please do forgive (and excuse if required) me should the above greeting not quite be correct in terms of proper American colloquialisms. from what i can recall this is a fairly traditional form of pleasant greeting what they use there, look you see, so i have gone with it. indeed, yes, i am aware of certain other ways in which our friends in America greet each other, as depicted in some motion pictures, but i am uncomfortable, even contextually, using language which we here in England would generally consider uncouth.
random acts of kindness are, on the whole, simply wonderful, beautiful, question and blemish free experiences. to benefit from just one within a (conventional) lifetime is to be treasured, for it means that someone out there, somewhere, values and appreciates you. when one generally finds themselves feeling a seemingly perpetually increasing sense of isolation, such a gesture can come to mean the whole world of difference.
such happened to me, of late, then. well, if it had not then there would be little (if anything) to write here. i would write that this was entirely unexpected, but i suppose that goes without saying, so my apologies to those of you who have read this sentence that essentially had no reason to be written.
yes, that is the wonderful gift what i got as a random act of kindness presented in Commodore 64 mode, or at least an aspect. surely, further images shall appear below in non Commodore 64 mode, for the benefit of those of you who for some reason prefer what one might call, or otherwise consider, more regular types of images.
it was a little while ago that i got to meet a very good friend indeed. this, yes, of course, was in the past, rather than the future, for that is how "a little while ago" generally works, unless you are Merlin, who it is believed lives via travelling backwards in time as we understand it. but that distracts. as you may well expect of me, since we happened to meet in that there London (innit) place, i of course introduced my friend to the very finest of finest things to ever come into being, Fortnum & Mason. this decision, or course taken, dramatically changed the life of my chum, and for the good, for no matter how good she believed life was, it was only now, after experiencing Fortnum & Mason, did she come to be touched with the knowledge that it can all be even more better.
my friend had, quite recently (as opposed to later), made an order from Fortnum & Mason, so that she could continue to enjoy and appreciate their exquisite fine ways whilst in America. she commented with a twinge of regret that she felt it impractical to order one of their most splendid chalices, or drinking vessels, or if you like cups or mugs. with regret, and with a most heavy heart, i felt duty bound to inform my friend that fortune smiled upon her when no acquisition of this nature was made, for i had done so (details here) and the item, alas, broke after just a few examples of rudimentary use.
certain pangs of pain were felt by my friend upon hearing this (most dreadful) of news. it distressed her to learn of such profane torment, as Dory (such is as my friend is known) knows full well and worthy of my love of Fortnum & Mason. and so, with a secretive degree of assistance from an anonymous source, which would be my (considerably) better half, Dory elected to surprise me with not one, not three, but two most splendid and lovely replacement mugs, as well as a most fascinating and insightful book.
the pattern is based on a well known one what used to appear on plates, in the 70s. i am aware of this because i have rather vague yet specific memories of such. either Gran or Mum had the plate with the pattern on. my memories are of asking (more than once) to be told the story the plate held within the design, and i was treated to the tale. sadly, alas, i cannot recall the tale itself, but all too well recall a sense of wonder and enjoyment of it.
no matter, for the artist involved here has taken the basic concept and created their own tale. before anyone cries (or, to use the American as seems appropriate "call out") theft, remember that, when you break it down, there are only some 34 or 36 basic story lines any tale can be based on. i don't recall them as such, but i did have a list of them (with a brief synopsis) somewhere.
as you may well be able to work out, with some 90% (or very close to) of the pattern visible, and as the nice card what came with the mugs states, the theme here is "things could be worse". no matter how much of a hard day, the card states, this mug shall comfort you, assuring you that it is not as bad as it could be. the card highlights elements such as being chased off of a zombie poodle, or plagued by pterodactyls, but for me i think the scariest (or worse than how bad it is) might be the big massive frog which you can see on the mug in a picture a bit further down. or toad, since i am not sure our friends in America do frogs as much as they do toads. for some reason i can kind of remember a frog or two in the film Magnolia, but i am not sure if they were real for America.
ostensibly, i believe, the intention for this mighty fine chalice (or set thereof) was to drink tea from it (them), specifically Fortnum & Mason tea, which is the finest of the fine (except, of course, Yorkshire tea. because Yorkshire). however, as a gesture towards the nation from where it was sent (not originated as such, for the bottom of the mug suggests that it travelled from Poland to American and then now here), i thought it would be a good idea to have a coffee in one first. posh coffee, of course, in the form of a "coffee bag" coffee, something that will be elaborated on in either a post that has been or one to come.
blimey. wow. they do not f*** about, these Americans. on instinct i made a full cup of coffee with one of these mugs. the size of it did look pretty big, but it turned out even bigger. it was to be a cup of coffee that would cause me to re-evaluate various aspects of life and knowledge what i had taken for granted. one example would be that i always wondered why it was, in films and tv shows, Americans always appeared wide eyed and with their hair standing up. if this is a "regular" coffee size, now i know. also, i had taken for granted than many of the great albums recorded in the 70s (and yes, specifcially Rumours off of Fleetwood Mac) were achieved by "size of Wales" piles of cocaine being available, in the studio, daily. maybe it was as innocent as giving each of the band a mug the size of this each day. we English are simply not used to this breathtaking type of assault on our adrenaline (or whatever), so the 60% of the band who are not American would have been totally trashed.
