thealmightyguru.freeforums.org

Hi Dean. I'm Ed. I'm an ex IT Geek turned Business Analyst. I wave my arms around a lot and use words like "synergistic" and "paradigm", without really knowing what they mean, and then charge people lots of money. I'm also very good at drawing pretty diagrams that look complicated, yet insightful, without actually having any meaning. It works for me!

I live in Portchester, which is a suburb of the delightful south coast city of Portsmouth. That’s in England. That’s Europe. Basically you get to New York and carry on in a roughly easterly direction until you hit something.

As I'm sure you know, in England every town, village and hamlet has its own castle, and Portchester is no exception. Check it out:

http://www.portchestercastle.co.uk/

Imagine the boffing that you could get up to in there! My god that’s a single entendre, never mind a double. How on earth do you ask someone to boff without sniggering? Would you ever say "...they deserve a damn good boffing"? If so how, without laughing hysterically? Obviously I've been twisted by all the Carry On... films I've watched over the years. Do you chaps watch Carry On... films?

I have been observing your site for some years now, and have even contributed to your Unusual City Names collection. I'm glad to see my contribution is still recorded, and am particularly proud of:

"Dummer, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom - (Dummer than what?)"

I have very much enjoyed observing your site. It's been a very interesting insight into aspects of the life of a relatively rational chap boffing (snigger), dancing and "geeking" his way through your society. I admire your commitment to your interests. I only say "relatively rational" as the obsession with game soundtracks is slightly worrying, and does smack slightly of psychosis (in the nicest "probably not going to attack the green smurf people from Venus" possible way) however each to their own.

I'm always baffled that my society seems to think, that Americans are basically English people with a funny accent and a penchant for invading other countries with large oil reserves, and for shooting our troops by mistake. This is obviously true, however there’s so much more to it than that, and your site is an interesting counterpoint to the bulk of the exposure we get here to US kulture. It's comforting to see that you are not all gun toting beer swilling bible bashing intern boffing election rigging celebrity obsessed good ole boys.

Keep up the obsessive behaviour and the boffing (he he he) and if you decide to try a Carry On... film then can I recommend Carry on Cleo. "Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me!"

Hello Ed, AKA PedanticLimeyBastard. I'm glad that your job works for you. As a member of the computer field I understand why people have to use words like "synergy" to get their point across to the laymen.

You're right, that place would be amazing to boffer in. Heh, yes I try to use the word "boffer" over "boff" to prevent such miscommunication.

I appreciate your contributions to my site and it's always more interesting to have a conversation with someone than to receive a simple one line email, so thanks for making it to the boards.

Yeah, I do have to admit that some of my projects seem a little... "unusual" to the less-than-fanatical, but I make no apologies. I like what I like.

And I'd say your assessment of our country is pretty accurate. Of course everyone here thinks that the English are a bunch of limp-wristed, gibberish-talking, crybabies who play girly sports while drinking tea because they don't have enough guns. Although, we do approve of your excessive use of nudity in film.

Of course, your violence rate is lower, your education rate is higher, and your pound is stronger... but our movies have -way- more explosions! So, I guess we know who the victor is overall.

Hi Dean

You guys definitely have explosions down to a fine art. However your movie industry would collapse for want of villans if it was not for the UK, so there! Why are we always the bad guys? Are you trying to tell us something? We are nice really. Honest.

Excessive nudity in English films? I must be watching the wrong films. I didn't realise it was possible to have excessive nudity? You should try Spanish public television - porn on after the early evening news. Most odd.

How's things in the US? Your Sub Prime mortgage crisis dominates our news at the moment - mostly because of it's potential to take out large chunks of the rest of the worlds banking systems if things get worse. Has it had an impact in your area? Any increases in places for sale, or knock on reductions in rental charges?

Gas is approaching £1 a litre here - 3.7 or thereabouts litres in a gallon - that's nearly $8 a gallon. Crazyness. Ho hum - it is at least driving the engineering industry, and hopefully when it hits $5 a gallon in the US it might get financially tempting enough for alternatives to be seriously considered.

Bio diesel (re-cycled cooking oil) is gaining popularity here - plus natural gas. Do you guys use these fuels?

