was a bit later that a Dr. Whittie from Hull got the idea to advertise the SEA water as well as the spa water. For drinking. As a cleansing tonic to, uh, empty out the system.

He also advertised sea swimming, probably the first time where members of the public did this in an organized fashion, not monks mortifying their flesh. People used to think that getting wet was the worst thing that could happen to you.

By the end of the 1600s Scarborough was a full-fledged resort. According to John Grundy in <i>Northern Pride</i>, &quot;for the first 100 years or so, through the 18th century, it seems to have gone on in the nude&quot;.

fnarf999

I wish I could take credit for &quot;cow orker&quot;, but I stole it from the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban, where it was in regular use by everybody fifteen years ago. Where they stole it, I have no idea; probably Douglas Adams.

fnarf999

Hmm, I see in the Jargon File (http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html) that &quot;cow orker&quot; has been traced as far back as a 1989 .sig -- eighteen years!

alya

Jimmy Savile! Don't talk to me about flipping Jimmy Savile!!!

We were driving in Bradford and his driver nearly sideswiped us while changing lanes needless to say (while braking to avoid an accident) my DH had his hand on the horn - What did JS do???


He waved! I think he thought we were fans

I was very unladylike and gave him a couple of the UK version of &quot;the bird&quot; when we sat beside him at a roundabout 5 minutes later - Made me feel better though

caroline_edinburgh

Cornish icecream - yummy! In St Ives one of the seafront icecream stores sells a Malteser version - wonderful!