Things Now Gone

[DaveH]

The art is mashing it in the teapot. I still use a teapot and I still say that you " mash" tea but hubby says

you mash potatoes not tea. He says you " brew " tea , I say you "brew " beer.

As you probably well know ukelele lady from your interest in pubs,

In brewing, -

MASH means to steep in hot / boiling water to extract juices and flavours

BREW means to ferment, this involves the action of yeast on sugars to break them down into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas

With that in mind, tea is not an alcoholic drink so it is wrong to speak of "brewing" a cup of tea or "making a brew" as yeast and alcohol don't come into it.

However tea is mashed (steeped in hot / boiling water to extract the flavour) so it is much more correct to "mash" a cup or pot of tea.

But how many people know that? ;-)

[DaveH]

He says tomatoes , I say tomartoes. . . .. . we know a song about that don't we?

We sure do ukelele lady.

"Let's call the whole thing off" by George and Ira Gershwin, from the 1937 film "Shall we Dance" in which it is performed brilliantly by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers while dancing on roller skates.

It was such a good song it has been covered by many great singers, - Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holliday, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra...

Things have come to a pretty pass,

Our romance is growing flat,

For you like this and the other

While I go for this and that.

Goodness knows what the end will be;

Oh, I don't know where I'm at...

It looks as if we two will never be one,

Something must be done.

You say eether and I say eyether,

You say neether and I say nyther;

Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,

Let's call the whole thing off!

You like potato and I like potahto,

You like tomato and I like tomahto;

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!

Let's call the whole thing off!

But oh! If we call the whole thing off,

Then we must part.

And oh! If we ever part,

Then that might break my heart!

So, if you like pajamas and I like pajahmas,

I'll wear pajamas and give up pajahmas.

For we know we need each other,

So we better call the calling off off.

Let's call the whole thing off!

You say laughter and I say lawfter,

You say after and I say awfter;

Laughter, lawfter, after, awfter,

Let's call the whole thing off!

You like vanilla and I like vanella,

You, sa's'parilla and I sa's'parella;

Vanilla, vanella, Choc'late, strawb'ry!

Let's call the whole thing off!

But oh! If we call the whole thing off,

Then we must part.

And oh! If we ever part,

Then that might break my heart!

So, if you go for oysters and I go for ersters

I'll order oysters and cancel the ersters.

For we know we need each other,

So we better call the calling off off!

Let's call the whole thing off

[DaveH]

Good grief - I've just remembered gas pokers for getting the coal fire started.

A thin metal tube with holes down it's length, attached by a length of rubber hose to a small gas tap at the side of the hearth.

Here's a tap - albeit a fancy Victorian one.

No valve, no armored hose, and just a push fit at both ends.

Scary

The gas poker always seemed such a pointless device to me.

If you had a gas supply in your house you could fit a nice convenient quick to operate, clean to run gas fire like the Cannon Gas Miser and not have to bother with coal at all.

All that slow warm up time to light it on cold winter mornings, constant stoking to keep it going and all that cleaning out of the ashpan and messy sweeping of the chimney all gone in a stroke with a gas fire.

We had to have a coal fire in the prefab as they were all electric with a fire hearth

But to have a gas supply in your house just to use it to light a coal fire with seems somewhat perverse.

[DaveH]

Reminds me - the Bunsen burners at school were just a push fit without any hose clips.

They still are vox.

I don't think the design of the Bunsen burner has changed since Bunsen invented it in 1861.

[madannie77]

Does anyone still use tea-cosies? remember those?

I also remember something like a teaspoon with holes in it and like a lid on it.

I can only guess these were used to scoop the teabags out and squeeze.

I could be wrong because we never had one but I remember seeing them.

Then there were the little set of " tools " that sat in the hearth.

A stand, sometimes brass with three hooks to hang the brush with long handle,

the little shovel, with long handle and what looked like forceps for picking up hot

coals I imaging. I suppose these did come in handy when something hot dropped

out of the open fire.

Years gone by the cat always got to lay in front of the fire [ but not if I beat him to it ]

and sometimes things would shoot out of the coal fire. Many times I recall mother shouting

" cat's on fire ". The smell was awful when it's fur was burning.

When the coals were spitting like this , she would always complain to the coalman telling

him it was a bad lot he delivered last time.

" Kid's today, they don't know they're born "

Several tea cosies in my house - my other half is a copious drinker of tea and always makes a large pot of tea which of course is kept hot by use of a tea cosy. We even have a couple of tea strainers for those occasions when leaf tea is used instead of tea bags

So important is the tea cosy in my house that a few years ago, when we went on holiday without one a Thinsulate woolly hat was pressed into use as a temporary fix . It worked a treat.

[DaveH]

Several tea cosies in my house - my other half is a copious drinker of tea and always makes a large pot of tea which of course is kept hot by use of a tea cosy. We even have a couple of tea strainers for those occasions when leaf tea is used instead of tea bags

So important is the tea cosy in my house that a few years ago, when we went on holiday without one a Thinsulate woolly hat was pressed into use as a temporary fix . It worked a treat.

Tea lovers only ever go on holiday in Britain and not abroad.

My wife drinks a lot of tea and if we go abroad she has to take enough tea with her to see her through the entire holiday as foreign tea is just not good enough.

In France "une tasse du the" is simply not as good as "a cup of tea"

Now, leaf tea in packets, marked up with real tea names and not just company names like PG tips, Typhoo and Ringtons, names like

Earl Grey, Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon

That's interesting, tea still comes from Ceylon and not Sri Lanka <_<

[DaveH]

We sure do ukelele lady.

"Let's call the whole thing off" by George and Ira Gershwin, from the 1937 film "Shall we Dance" in which it is performed brilliantly by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers while dancing on roller skates.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dskTypuEXoM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[ukelele lady]

That was great Dave, they don't make em like that anymore. lol

[DaveH]

That was great Dave, they don't make em like that anymore.