Do you recycle? I have this mental picture of everything just getting dumped in landfills, which isnt founded on fact. We have weekly alternating trash collections - one week landfill, one week recycling. We are also encouraged to compost as much household waste as possible, and get discounted composters provided by local government. Theres also a move to encourage local energy production, with grants available for the instalation of home wind turbines, solar panels, etc.

It's interesting to me, as we in the UK could reduce our carbon emissions to zero but it wont make the least difference if you guys and places like China and India don't do some reducing too.

Apologies for going all serious on you - as I said your culture interests me, given the huge impact it has on the world, and I feel we miss large chunks of what you guys are really like from our news coverage. I guess it's not all "Bowling for Columbine", krispy kreme and MdDonalds and it may be possible that you are not all burger eating invasion monkeys.

Michigan? Don't you have armed militia survivealist anti UN new world order "black choppers are watching us" types hidding out in extremly well armed and fortified compounds in the hills? That must be comforting.

Are you still a pop aficionado? I can hertily recommend having a go at making your own. We made elder flower cordial this spring, add some to carbonated water - instant elder flower pop! Rather nice. The Elder is considered a weed tree here, not sure if you'll have it in the US. It mostly survives here in ancient hedgerows that have traditionaly been used as field boundarys.

Thanks for the welcome note and hope the weekend was fine and dandy. And apologies for all the questions.

Cheers

Ed

It's gotta be the accent that makes us vilify you. But don't feel too bad, we think all Europeans are evil. Seriously, I don't think I've ever once seen a Romania character as a "good guy". And let's not forget our love to hate the French.

I was referring to the difference between the way our censors handle nudity versus violence. Here graphic violence is just fine for toddlers, but a single nipple (even if it's for comedy, not erotica) and you have to be 18 to see it. From what I've seen of your movies and TV shows it's okay to have a grown man flash his bottom for a joke and still be okay to show to children.

Yeah, the housing market is in the gutter right now. I hear about it every morning on the radio. It doesn't really affect me because I live in an apartment and I don't have any loans, but a lot of people are losing their homes. That means there are plenty of houses on the market, but the banks have to drop the price so low that they lose a lot of money selling them. The Michigan economy is pretty bad right now, which means nobody has the money to buy houses, even at such discounted rates. But, there are other areas in the country that are still growing though.

$8 a gallon is just crazy. I paid $3.18 yesterday, which is a little above the national average. However, I have heard from economists that a gas price of around $5 a gallon for a prolonged period of time would actually strengthen the economy here because it would cut back on urban sprawl--which wastes a lot of money. As it is, bio-diesel and hybrid cars are still selling really low in my area. But you have to remember that I live in Michigan where the world headquarters for GM, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler all reside. We practically have crude oil running through our veins!

Recycling is fairly common over here depending on where you live. Most suburban areas have road-side recycling pickups, but when you get into the rural areas or the poorer communities it's more unheard of. But we are the most consuming nation in the world, so a lot of our trash does end up in the landfills. Of course, there is the debate since the dawn of the recycling movement as to whether it actually creates more pollution to recycle, but that's another thread. While I don't personally know of anyone who produces their own energy, I have heard about it on NPR that some people are into it, and that major power companies will credit your bills accordingly.

I have to admit that I also find the various European ways of life interesting as well. Every time I see pictures, or watch BBC programs it seems much more quaint and homey than the States and I approve of daily tea breaks over coffee breaks. However, there is something to be said for our consumer driven nation. At any time of the day (holiday's included) I can go and buy nearly anything I want. It's terribly convenient.

Yes, Michigan does have its self-proclaimed militia. They are survivalists and a bit paranoid, but not as much as they are made out to be by folks like Michael Moore. The two things people then to think about when they think of Michigan are the slums of Detroit and the rednecks. In reality, when you live here you find out that it's not that different from any other state. We have beautiful forest land, an amazing freshwater coastline, plenty of farm country, and several major cities. We're kind of in the middle when it comes to politics as well; we're more conservative than California and more liberal than Texas.

