From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #100 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, March 17 2003 Volume 12 : Number 100 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: I found this mouse in your beer. ["Matt Sewell" ] Re: I found this mouse in your beer. ["Matt Sewell" ] beer! ["Brian Huddell" ] RE: I found this mouse in your beer. [Dr John Halewood ] Re: I found this mouse in your beer. ["Matt Sewell" ] RE: I found this mouse in your beer. ["Matt Sewell" ] the staples of life: chocolate and beer ["Natalie Jane" ] Re: I found this mouse in your beer. [Ken Weingold ] Re: Beer [Christopher Gross ] Re: I found this mouse in your beer. [Michael R Godwin ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V12 #99 [crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 15:22:41 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. I think we suffer from the same thing as any other country: the beer that's brewed in vast vats in factories is pisspoor, the independent breweries make the best beer, though sometimes (especially in the cities) it's difficult to find a Freehouse (a pub that doesn't have to sell only the beer provided by the owning brewery), so one has to make a bit of an effort to find the decent beer... plus, as you so rightly pointed out, we have until 11pm to do this, so it can be a bit of a race against the clock... Luckily there are a few pubs willing to bend the licensing laws a little! Cheers Matt >From: The Great Quail > > >> Now, saying US beer is better than English beer, now *that's* funny! > >Just to clarify, I do *not* mean the commercial US import beer like >Budweiser and Coors and all that swill. That stuff is awful indeed, and a >disgrace to export. I mean things like Samuel Adams, Anchor Steam, Yuengling >Porter, Sierra Nevada, Victory Hop Devil, and countless other smaller brews. > >I have been to London three times, and each time I was surprised by the >quality of the beer, which I found weak and watery. Maybe it's better >outside of the city...? (Or maybe after they kick everyone out on the street >at 11pm they break out the good stuff for the locales?) > >--Quail - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stay in touch with absent friends. Download MSN Messenger for FREE! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:31:59 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. Anglo and American find common ground, not in shared language and culture, but in a mutual distrust of swill: > I think we suffer from the same thing as any other country: the beer > that's brewed in vast vats in factories is pisspoor, the independent > breweries make the best beer, though sometimes (especially in the cities) > it's difficult to find a Freehouse (a pub that doesn't have to sell only > the beer provided by the owning brewery), so one has to make a bit of an > effort to find the decent beer... What beers do you recommend? I may be in London again this year, and I'd be delighted to find something tasty. >plus, as you so rightly pointed out, we > have until 11pm to do this, so it can be a bit of a race against the > clock... Don't you think this might be the entire *reason* crime is up in England? Every time I am there, I get thrust out into the night with a bunch of surly young men who are just *starting* to get wound up! You should take a lesson from the States, and keep them drinking until they pass out... - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:23:55 -0600 (CST) From: gshell@metronet.com Subject: Re: intelligence in space, lack of it on earth On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > That would definitely kick the California secessionist movement > into high gear. The only questions that remain: take Nevada, > Oregon, and Washington with us (voluntarily, of course); and > should we be a new independant nation or just join Canada (if > they'll have us -- we DO already have 3 hockey teams!) errr, sorry, Texas gets Canada and possibly Mexico. California only gets Utah. gSs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:38:58 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Yo La Tengo live on the web now On Sat, Mar 15, 2003, Steve Talkowski wrote: > Streamed from www.wfmu.org (via iTunes too) taking phone-in cover > requests for the next 3 hours. > > Video stream here: > > http://www.wfmu.org/marathon/webcamschedule.shtml Thanks, Steve. It was pretty cool, too. I recorded about an hour of it if anyone wants. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 15:49:25 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. London brews - Fuller's is very good, even their bogstandard (London Pride) is fine. They do a fantastic organic honey beer, though hard to find on draught and then only in the summer months. Wychwood is an Oxfordshire brewery and their Black Witch is a nicer stout than even guinness, with their Fiddler's Elbow also a fine brew. Sadly I hear Brakspeare's of Henley is closing, but all their beers are wonderful... there may well still be some left by the time you visit. Hopback are my current raves: Crop Circle, Summer Lightning, and my favourite drink of the moment (though hard to find outside of Hants/Dorset), Entire Stout... I can't type any more about delicious beer here at my desk at work without going AWOL... Great beer, in my (fairly limited) experience, is fairly hard to find in London - I'd recommend getting out to the country and experiencing the trad. English country pub: *cool* beer (not ice cold), bar billiards, less punctual closing times - sometimes even live music or morris dancing, though the future of this may well be in doubt! As for alcohol-related crime - of *course* it's because of the licensing laws (except in the town of Wantage, where the residents are particularly fond of a punch-up). Quail wrote: >Anglo and American find common ground, not in shared language and culture, >but in a mutual distrust of swill: I for one will most certainly drink to that... Cheers! Matt >From: The Great Quail > >Anglo and American find common ground, not in shared language and culture, >but in a mutual distrust of swill: > >What beers do you recommend? I may be in London again this year, and I'd be >delighted to find something tasty. > > >plus, as you so rightly pointed out, we > > have until 11pm to do this, so it can be a bit of a race against the > > clock... > >Don't you think this might be the entire *reason* crime is up in England? >Every time I am there, I get thrust out into the night with a bunch of surly >young men who are just *starting* to get wound up! - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Message your friends in real time - and for free. Get MSN Messenger today! