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Shrimps On The Barbie

Shrimps On The Barbie

Old Apr 11th 2022, 6:11 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
In the bush, most of our food was mutton, home-raised at a marginal cost that was close to zero. In town, too, our only meat was mutton, out of residual loyalty. But when courtesy has required, at various times in my life, I will eat anything at all. Within reason. When Linda and I were on our youthful travels, I was once offered a sheep's eye by our host in Tehran. As it happens - fortunately - he had lived in the West. As I steeled myself, the eye glaring at me defiantly, he took pity. (The host, not the eye. The eye was pitiless.) "I know it's not a Western thing", he said, “and I won’t be offended if you’d rather give it a miss. But for us it's a delicacy. Why not let me eat it?" So I settled for the tender eyelid-meat that surrounded the wretched organ. That saved me a little bit of "face". Linda wouldn’t even eat that.

It could have been worse. Somebody once told me of a British couple who discovered a restaurant in Madrid whose specialty was bulls' testicles.They loved it, and came back time after time. (Animals killed in the bull-fights were and are sold at the markets, and no part of the beast is wasted.) One night the serving was meagre - as tasty as always, but much smaller than usual - and the couple asked why. The waiter shrugged. "Senor, Senora... You know, the bull doesn't always lose. Very occasionally, it is the matador who dies." Shrug.

It - uhhh - it may not be a true story, but it's worth the telling.

There is and never was a chance of me attempting to eat an eyeball or a testicle. I do not care how that would be presented or cooked.

I cannot really take to air conditioning either. Here in NZ homes are often heated and cooled with an inverter heat pump but it doesn't suit me at all.

I would rather a log burner and then open/closed doors and windows. Mind you our weather is not that extreme.


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Old Apr 11th 2022, 9:48 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by abner
When I arrived in Queensland, most recently at that time from Canada, I learned early that "real Queenslanders" don't have much use for either air-conditioning *or* heating, but also that I really preferred to have both available, for when one or the other was needed.

In winter, my wife used to jokingly say that I was a "fake Canadian" for finding Brisbane houses cold at night. But then I looked into local construction standards, and realised that "insulation" was an exotic, foreign concept. ;-)
When we first arrived and looking to buy our first home we asked about insulation while looking at a home we were interested in and I will never forget the look in the agents face…it was that impressive we call it the “agents face” whenever someone looks really bewildered…… we never did have any of our homes with insulation….no that’s a fib the last home had roof insulation…even in a lot of the areas in WA homes should have double glazing and cavity wall insulation as a minimum, maybe they do nowadays
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Old Apr 11th 2022, 12:46 pm
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by BEVS
Except he isn't replying to any one poster He has simply made a suggestion to move the offshoot convo elsewhere . Not a bad suggestion at all.
Like I said, talk to the other fella only - he's the one who wants to argue

Nothing to do with me
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Old Apr 13th 2022, 12:23 am
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When I was a boy... [Surely one of the benefits of becoming an old codger is that you can get away with reminiscences beginning with "When I was a boy".] So. When I was a boy, life was simpler for children than it is now. For one thing, the food was simpler. In the 1940s and '50s, shops didn’t carry pre-cooked meals, at least in Queensland. McDonald's and KFC hadn’t come to us yet. Prepared food in general? Heck, even sandwich-shops created their goodies while we watched. Nothing was prepared ahead of time. We office-workers lined up at midday and gave our orders one by one to sweaty-handed lads living dangerously with razor-sharp knives. There was no air-conditioning, and the fans couldn't really cope with the heat. Hygienic gloves hadn't come into fashion, but we hardly ever discovered any blood in our fillings. The sandwich-makers were skilled at their job.

We didn’t have allergies, because allergies are immune-deficiencies caused by the excessive avoidance of germs. Frankie Gardiner was the only kid with asthma that anybody ever knew out at Hannaford, and he was from Melbourne, a thousand miles to the south. Maybe he had led too sheltered a life; he was a delicate boy, who tended to hang back when the rest of us were messing around in the dirt. Kitchen-cleansers that remove 99% of all household germs are bad for young children. It’s the 99% of household germs that build up kids' immunities. What doesn't kill children makes them stronger - just like our Grandmas said.