Of course I still adore pop (do they call it pop over there?). Making my own sounds fun. Would you be able to send me the recipe for making the syrup to add to the carbonated water? There are elder trees in North America, but I think they're quite different than the European ones.

Cheers,
Dean

Sadly, the automotive industry isn't trying to push non-gas running vehicles all that hard which keeps the prices high and adoption rates low. It has to do with their ties to the oil industry, I think. Well, between that and a lack of the general public really knowing and understanding the issue which, once again, has to do with the lobbies.

I actually saw some UK videos via my buddy who was checking them out. It seemed fresh since none of the faces looked familiar at all. And I'll tell you what, they didn't NEED explosions to rock my socks.

Hi Dean and chaps

Apologies for the delay in responding. Rushing a release out at work and general Yule preparations and stuff have all left me with little time till now.

Hope you had an acceptable Yule? I note a hint of cynicism regarding such periods from your site. I have no religious leanings but love the idea of a mid winter feast type festival, so that’s what I make my Yule. It works for me. Fill the mead cup, drain the barrel!


Elder Flower Cordial
Recipe stolen from a cook book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – in he UK he’s a kind of self sufficiency, organic, grow it yourself guru – obviously not in your league Dean when it comes to Guru-ness though! I had become somewhat disillusioned with the chap, as from relatively humble and attainable at home beginnings (not sure if you get it in the US, but he did a programme called “A Cook on the Wild Side” and “Escape to River Cottage”) he has now progressed to running rather a large business geared around his original principles, which kinda seems to defeat the whole object! However he is currently standing up for the poor chicken over here, trying to get people to buy free range or organic, rather than the poor sods raised intensively. So kudos to him for doing that. Rant over – back to recipe.

You need to pick your elderflowers away from a road or other source of pollution – they are a bit like sponges and really soak up any nasty stuff in their immediate area.

Also try and cut as close to the head as possible to avoid too much stalk – not sure if it affects the flavour, but lots of stalk makes the finished cordial greener – depends on whether you like green I guess? Is green a good place for a cordial to be? Might be good for St Paddy’s day?

20-30 freshly picked heads of elderflower
Zest of 2 lemons and 1 orange
Up to 1.5 kg of granulated sugar
Up to 200ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
Teaspoon of Tartaric acid (optional – but supposed to help it keep longer) I guess you may not have teaspoons?

We are kinda metric here now (just won a battle with the European Union to allow us to continue to sell vegetables by the pound! Whoo Hooo – that’s one in the eye for Johnny Foreigner and will teach them to try and mess with our courgettes!) However I’m sure your mighty intellect can handle conversion.

Shake insects off flowers, but don't wash them - it ruins the flavour, then place them in a large bowl with the lemon and orange zest. Pour over just enough boiled water to cover them completely (approx 1.5 - 2 litres). Cover and leave for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until cold.

Strain the liquid through muslin or a jelly bag, (we just put it through a sieve, and then a funnel lined with kitchen towel, as we don’t have a jelly bag or muslin – that seemed to work OK) gently squeezing to extract all the juice.

Measure the amount of liquid and pour it into a saucepan. To every 500ml liquid add 350g sugar and 50ml lemon juice.

Heat gently to dissolve all the sugar, stirring occasionally. Bring to a gentle simmer and skim off any scum. Scum. It always a word I like to see in a recipe.

Let the cordial cool, then strain it again through muslin or a jelly bag (see above).

Funnel the cordial into glass bottles and store in the fridge - will keep for 2-3 weeks.

Ours was good (went very well with soda water, ice, a slice of lemon and a good slug of Gin! Obviously not your cup of tea though) – we halved the amount of sugar which was more to my taste – however I now know how good sugar is as a preservative, as after a week or so we had this fantastic mould growing in the cordial – a beautiful vivid shade of blue! This year I will use the full mount of sugar (or perhaps just slightly less!) and just water it down more with Gin when drinking.

It apparently also freezes well so might try this option.

A quick look at wikipedia and it appears that you should get the Elder where you are – they have pictures to help you identify it. It’s hard to miss in spring time. Huge swathes of cream flowers and a marvellous scent.

How’s life?