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:06:41 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. At 10:31 AM 3/17/2003 -0500, The Great Quail wrote: >What beers do you recommend? I may be in London again this year, and I'd be >delighted to find something tasty. I really like Old Speckled Hen. I once found it in the US in cans (with that funky plastic head-creating attachment -- now there's something that could appear in a Hitchcock song), but it didn't taste as good as it did from the tap in the UK. But even the low-quality brews seemed to me to be superior to their popular US counterparts. >>plus, as you so rightly pointed out, we >> have until 11pm to do this, so it can be a bit of a race against the >> clock... > >Don't you think this might be the entire *reason* crime is up in England? >Every time I am there, I get thrust out into the night with a bunch of surly >young men who are just *starting* to get wound up! You should take a lesson >from the States, and keep them drinking until they pass out... But everyone in the UK knows to start drinking heavily right from the moment they enter the pub, which sort of balances things out IMO. Forget reforming the licensing laws -- the only Americanization of UK beverage practices I would recommend would be the universal adaptation of the "bottomless" soft drink. It's nearly standard practice in US restaurants, and the worst culture shock I got in the UK was staring at the empty glass as I waited in vain for a refill. later, Miles np: BBC World Service on my computer, but it's having massive technical difficulties -- and what a day for that to happen (sigh)... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 11:02:59 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. On Mon, Mar 17, 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > I really like Old Speckled Hen. I once found it in the US in cans > (with that funky plastic head-creating attachment -- now there's > something that could appear in a Hitchcock song), but it didn't > taste as good as it did from the tap in the UK. But even the > low-quality brews seemed to me to be superior to their popular US > counterparts. We have Old Speckled Hen on tap in NYC. And Tetley's. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:07:33 -0600 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: beer! Mike: > This is all good news, Brian. Well, here's where I have to backpedal a bit. It looks like the microbrewery explosion in the US has peaked, and may be starting to wane. Some of the majors have flooded the market with products that co-opt the look and attitude but none of the character of the micros, in a transparent effort to assert their dominance. And many of the "brewpubs" you see in the suburbs are just crass chains with copper tanks and little else to distinguish them from the average theme restaurant. But yes, the good news is that Mike and Matt could probably find something good to drink in any American city. As far as exports are concerned, the only good American beer I ever saw in London was Liberty Ale, from the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco. Anchor is somewhere between a micro and a major, and they've been around for over 30 years. Liberty Ale, along with Sierra Nevada Pale, is how a lot of people in the US got their first real taste of hops, and their aggressive bitterness accounts for why some American connoisseurs find English beer weak or watery. Having made the leap from wimpy Coors to assertive Liberty, some of us don't have much patience for the polite middle-ground tread by a lot of English breweries. +brian in New Orleans ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:10:04 -0000 From: Dr John Halewood Subject: RE: I found this mouse in your beer. > -----Original Message----- > From: Matt Sewell [mailto:matt_sewell@hotmail.com] > London brews - Fuller's is very good, even their bogstandard (London > Pride) is fine. They do a fantastic organic honey beer, though hard to > find on draught and then only in the summer months. I think that's Waggledance, which was originally brewed by Vaux and taken over when the brewery was closed down. Currently I'm getting rather fond of the Caledonian Deuchars IPA, which is proving that the Scottish can brew decent stuff as well. cheers john ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:13:08 -0600 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: oops, and REAP Sorry, Joseph Coors, no offense intended: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAQSDRDEDD.