I am going to England (and the Netherlands)

"I will go after the Olympics is over.  It is bound to be terrible. Everyone will be depressed because we will lose everything, the busses will be broken and breakfast in even the most rubbish places will be over 50 British Pounds".

As it turns out, only the last was true, and I was wrong.  It has been brilliant from where I am looking (in Canada) and from what I can gather from all friends in London (which is where I am from and was born), it has been fantastic and not that much bother in terms of cycle lanes and Belgians clogging up the tube.

In fact I have watched the Olympics from Montreal and cried my face off for nearly two weeks. Crying episodes included:

1. All of the opening ceremony, non-stop welling OH THIS IS SO LIKE US I DO NOT CARE WHAT THE REST OF THE WORLD THINKS I AM SO HOMESICK give me the wine"

2. Anyone trying not to cry at their national anthem (all countries)

3. Anyone crying at their national anthem (all countries)

4. The first notes of the National Anthem (ours)

5. Roger Federer letting Andy Murray win

I did not cry in the closing ceremony, but I do think that Danny Boyle should have done a BOGOF.

Anyway, I am going to London tonight.  Here is why:

1. To see some headhunters and see if I am unemployable (should we decide to move back to the yewkay);

2. To see some headhunters who, although they are in London, are in charge of International and therefore may be able to tell me if I am unemployable (if we stay in Montreal);

3. To see the finest hairdresser in the universe - a man who is also a stand-up comedian and is doing fewer and fewer haircuts as his comedy writing gets more and more famous;

4. To see a man in Harrow-on-the-Hill about my ankles;

5. Most importantly, to see people and have a nice time.

I will go from London to Hastings and back, and to Amsterdam and back, and then I will go back to Montreal after two and one half weeks.  In the meantime, please continue to send in your questions and I will answer them (with enthusiasm) when I am back.

Pip "Blighty!!!" Pip

NWM

p.s. this is how I feel when I think about going to England

I begin to answer reader questions

Good news, loyal readers and fans! My inevitable return to some kind of money-making enterprise will be delayed a little longer, for  following yesterday's excellent post, I now have a new (albeit unpaid) occupation: answering your questions with the help of Spons' Household Manual (1897) and/or Every Woman's Enquire Within (1938). 

Here goes: 

Is there a remedy for insomnia?, writes Jane. 

There is a lot of advice in Spon, but it boils down to a point of view along the lines of:  if one weren't such a wetsy, it wouldn't be a problem. For e.g.: 

 "The difficulties about sleep and sleeplessness - apart from dreams  - are almost always fruits of a perverse refusal to comply with the laws of nature .... If only he would get up and do a full day's work, of any sort, and not dose during the day, when next the night came around his 16 or 20 hours of wakefulness would be rewarded by a sleep of 9-10 hours in length."

If that doesn't work, Spon recommends having a wash in carbolic soap, a short walk of 20 minutes, staying off tea and coffee, hop pillows, and not eating for an hour before going to bed. Last resort: "common raw onions raw, but Spanish stewed onions will do".  

Not a last resort: "Recently, the dangerous and lamentable habit of promiscuously taking sleeping draughts has unfortunately become very prevalent, entailing misery and ill health to a terrible degree". 

Let that be a warning to you all.

"Do either of these excellent manuals have chapters on travel? Having just spent two days cursing my way through three airports I think I need some remedial packing training", writes Megan. 

"Having prepared your luggage" (which takes WEEKS and a lot of polishing), "we come to the packing itself". Familiar advice follows, including tissue paper, folding, hats in hat boxes and rubber corks in bottles sealed with candlewax. But this, it seems, is all you need to know: 

"Pack tightly - this is the real secret of success, for when everything is wedged together, nothing will shake about and so get crushed." (Every Woman's Enquire Within, 1938). 

Spons is no good whatsoever; perhaps people didn't travel in 1897, but there is one piece of advice that I'd like to pass on, namely that you should "never take white petticoats for rough travelling; a striped coloured one is best. Take black lace neck scarf and gauze veils."

DES asks: "Is cleanliness next to godliness? I have such a suspicion that standards in these matters have been raised absurdly high in these germophobic times, and that your experts might have a more reasonable view, along the lines of having a bath once a week whether one needs it or not, except for houses, if you catch my drift."

There are entire chapters - huge ones - in each book about cleaning.  No God chat, but as far as Spon is concerned, being clean/cleaning is essentially the answer to everything. I am not a medical historian etc but I have the feeling from reading it that they had just found out about germs and quarantine and what-not; there is an entire chapter on the different types of chemicals you need to dispose of medical waste (from poo to snotty handkerchiefs).  I have however looked up "Infant bathing" and here's what he says: 

"Never put a child to bed dirty.  The whole body should be washed every day.  Young babies and infants should be bathed and well washed every morning in warm water, and thoroughly dried afterwards....young infants are best washed after their first meal, older children before breakfast."