When I was a boy, not only was food simpler than it is now: so were menus. Our mothers' menus at every mealtime were quintessentially simple - namely, what was on the plate. The choice was Hobson's choice: eat it or don’t eat it. Actually: eat it all or don’t bother turning up for the next meal. "My way or the highway", we'd say today. My Mum would bend the rules a bit, in a good cause; but she never broke them. I hated pumpkin, so she kindly served me only a token amount; and in the spirit of fair play I ate all of that. It was easier at boarding school. There I could give my pumpkin away, and fill up with the stale bread that usually went begging.
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Old Apr 13th 2022, 7:15 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow

We didn’t have allergies, because allergies are immune-deficiencies caused by the excessive avoidance of germs.
I'm going to take issue with that sweeping statement, having been diagnosed with several severe allergies in the early 1970s. Nothing at all to do with germs. Genetic, was the result after several tests. Allergic to dust mites, and some types of pet hair - due to the dust in them - and to some types of grass pollen, and cigarette smoke.
I was a typical 60s/70s kid, played in the fields, in the dirt, ate everything that came my way, but happened to live in a huge old house that we couldn't afford to eat, and that was impossible to keep dust-free. I got every germ going, colds galore, bronchitis every winter, but the allergies were not related to that at all. There was no way of avoiding germs, my primary school was large and we all caught stuff off each other.
The only way to try and prevent the allergies was toe move to a totally dust free environment - we all laughed our socks off at that suggestion, especially as vicars back then almost always had to live in huge cold barns of houses, that just breed dust.
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Old Apr 13th 2022, 9:18 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
When I was a boy... [Surely one of the benefits of becoming an old codger is that you can get away with reminiscences beginning with "When I was a boy".] So. When I was a boy, life was simpler for children than it is now. For one thing, the food was simpler. In the 1940s and '50s, shops didn’t carry pre-cooked meals, at least in Queensland. McDonald's and KFC hadn’t come to us yet. Prepared food in general? Heck, even sandwich-shops created their goodies while we watched. Nothing was prepared ahead of time. We office-workers lined up at midday and gave our orders one by one to sweaty-handed lads living dangerously with razor-sharp knives. There was no air-conditioning, and the fans couldn't really cope with the heat. Hygienic gloves hadn't come into fashion, but we hardly ever discovered any blood in our fillings. The sandwich-makers were skilled at their job.

We didn’t have allergies, because allergies are immune-deficiencies caused by the excessive avoidance of germs. Frankie Gardiner was the only kid with asthma that anybody ever knew out at Hannaford, and he was from Melbourne, a thousand miles to the south. Maybe he had led too sheltered a life; he was a delicate boy, who tended to hang back when the rest of us were messing around in the dirt. Kitchen-cleansers that remove 99% of all household germs are bad for young children. It’s the 99% of household germs that build up kids' immunities. What doesn't kill children makes them stronger - just like our Grandmas said.

When I was a boy, not only was food simpler than it is now: so were menus. Our mothers' menus at every mealtime were quintessentially simple - namely, what was on the plate. The choice was Hobson's choice: eat it or don’t eat it. Actually: eat it all or don’t bother turning up for the next meal. "My way or the highway", we'd say today. My Mum would bend the rules a bit, in a good cause; but she never broke them. I hated pumpkin, so she kindly served me only a token amount; and in the spirit of fair play I ate all of that. It was easier at boarding school. There I could give my pumpkin away, and fill up with the stale bread that usually went begging.
I was born in the early 60’s in Manchester I went to a small but very good/nice primary school and like you can remember a boy who had asthma we did not know the actual wording of it “back then” we just knew he did not “play” much sports etc, we also did not have a choice of meals my mum (or dad) provided we ate what was on the plate (usually) I cannot remember complaining but I know I did not/do not like suede. I do not know when pre made sandwiches were made but I first saw a pre made chicken sandwich in a cafe in the city on my lunch break and that was in the early 80’s, I do know when I had my first experience of an “make up as you want sandwich “ which was in 1998 at a garden centre cafe in Armadale (no longer there) they asked everything from type of bread, spread, dressing etc, how times have moved on for me some for the best and others “heck no” lol I feel lucky I was born in the era I was.
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Old Apr 14th 2022, 1:08 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Pollyana
I'm going to take issue with that sweeping statement...
Fair comment, Polly. But I hope you will agree with me that every "sweeping" action always misses a little bit of the target that's being swept, including sweeping statements. Also, there's always that 1% of household germs that isn't destroyed by the 99% claimants. Good enough for a generalisation!
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Old Apr 14th 2022, 6:26 am
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One of the main reasons allergies are more prevalent today is because as Western people, we're too clean. Not so much that we shower and wash more but that we use anti-germ sprays, soaps, hand sanitiser etc so readily