Has Barack really got a hope? Again a screamingly stereotypical view but I just can’t imagine the American people voting a black American into the White House. Likewise a woman, unless the only other option were a black American of course. Sadly my views are tainted by films like Blazing Saddles. For President read Sherriff. Please tell me I’m wrong?

“quaint and homey”

Yes. We do quaint very well. I spent Yule in a rented 18thC cottage tucked away in rural Suffolk with my Missis and Ma and our pooches. Inglenook fireplace, wood burner, wood beams and a nice pub across the road. Walks with the pooches, too much food, good company. Twas good.

The cottage, as many “quaint “places are now, was a complete fabrication. It would originally have been cramped, pokey, and housed a family of ten. It’s been modelled to meet our current expectations of what a cottage should look like. However it was rather nice. I guess it’s just a case of buildings being amended over time to meet changing needs, wants and expectations. Our quaint view of what a cottage should be never really existed. My goodness. I’m in a cynical mood today!

I’m surprised at your teetotalness. Alcohol is so entrenched in our society. It’s a right a passage – the first tentative attempts to buy alcohol from an off licence (a shop which sells alcohol directly for consumption off the premises, as opposed to a pub, where it’s sold for consumption on the premises), the first time you manage to get served in a pub. These are all seminal moments in someone’s adolescence. We have sadly not managed to acquire the rather more healthy European approach to booze.

However my surprise is more geared around your medieval leanings. How can you play the part of a medieval, big puffy blouson shirt, boots and sword type ruffian, without the occasional bout of ale quaffing?

Beer is important to me. It’s kinda tied up with my identity, and gives me a sense of continuity. I can drink a good pint of real ale, something that’s still alive and which has a complex and beguiling complexity of flavour, and know that in essence it’s the same drink that was being consumed (possibly in the same place if I’m in a nice old pub) 100, 200 or 300 years ago. It’s all tied up with living here. England is like an old pair of boots. You know, when they get to that point where you’ve worn them just long enough for them to be ohhhh so comfortable, but they haven’t started falling apart yet. England has been lived in for so long that it’s just comfortable. It’s comforting. A Bronze Age burial was found in the hills above a village in Somerset. DNA was extracted and matched against the residents of the village. There were still people living there who were descended from the person who had been buried in a cave up on the hill over 2,000 years earlier. Every time something else happens here that disgusts me I think about moving somewhere else (Canada is my current possible escape target) I just baulk at the prospect of loosing that continuity.

Are you a “[insert country of origin of distant relation] American”, or are you fully assimilated now? Half my family are Irish and I spent an interesting summer with my uncle in Queens. It was fascinating to see how much apart some communities managed to be, whilst still being American. I wish we could manage he same trick. Integration, or lack of it, is a big issue here. I guess in time it will happen, however we are in for a bit of a rocky period before then.

Back to booze. I spent a month on the outskirts of Philadelphia. If you want to buy beer you have to buy a whole case of the stuff! I understand many laws are local to each state? If you wished to could you buy just a bottle of beer in Michigan?

Guns – they interest me as it’s virtually impossible to get your hands on one here and the forbidden is always intriguing. I was shocked to wander into a department store in New York and find that along with sections for home furnishings, menswear, and kitchen utensils there was a gun department! Seemed really odd. How easy is it for you to get your mitts on a shooter? There was a big debate while I was there on whether hunters should still be allowed to buy and use armour piercing bullets. I’m not sure what the wild life is like in the US? Has evolution rapidly sped up in response to hunting and are there now armour plated Mooses?

Roofing materials. Yes I am sad. We have tiles. Either ceramic, slate (on older houses) or concrete. What are shingles? (Other than an unpleasant adult variant of measles). I had a confusing discussion with a colleague in Philadelphia who seemed to be putting a new layer of shingles on over the top of an existing one? Is that normal? Was he touched by the crazy stick?

Back to housing. Home ownership is really pushed here as the way to go. I’m cynical and believe that the main reason is that most people have to borrow the enormous sum of money now required to buy even the humblest of abodes – and that this means that the major share holders of the major lending institutions make a bucket of cash out of the interest. It also means that we are all so very dependent on the lending rates, which gives our exchequer a fantastic way of controlling what we do with our money. Drop the interest rates and the good times roll and everyone spends their cash, raise them and we all have to sell a kidney to meet our increased mortgage repayments. Is it what everyone aims for in the US? Or is renting still seen as an OK thing to do long term?