No shirking for you, young man. Get in the shower immediately.   (Also, there is no chat about 'fallen ladies' etc., if my inference is correct.) 

What are the foremost duties of my servants?, writes Special K. 

Every Woman's Enquire Within was written in 1938, and this is a written for the post-war housewife who, likely as not, didn't have servants at all; as far as I can see, there's no mention of them.

I can't find anything in Spon about how to manage servants, but they clearly exist as there is all sorts of chat about where they should sleep, eat and sit: 

"Servants' beds should never have valances round them, as it encourages a habit of keeping boxes and rubbish under the beds." 

It is mysterious. I sometimes think Spon is writing for a Mr Pooter type of person - there is a great deal of advice on plumbing - but then he'll throw in a recipe for lark pie, which makes me wonder who he's writing for. Perhaps there is no advice on duties of servants because everyone just knows how to do it. Strangely, I can imagine Lady Redesdale might have had a copy of this book. 

That's it for now.  There are a lot of good recipes, parlour games, beauty advice and medical  bits and bobs in both, by the way. HINT HINT.

Pip "Keep 'em coming otherwise I'll have to find a job" Pip

NWM

I offer a new service to my readers

Dirty skirting boards that are over 100 years old should not be cleaned with modern substances like 'Cillit Bang' or 'Easy Off Fume Free Oven Cleaner'.They should be cleaned using proper old-fashioned methods that involve scrubbing, rubbing, tinctures and the sort of chemicals that were banned in some Eastern European countries as recently as 1983.

Luckily for me - and also maybe you, of which more later in this post - I have two books full of such methods.  This is just as well, because my own skirting boards (c. 1908, i.e. not that old for England, excitingly antique for Canada) are the sort of filthy that makes visitors ignore your pristine lavatory bowl and leave your house convinced that weevils live in your pants.

Book One: Every Woman's Enquire Within

A.C. Marshall, editor of Tit-Bits Book of Wrinkles (who, exactly, Tit-Bit was, and where his wrinkles were is another matter altogether) also edited this magnificent tome, first published in 1938. It is only for "Home-loving women", and touches on a range of topics including Home Management, Character and Fortune, General Knowledge, Home Maintenance, Etiquette and Correspondence and Practical Home Cookery.

Book Two: Spons' Household Manual

Published in 1897, this book reckons that ladies can cope with more than fortune-telling, and includes chapters on Water Supply, The Larder, Thieves and Fire, Receipts for Dishes, The Sickroom and Domestic Motors.  (FYI the Spons are E & F N Spon).

Both books are very relevant in 2012. Of this I am convinced. For e.g., the very first paragraph of the preface of Spons' Household Manual could not predict that one day people in for e.g. Portland or Stockholm would be knitting the very socks on their feet whilst nipping down the sourdough starter hotel to chat to their mates about rennet: 

The same is true of Every Woman's Enquire Within, which was extolling the virtues of a nice firm brush long before anyone thought that people in Hackney would one day be selling dustpans and brushes for 35 British pounds. 

All this leads me to two conclusions:

1. That I will one day have clean skirting boards; more importantly

2. That I must offer a service to you, my adoring readers and/or fans. 

Here's how it works:

You can send in a question (in the comments box) about any topic, and I will look it up and send you Advice From The Past. If you are lucky, you will get 1897 advice and 1938 advice (which would be like comparing now to 1971, which not many of us like to do).  If you are really lucky, the Sponses and A. C. Marshall (guided by me) will also be able to fix whatever it is that ails you. 

Come on then ! Let's see what you got !

Pip "Rub it with tincture of myrrh" Pip

NWM

P.S. This post is inspired in part by The Voice of Boo's v. excellent posts on Nancy Spain. I have not yet told her that I own The Holiday Inn International Cookbook (1970), which is dedicated to Ruby "Doll" Wilson and contains a recipe for "Beef A La Holiday".

Fat Cat Roundup

I would like to be clear about my feelings re. cats.  They are OK because you don't need to take them for walks, pick up their poo or give them nosebags.  They are annoying because they miaow in the night, wee in a box and don't do tricks (unless you are Russian.)  There is no way you could describe me as a 'cat lover', for e.g. I do not have a cat-faced mug and I do not talk about the cats that I have experienced like they are my friends, have personalities or - heaven help us - are my furry babies. (But I have visited a Cat Museum.)

It may be a surprise to hear that I have, in fact, lived with cats. Here is the list:

Adopted when drunk from friend of friend with a stupid pug  ("There are two cats on your bed! You hate cats! What's happening?", said my friend Polly when she first saw them):

Monster: swinging belly, mental, apples fell on his head, now lives in Bromley but would be 19 by now so is probably dead
Squiffy: tiny, squeaky, nice, died of kidney failure despite the 500 British pound kidney dialysis


Joint custody of two cats with husband's ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend:
Corndog: Had kittens and hid them in a bush, fat, hairy, mental
Oustiti: Tiny, long whiskers, not annoying.