generosity continued in the package with a most splendid, slender volume of reading material, yes, indeed, a book. for those who are (for some reason) unable to ascertain the complete title of this from the Commodore 64 mode picture above, it is Stay Home, The Ugly Truth About Space Travel, An Illustrated Guide To Dismal Reality. appreciating that the title is somewhat vague and ambivalent, i can tell you that the book concerns reasons why going off into space is not quite so smart looking as it is made to be in stuff like Darth Vader, Vulcans Ahoy! or even Buck Rogers. but more on that later. or, below.
some slight reminiscing, then, or recollections. when growing up, and mostly here i mean the 80s, i recall how here, in England, we (or at least my contemporary crowd) all thought America looked absolutely amazing. most did, though, for of course my social group included some of them commie types what thought Russia was the business. this was all in the days of filters existing, with aspects and parts of American society and culture very carefully curated to make the rest of the world jealous. and this was indeed what was caused.
for a whole philosophical section (you are welcome to skip this), i suppose standing here in England looking out at America, or the USA, what we saw was the opposite. very much a grass is greener opposite. whereas everything about English life was small and putting limitations and restrictions on everything, America was a land where one thought big, and encouraged rather than prevented. in England all films got gratuitously censored, and you were made to feel as though you were a criminal if you wished to see any aspect of human flesh what was not a wrist or (gasp) ankle. our friends in America appeared able to watch as many chainsaw slaughter films as took their fancy, and also were allowed, with no judgement whatsoever, to look at as many naked people as they wished, with it being further that them people could be doing stuff that was strictly a no-no for our eyes. still is, with our weird successive governments thinking it is wrong and should not be seen.
here is a size comparison for you, then, to show you just how much coffee i consumed this morning. twice over, for i was so wired (and completely ripped to the tits) after the first one that i very much wished for another. on the right is a classic English Vimto mug, which has been carefully measured and created to accommodate the perfect volume of tea or coffee for English sensibilities. the American one is roughly twice the size.
on the right is a ceremonial Wizard Boy mug, featuring that guy out of that film, but in a different role in this one. whereas it looks larger, the idea is not to use it. should you use it anyway, you will find the innards have been adjusted so only the same amount what would go into the Vimto mug would go into this one.
no, i am not avoiding the "elephant in the room", to use another American term of phrase. yes, i am quite aware that England, or if you will the UK, is home to the biggest size mug known to man, or any life form. i speak, or write, of course of the infamous Sports Direct mug. but no one buys them to use, just to give to people to annoy them. many have, of course, tried to use one of them mugs. history records that in one case someone got half way through a mug of tea in one of them and their kidneys failed. another brave soul, with a bit of pacing, made it through 60% of the content of the mug, and then every vital organ in their body went completely f****d. yes, the sad reality of life in England is that you can buy such dangerous mugs, but you are not free to choose things what are considered "a bit saucy" by the ruling classes. no matter how much of a bunch of sexual degenerates them in the ruling classes are.
more, for a bit, on the book, then. Don Moyer, the writer and illustrator, on the inside jacket says that reviewers are most welcome to "republish" extracts from the book, especially if their review is a positive one. well, my review is indeed a positive one. it's a charming, whimsical, smile inducing volume, and that's great. for literature fanatics, sure, it's no, say, Bonfire Of The Vanities, but then again Tom Wolfe never thought to write of space helmet polish.
it will (or shall) indeed be so that i do attempt to drink some tea in one of these most splendid of new vessels for beverages. most likely, as is befitting, appropriate and most decidedly apt, it will be a select Fortnum & Mason procured tea of which i shall partake. which leads (to go peculiarly non non-linear with that i write) to a recent discovery of knowledge what i made. this concerns our friends in America, and their apparent lack of preference for tea.
whereas it is fairly common knowledge that the USA runs their electricity (and that) in a way somewhat different from us in England (indeed the UK), i was completely unaware that this brought a quite serious limitation of the detrimental nature. over there they run on 110V, whilst we are on somewhere between 220V and 240V. yes, a rare instance of us having something what is bigger than the USA has. it is so that we trump (so to speak) them in terms of "V" and the number of quality musicians and bands produced.
there are some advantages to their lower "V", whatever that actually is. as the electric supply is so low, they can do class things like throw active, armed and fully operational appliances, such as toasters and microwave ovens, it baths or other similar pools of water with a lot less risk of electrocution. such is still possible mind, so don't try. a big disadvantage, though, is that a kettle as we know and understand it in the UK, does not "work" there like it does here, for it is is simply not possible for a kettle plugged into the USA mains to draw enough power to reach optimal boiling range. which means they cannot make a cuppa the way we can. it is not, perhaps, that they do not wish to, rather that they are unable.
for us in the UK, we are blessed than engineers, scientists and members of the gentry dictated it so that our electricity system was of practical use, which is of course to say that they ensured a kettle plugged in would reach the perfect point of boil for tea excellence. a formidable, indeed considerable, level of calibration is conducted on every kettle produced for the UK market to confirm that they will reach this ideal state, too. as it is unlikely that the USA will approve the idea of an entire overhaul of their present (or current) electricity network just to facilitate an ability to make proper tea, we can only carry on ensuring our American friends who visit the UK are served proper tea, and frequently if not often.
right, well, as ever i can but trust that this has been informative in its own informal way. mostly, though, i just wished to express my delight, exceptional gratitude and appreciation for these lovely, wonderful, tremendous mugs, and of course the reading material with it.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great read, thank you.
ReplyDelete