We're cleaning ourselves into sickness. Saying that, the vast majority of people have no allergies
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Old Apr 14th 2022, 9:03 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Amazulu
One of the main reasons allergies are more prevalent today is because as Western people, we're too clean. Not so much that we shower and wash more but that we use anti-germ sprays, soaps, hand sanitiser etc so readily

We're cleaning ourselves into sickness. Saying that, the vast majority of people have no allergies
Lucky gits
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Old Apr 16th 2022, 9:06 am
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Originally Posted by Retirednow
It’s this forum. Others are much busier…
Totally agree.
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Old Apr 16th 2022, 12:23 pm
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Originally Posted by Mrs M
Totally agree.
Not any more, hopefully!
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Old Apr 16th 2022, 6:05 pm
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When I were a boy - oh God, here he goes again... - in the Queensland bush - please God, make it stop! - we got ten inches of rain a year, on average. I don't know how much that is in hectares or whatever you use now; in this British colony in the Caribbean we stick to the Old Testament measures. None of your fancy French recipes for us.

The point of this reminiscence is to ask what the heck is going on with all these floods I'm reading about in Oz. They're not happening all over the whole country, I know that, but even so... What's going on, to cause them?

Those ten inches of ours, back in the day - fourteen in a good year, six in a bad one - came in one week or two, and that was that. The dirt roads became muddy enough for us kids to ride our horses to school instead of bikes, and it was dark inside the one-room school-house. The water in the creek never actually flowed, except temporarily and a few inches deep; and not much of it made its way down into the ocean in South Australia or wherever. But in places where rivers did flow, there was never the wretched flooding being reported today. So what has changed? Answers on a postcard please!
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Old Apr 17th 2022, 6:19 am
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Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
Answers on a postcard please!
Welcome to global warming. We've collectively put enough extra methane and carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere over the last fifty years, that we've succeeded in altering the weather, on average. Not necessarily for the best, depending on where you live.

That's the postcard version.

Not a popular answer on this part of the BE forums though...
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Old Apr 20th 2022, 1:51 am
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I wonder if there are any British immigrants in Australia who have seen a polo match in their new homeland. I expect there are clubs in all the State capitals, but I don't know. The only games I ever saw were as a kid in the bush at our annual gymkhanas, on a field down by the school. Two carefully selected teams of riders - farmers, itinerant shearers and pretty much any other adult with access to a horse - bashed a ball up and down the field in between beer-breaks (giving the word "chukka" a whole new meaning, late in each game).

Australia's famed poet Banjo Paterson wrote an exciting report of one such match-up. Here's a sample stanza. (A waddy was an aborigines' war-club.)
They waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.
And the Cuff and Collar captain, when he tumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving player - so the game was called a tie.

"The last surviving player..." Brings a tear to your eye, don't it?

I've also spent an afternoon sipping Pimms while watching world-class professionals playing at Windsor Great Park. Their rules seemed the same as ours - more or less - but as a sport to watch it fell a long way short.
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Old Apr 20th 2022, 8:34 am
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Default re: Shrimps On The Barbie

Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
I wonder if there are any British immigrants in Australia who have seen a polo match in their new homeland. I expect there are clubs in all the State capitals, but I don't know. The only games I ever saw were as a kid in the bush at our annual gymkhanas, on a field down by the school. Two carefully selected teams of riders - farmers, itinerant shearers and pretty much any other adult with access to a horse - bashed a ball up and down the field in between beer-breaks (giving the word "chukka" a whole new meaning, late in each game).

Australia's famed poet Banjo Paterson wrote an exciting report of one such match-up. Here's a sample stanza. (A waddy was an aborigines' war-club.)
They waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.
And the Cuff and Collar captain, when he tumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving player - so the game was called a tie.

"The last surviving player..." Brings a tear to your eye, don't it?

I've also spent an afternoon sipping Pimms while watching world-class professionals playing at Windsor Great Park. Their rules seemed the same as ours - more or less - but as a sport to watch it fell a long way short.
A few yeas ago we were on holiday in Munich (I think it was Munich lol) and spent some time exploring the English Gardens there, one of the days we spent at the garden’s they were setting up a polo tournament there was a lot of security, the next day we returned as we had decided to have a meal at one of the restaurants there and it was such a pretty place we walked around the Polo “set up” and there were some players warming up (closest we have ever been to watching a polo game) and one of the player’s was Prince Harry we did not sip Pimms with our meal my DH had a local German larger (it was a very hot day) and I had a local German cocktail a lovely holiday and well worth a visit.
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