I take it you mean Fred and Ginger in the "Shall We Dance" video clip.

You are of course correct, they don't make em like that anymore, - unfortunately :(

[DaveH]

I think the proper name for these was a "companion set".

Usually, being made of metal, they contained 3 standard items which were

The small shovel, as some coal could be very dusty and the dust was black and messy a brush was frequently included as a 4th item

The coal tongs, which you called forceps. If made of bronze casting the ends were often shaped like hands

The poker, used to aeriate the fire and knock ash through the firegrate.

Likewise with the previous post, there was a dfinate art to maintaining a decent, clean, safe coal fire.

I noticed while I was out "shopping" with MrsH (actually we were in a large garden centre, not the one my wife works at, and she was "sizing up the competition" rather than buying) that you can still buy proper companion sets and fireguards to go with ELECTRIC fires, - the ones that look like an old fire stove and have that artificial "flame effect".

They are quite expensive at £30 to £50, certainly for an item that has no practical use with an electric fire.

[ukelele lady]

Just reading another post reminded me of little blue dolly bags, remember those?

I had one for years and years then I thought what the devil am I saving this for and

then I through it in the bin.

Do you remember those orange ones ? Yuk , why would anyone want yellow nets. B)

[DaveH]

Just reading another post reminded me of little blue dolly bags, remember those?

I had one for years and years then I thought what the devil am I saving this for and

then I through it in the bin.

Do you remember those orange ones ? Yuk , why would anyone want yellow nets.

I'm sure I have discussed the "blue bag" somewhere else in another topic.

The blue bag contains essentially sodium carbonate (washing soda) to soften any hardness in the water and a blue dye which alters the colour of the washed material towards the blue end of the spectrum making a "yellowed" piece of white cloth appear "whiter than white"

Orange ones would certainly alter the colour balance unfavourably as you suggest.

[ukelele lady]

Can you remember when we used to have telephone party lines?

Some party huh . We had one in the early 70s and for 9 months I could hardly make a phone call . Every time I lifted the receiver

the other party had left it off the hook, whether this was done deliberately I don't know.

All I could hear was a clock ticking at the other end.

I reported this many times but nothing was done about it, I even asked who the " party " was so I could sort it out myself but

was told I wasn't allowed to know. In the end I told them to take the phone out because I was paying for something that I

could never use. Then hey presto I was given a line of my own.

Until I moved house.

So in the late 70s I once again had a party line. Who ever it was , was never off the phone .

By the early 80s we had our own line but can you imagine telling your kids this, they would never believe you , with all the mobiles

of today.

[vox]

Can you remember when we used to have telephone party lines?

We had one for a very brief time.

There was a button on top which you had to press before you could make a call.

Presumably this was to switch it from "them" to "you"

Mr 0742 will know.

[DaveH]

We had one for a very brief time.

There was a button on top which you had to press before you could make a call.

Presumably this was to switch it from "them" to "you"

Mr 0742 will know.

I'm sure Mr 0742 will know all about it vox, and that he'll reply when he gets back from his short holiday break.

My parents had a party line with their first phone, thought it was rubbish and quickly moved up to a private line.

That was in 1977.

[ukelele lady]

I'm sure Mr 0742 will know all about it vox, and that he'll reply when he gets back from his short holiday break.

My parents had a party line with their first phone, thought it was rubbish and quickly moved up to a private line.

That was in 1977.

There were some areas in the early days where you had no choice but to be on a shared line.

In fact I don't think anyone chose to be on a shared line , I know we didn't.

[Bayleaf]

We shared a party line with our neighbour when we moved to this house in 1973. There was a button on top to get a line, and there was a large earthing spike in the garden by the front door which we were advised to water in dry weather if it was a bad line!

We moved to a single line after number one son learned to toddle and kept removing the receiver and not putting it back properly, giving rise to complaints because our neighbour couldn't get a line!

[DaveH]

There were some areas in the early days where you had no choice but to be on a shared line.

In fact I don't think anyone chose to be on a shared line , I know we didn't.

I don't think they had a choice, that was just what they got.

When they complained that they could overhear the "other party's" private conversions just by picking the receiver up while they were on a call, and presumably the "other party" could do the same to us they were then offered a private line.

There was of course an associated large rise in the monthly line rental cost!

[DaveH]

... and there was a large earthing spike in the garden by the front door which we were advised to water in dry weather if it was a bad line!

We had one of those outside our front door at our present abode right up until we switched from BT to TeleWest (now Virgin Media) in 2001.

The BT engineer who closed our line on "switchover day" removed it and said that if we went back to BT for our phone service it wouldn't be needed anyway.

[ukelele lady]

Now here's a sticky one. Do you remember the sticky fly papers in a little cardboard roll?

They still sell them in the markets , I bought these about three years ago but they don't work like

the old ones. I bought some to take to a friends abode in Spain where there always seems to be

plenty of flies but the flies wouldn't land on them. It was as though they knew the dangers or are our

flies more intelligent today?

[DaveH]

... and the Tinywifelette told me it was a new recipe ... Arsenic and Lentil pie ...

[SteveHB]

What was this used for ?

(not the two pence, that's only there for scale)

[hilldweller]

What was this used for ?

(not the two pence, that's only there for scale)

I think that you've been codding us with that object. I'm off now to get a drink.

HD

PS

My grandma used to use one of them as a darning mushroom.

[SteveHB]

My grandma used to use one of them as a darning mushroom.

Strange thing is, this one was also kept in a sewing basket

[Stuart0742]

What was this used for ?

(not the two pence, that's only there for scale)

A magnetic pin holder