Holidays? I’ve noted little mention on your site of time away. Not something you do? I’m a slave to getting away regularly for a week or two. We are fortunate to have so much of Europe on our door step. So many different cultures just a few hours away. However we are sick of air travel. Herded and packed on, treated like sheep. Plus the pollution and impact of flying. We have pledged o stay in the UK for the next few years at least. So much of it we haven’t seen. Off to the Isle of Wight camping this summer. A small island a couple of miles of the south coast. It’s rare to find a camp site now where it’s permissible to have an open fire, but we’ve found one. Camping without a fire is just living in a tent.

I have the same correlation between restaurant usage and waitress attractiveness. But don’t tell my wife.

TTFN

Ed

First some clarification. From what I've seen "happy Christmas" is more popular over there, but we use "merry Christmas". There's also a difference in the word holiday. Few people here would say, "I'm going on holiday to Aruba." We would say, "I'm going on vacation to Aruba." However, we do say Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are all holidays. Do you also use holiday as a noun like that?

Most people here refer to the winter holiday as Christmas. About 70%-80% of Americans are Christian of one kind or another, so they pretty much have free reign. Some companies are trying to be more open to other winder holidays and are instead using the euphemism, "happy holidays." That way they don't alienate those who celebrate Yule, Hanukkah, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, and other December holidays, but that has created a lot of black lash from the conservatives who claim that those companies are trying secularize their religious holiday. Of course, considering that Christmas has been, by far, the most commercially lucrative holiday for decades I don't think that's the case.

As for myself, being secular and iconoclastic I make it a point not to celebrate any holiday during this time of year. Come Christmas Day I slept in, played videogames, and ate dinner alone at a Chinese restaurant since it was the only place around that was open on Christmas. God bless those Taoists. I still saw my family the week before and after Christmas since everyone had the time off and we could get together. I also feasted nicely and had a good time, but for me there was no religious undertones or even secular traditions to be observed.

Thank you very much for the elder flower cordial recipe. I'll keep a copy of it, but it'll be awhile before any plants will be growing again.

As far as the democratic candidates are concerned it looks like it's going to be between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, so he does indeed have a fighting chance. I'd actually prefer him over Clinton personally, but after the long reign of Bush, I'd take any democrat I can get! Personally, the candidate's race or sex doesn't affect me at all, but I'd be lying if I said that they're not important here. We haven't had 43 rich white male presidents because we're equal opportunists.

That cottage does sound nice, regardless of its modernization.

My sobriety is partially due to growing up in a home where alcohol was abused quite regularly, partially from not liking the taste of alcohol, but probably mostly from not wanting to alter my state of mind. I have no fear of a vengeful god who would get upset at my drinking, but more fear of waking up in a ditch with five dead hookers, a crashed car, and no clothes.

I think one of the problems with American culture is how we demonize alcohol and prohibit it's consumption to anyone and everyone under the age of 21. I'm usually against age restrictions of all kinds, because by the time a person is 21 they don't magically gain the responsibility to handle alcohol. Most of the people I know who are the most responsible with liquor are the people who have been drinking it since they were 12 and understand its risks.

You're right of course, dressing like a rogue and not accepting a belt of liquor is kind of detrimental to my persona. But, I can always use cider or tea and claim that it's alcohol. While I haven't experienced the romantic connection that people have with certain types of alcohol, I do understand what you mean.

Actually, even individual counties can make their own liquor laws. Some of the university towns will prohibit the sale of alcohol in grocery stores after midnight, but most of Michigan is pretty lax about it and you can buy single containers of most drinks. Some states are really controlling though. The state of Utah doesn't even allow the full legal limit of alcohol in their beer because of the large Mormon influence. There are also some odd federal laws. For example, when you purchase alcohol the store clerk is legally bound to put the bottle in an opaque bag before you leave the store. It's also illegal to put alcohol in a container different from the one you bought it in. Crazy!

