I just had to tell you all about what I heard last Saturday.

I was playing golf with 2 other Englishmen (well one was a geordie so he sort of speaks the same language) and an aussie.

We were walking down the fairway chatting and the aussie brought up the old subject of warm beer. He said "whats the go about this putting a hot poker in your beer to warm it up before you can drink it" now I can sort of understand it if he was some thick bogan, but he wasn't he worked in a local bank as their financial advisor. Before I could answer him I looked round to see the other two were laughing there heads off behind a tree.

I tried my best to explain that the beer really isn't warm and I think they stopped warming beer up with a hot poker about 300 years ago, I am not that sure he really believed me, but he did say he had always thought that it was a strange way to have a drink and he couldn't imagine watching a cricket match on a hot summers day with a warm glass.

I suppose it just proves that some people should get out and about a bit more.

John

well i would hope he was just taking the p*ss, but if not, then like you say, he needs to get out more

Thats the trouble he wasn't, he was deadly serious.

jeez

on saying that, i remember having a conversation with an older aussie woman about a year ago, and she was asking me what scotland, and the uk was like in general, (shes never travelled outside aus) then she asked what tartan i wore !!! she genuinely thought that people in scotland wear kilts and still ive in clans, she thought the whole singing shortbread tin actually existed!! she was visibly upset when i told her that didnt happen, i spoilt the vision she had, it was hilarious !!!

P*ss taking might have been taking place, but from the other direction. Any chance the two hiding behind the tree knew anything about his warm beer knowledge?

I left the UK about 3 years ago and not long before that at a pub 'The Cherry Tree' Stoke Row, Henley-on-Thames the locals used to stick a red hot poker into the Brakspear's Old to warm it up on a winter's night. So it's true, every bloody word of it!!!!

No, we always play together and this bloke only joined us at the last minute when one of our mates dropped out and none of us had ever seen him before. We were only walking down the 4th fairway so it wasn't as if they had had time to tune him up.

I saw the other 2 lads on Tuesday and they still couldn't believe it either.

I have never heard of it my life, but there again I have never lived in a posh area like Henley-on-Thames, I think it might have something to do with all that interbreeding of the upper classes

My wife was asked what part of Ireland she was from,nothing strange there,but when she said shes scottish not irish the girl said yea but scotlands in Ireland isnt it?
She's also heard that Englands in London!!!

We've been here 3 months,maybe a lots changed since we left,or maybe this lot are not as intellegent as they think!

We lived next door to a guy when we first came over that had spent a couple of decades up north assembling steel gantries etc. I don't know if it is just because he got used to it up there, but when we were invited round for a beer he put his in the microwave to warm it up. He was an Aussie.

Warm beer and pokers??? doesn't he realize we have microwaves now much more hygienic..


Besides they must do that with a lot the beers here before they leave the factory just to kill the taste.. although there are some good ones.. Coopers Pale...

I've had Aussies say to me that its a shame they can't offer me a beer when I go round there, but the only beer they have is the stuff in the fridge and there isn't any warm enough for me to drink.......

I'll add a couple of thoughts John -

I would have responded to him "you don't sound like you've spent too much time drinking in England, mate" - how do you reckon that would have gone down?

On the subject of UK Geography, in my wife's home town in New Zealand, there is a headstone in the graveyard that states the deceased was "a native of Wales, England".

When I laughed at this, my MIL said defensively "well that's what we were all taught at school"!!!

Buzzy

It might depend on when the stone was made. From 1535 to 1955 Wales was officially part of England. Thankfully that was changed before I was born although it's taking a bit of time for some of the Aussies, Yanks, Europeans, Kiwis and Poms to catch up.

About 25 yrs ago i lived in a little village called Abernant about 8 miles from Carmarthen, the only pub for miles some of the locals used to use a red hot poker to warm up their Mackeson or Guiness, I thought this was strange but they liked it.

John