There is also Ziggy, who I have just looked after for a week. The reason that Ziggy is remarkable - and here is The Theme - is that Ziggy is fat. Monster was fat (fat when I got him, fat when he left), and Corndog is fat.

Fat cats are funny.  Pls do not put in comments boxes "it is terrible your cats are fat feed them less make them run round the garden people like you should not be allowed to have cats imagine what the council would say if you did that to your children" (etc).  Monster was on a diet but had hanging skin. Corndog is not my cat (she is my husband's, and he is a veterinariariariarian, as is her other owner), and Ziggy is not mine. So don't bother.

Other people have, and it hasn't made a difference. For e.g., a few weeks ago, as Corndog lay on her back sunning her gigantic belly in the garden of her part-owner,  the 6ft 3, 276lb Georges Laraque, famous ex-hockey player for the Montreal Canadiens, leant off the balcony of the flat above (blocking out the sun), and bellowed: "Ton chat est obèse.  Il devrait être végétarien."*

Corndog is not vegetarian, and is still fat.  There may be a connection, there may not. She also features quite heavily in this gallery of fat cat photographs, which you may enjoy. Or may not. As you wish.  (Apologies to anyone who has seen these pictures already via the Twitter or the Instagram etc - although I am sure you will appreciate their collective weight. No pun intended etc.)

Monster, now of Bromley. A photograph familier to regular readers and/or fans

Ziggy of Montreal

Ziggy 

Also Ziggy

Corndog

Also Corndog

Corndog left out in the rain for too long because I was laughing

Corndog on the knee of the pathologist. No idea where horrid cushion came from, or where it has gone to

That's it for now. If I find any more I will let you know. 

Pip "Low Fat Iams" Pip

NWM 

*"Your cat is obese. You should put it on a vegetarian diet."

I predict the future

In this, another in an occasionally regular new series, I attempt to 'spot the future'.  Essentially, the future is going to be like post-rationing 1950s Britain and/or an Amish farm, but with electricity.

OK here goes.

Books

1. Everyone will start buying out-of-print books. I will say no more on the matter for the time being, but I am definitely right.
2. People will keep on buying books on their Kindles, iPads etc and then they will go, you know I loved that book a lot and I would like to own a printed copy of it. Then they will buy it again.
3. Everyone will be a bit, O why is my house so cold and unfeeling? Then they will realise they haven't got any books on their shelves anymore, just receipts from iTunes and Audible.com, and then they will start buying real books again. ("Books Do Furnish A Room", let us not forget.)  
4. In a while someone in Shoreditch or Williamsburg or the Mile End in Montreal will - as these people do - start liking books because they are 'real' and 'authentic'. (Ref. (1) above).  It will be like locally sourced hand-reared organic foodstuffs all over again.  'Ateliers' will open where people hand print and bind books like no-one has ever thought of it before. They will have tools for it and they will have aprons.  I haven't even Googled this but I am 100% sure it is already happening and is being done by some fella with braces (suspenders for our US and Canadian cousins), a beard down to his knees, thick spectacles, a white shirt rolled up to reveal ironic sailorman tattoos, canvas trousers and workman boots.
5. People will just get fed up with Borders and Amazon and Walmart, and they won't need to be told to visit their local bookshop, e.g. The Bookseller Crow On The Hill (in the meantime please buy your books online from him not Amazon). This is a fervent wish rather than a prediction but O that it were so! 

Food

• Biscuits. 
• Home-made cheese. 
• Potted meat.

Drink

• Lemon squash, ginger ale, cordial made out of hedgerows. 

Bicycles

• Wicker baskets.

Cars
I have updated this post since the forward-looking Mrs Jones pointed out that horses are the way of the future. This is also true of donkeys and mules. If you don't have room for one of these, you will have one of the following: 

• An electric car so quiet they have to put an ice-cream van style jingle in it so people can hear you coming
• Bicycles (above)
• Busses
• Trams

Children

• They will once again become small people who are seen but not heard, say 'please' and 'thank you', write thank you-letters, eat what they are given and do not do performances shouting "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME". 
• Parents will be pleased when their children jump in puddles in their gumboots, collect sticks, and ask for a hamster and an Arthur Ransome book for Christmas, not disappointed that they are not doing Grade 8 violin at the age of 2.
• O-Levels and A-Levels will come back
• High-heeled shoes and Bakugan pyjamas will be banned for anyone under 12. 
• No-one will be mean to ladies who can't breast-feed, and people who do breast-feed will not make a political statement out of it and make everyone else feel like an idiot.
• There will be no 'parenting technique' discussions because everyone will do the same thing.
• Prams will be gigantic and blue.

That's it for now. What is your prediction?

Pip "Crystal Ball" Pip

NWM