I am quite fully assimilated into the American culture, despite my attempts not to be. I'm the kind of person who understands that the words "culture" and "cult" come from the same prefix. My ancestry can be traced to Germany, Italy, and a couple other places I'm not sure of, but as for my culture, I'm fully American.

As far as guns are concerned, there are at least three stores within ten minutes driving distance from me where I would only need to pay about $200 (around £100) and have a shotgun and plenty of ammo. No waiting period, no background check, no hunter's permit, nothing. All I would need is a driver's license that looks valid. Some weapons, like hand guns, require a background check, but for some reason shotguns don't. Personally, I think that's a problem. Although I don't own any guns I'm certainly not against them, in fact I kind of like them. However, I just think that background checks and safety courses should be mandatory for owning something that can very easily kill another person. They have very -very- slowly been passing bills to prevent people from getting military grade assault rifles and guns that can fire more than X amount of bullets without reloading, but we still have several thousand deaths from firearms every year.

Shingles are basically large fiberglass asphalt panels that are overlapped and nailed to a roof as a low cost facsimile of tiles. The Wikipeida entry on "roof shingle" can give you all the details. From what I've heard from older people, that just like vinyl siding, shingles used to considered ugly and few used them, but their low cost and effectiveness allowed them to become more popular, and now almost all houses use them. It's normal to put new shingles over a layer of old ones because removing an old layer is very messy and expensive, but most professional companies will always remove the old layer first. I've heard that aluminum roofs are starting to become popular because they last much longer and can be made nearly noise-proof, but I have yet to see any around here.

Housing has taken a bad turn here in the States, which I'm sure you've heard about. The failed sub-prime mortgage market seems to be causing the stock markets all over the world to take a dive. Even still, we have something here called the "American Dream" which is basically just a repackaging of "Manifest Destiny" if you ask me. The American Dream states that any man who works hard is owed his own house, car, wife, kids, dog, and white picket fence. What it really means is that anyone who gets a bunch of debt from loans to buy houses will be in debt for most of their life. I have a nice sized apartment and the maintenance group fixes everything that breaks. I may have noisy neighbors, but my rent is about half the cost of a house of equal size.

I usually don't go that far away on my vacations. Usually, when I have time off of work, I stay in the area and just do things that I can't normally do like go to amusement parks, ski trips, or something like that. Occasionally I'll go a decent distance away. Last summer I went to the state of Tennessee, the year before that I went to the state of Washington. Those locations may seem awfully similar since they're in the same country, but with such a large country the cultures are actually wildly different. The food, the lifestyles, the taboos, even the language is different. While most of the US speaks English, a lot of places near Mexico and the Caribbean have a high Spanish speaking population. Also, the accents and idioms vary dramatically. While I've never been there, I assume that it could be likened to the differences between the UK's Great Britain, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.

Hey, ever been to Norfolk, or Necton? I used to live there.

that Americans are basically English people with a funny accent and a penchant for invading other countries with large oil reserves, and for shooting our troops by mistake.

....yeah.... sorry about that. Between you guys and the Canadians... yeah. sorry.

About guns and weaponry. I live in the South now, Texas to be exact. Its practically illegal to not have a gun here. Many people bring them to school and leave them in their trucks, and knives of less than 5 and 1/2 inches are totally acceptable to be carried on your person at all times. (But not earrings on males) A close friend of mine owns, no exaggeration, more than 50 weapons, one being a Russian SKS assault rifle (complete with bayonette and grenade launcher sights), at least three more assault weapons, several fully automatic weapons, and a stockpile of armor-piercing ammunition. I don't quite understand the fixation myself, but violent crimes of the breaking and entering during the night variety are considerably less common here. And if the Zombies ever come, I'm going to his house.

I've lived in other parts of the country, like California, where its fairly easy for criminal types to get their hands on very dangerous illegal weapons, while an honest citizen is usually armed with little more than pepper spray.

Canada however, has 95% gun ownership, and something like 10% of the violent crime we have here.

On the issue, it seems either be one extreme or the other is safest. Either nobody has them , or everybody has one.