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:14:22 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. Aaah... Old Speckled Hen - beer brewed in my home town of Abingdon. I could smell it being brewed from my school... sadly the brewery was recently swallowed by a bigger one and the brewery was closed (after about 300 years of brewing). Brewery is now trendy flats... :0( Cheers Matt >From: Miles Goosens > >I really like Old Speckled Hen. I once found it in the US in cans (with that funky plastic head-creating attachment -- now there's something that could appear in a Hitchcock song), but it didn't taste as good as it did from the tap in the UK. But even the low-quality brews seemed to me to be superior to their popular US counterparts. > - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Overloaded with spam? With MSN 8 you can filter it out ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 11:19:02 -0500 From: mary Subject: Beer - REAP Brewery magnate Joseph Coors http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Central/03/17/obit.joseph.coors.ap/index.html All this talk of beer and ale and stout! I think I may drop by the Brazen Head for a pint this evening. Beannachtam na Fiile Padraig oraibh go liir. s.Mary ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:18:20 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: RE: I found this mouse in your beer. No, it's different (though packaged very similarly to it) and definitely Fullers... and god yeah, that Deuchars IPA is bloody good stuff... Where's my beer?! Matt >From: Dr John Halewood . >I think that's Waggledance, which was originally brewed by Vaux and taken >over when the brewery was closed down. Currently I'm getting rather fond of >the Caledonian Deuchars IPA, which is proving that the Scottish can brew >decent stuff as well. > >cheers >john - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Protect your PC from e-mail viruses. Get MSN 8 today. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:29:30 +0000 From: "Matt Sewell" Subject: Re: Beer - REAP Of course! I'd forgotten... Cheers Matt, celebrating St Paddy's, being a *whole quarter* Irish..! >From: mary >Beannachtam na Fiile Padraig oraibh go liir. > >s.Mary - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Send instant messages for free with MSN Messenger. Click here to download it now! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 08:34:13 -0800 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: the staples of life: chocolate and beer >(And we even have better candy and beer!) Quail, Quail, Quail. BETTER CANDY? Are you kidding? Cadbury chocolate beats holy shit out of anything in the US. Must I mention my fetish for Cadbury creme eggs? And god, I wish they had Cadbury Roses in the US... After I returned from England in 1993, I found I had my first cavity since I was a kid. No wonder British teeth are famed for their decreptitude. As for beer, though, everything I've sampled from the Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, is way better than the beer I've tried in England. I also think our (hard) cider is better, even if it's not as easy to come by here. British cider always seems to have a weird stale taste. >And I didn't say anything about being gay, having bad teeth, or >collecting things, either. ;-) Ahh... Andy Partridge's truism, yes? He says he fits the latter two criteria. >PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The creator of the long-running reality >television >series "COPS" fell 300 feet from an Oregon cliff into the >Pacific Ocean >and was missing, police and the Coast Guard said. Maybe he had too much Mirror Pond Pale Ale! Oregon beer is hazardous to your health! n. _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:25:08 -0600 (CST) From: gshell@metronet.com Subject: Re: humorlessness with a side order of chips On Sun, 16 Mar 2003 quail@libyrinth.com wrote: > Ah....Funny story, this. My reply was in response to a > comment that equated Canada to the United States, > "minus the arrogance." while I was in Canada I encountered some of the most arrogantly insular and patriotic people on earth. All they had to do was learn I was a Texan and then they wouldn't stop talking their sloppy french. and that was in bc. it was worse in alberta. and the fucking signs, what the hell? Think how much Texas beer and wine you could import if you printed the signs in say, Spanish? Spanish is a fine language, unlike French. Besides, everyone who speaks French, speaks English or at least wants to speak English and we should not discourage them. And people who speak English have no desire whatsoever to talk with a french person. what gives? Why don't they just make French the official language of Canada. Wait, then we'd have to take it off the dead language list. gSs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:51:18 +0100 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. - --On Montag, 17. Mdrz 2003 10:06 Uhr -0500 The Great Quail wrote: > I have been to London three times, and each time I was surprised by the > quality of the beer, which I found weak and watery. Maybe it's better > outside of the city...? (Or maybe after they kick everyone out on the > street at 11pm they break out the good stuff for the locales?) I know I'll risk alienating all others here, but I don't think very highly of either US or UK beers. Samuel Adams is OK and I had a few other beers in New York that were drinkable, but *all* of them lacked depth in taste. As for British beer, the only one I *really* liked was something called "... cream ale". The bitters and stouts and lagers didn't do much for me. Granted, I had only about 5 different ones. Obvioiusly I prefer German beer. I'm atypical in that I don't much care for Pils. Pils is by far the most popular type of beer in Germany, but too bitter for my taste (lots of hops). Being from Cologne I prefer the regional variety Koelsch. I also like Weizenbier (Erdinger is great in summer), some kinds of Altbier, Export, ... - -- Sebastian Hagedorn PGP key ID: 0x4D105B45 Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156 50823 Kvln http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:52:51 -0600 From: "Mike Wells" Subject: Re: Beer mary: > All this talk of beer and ale and stout! I think I may drop by the Brazen > Head for a pint this evening. All this talk of beer and ale, I might start drinking again (:-o As one who took to beer with MUCH enthusiasm (probably too much, in retrospect), I will second the recommendation of Anchor's products - which I also saw in the UK. As the late Mr. Coors was 'somewhat conservative' their beers can be 'somewhat bitter', or a bit to the right of Pilsner Urquell. This suited me fine, I liked a bitter beer. Mike, you're dead on about the Trappists. Chimay Grande Reserve will warp time and space. Red Hook out of Seattle used to be a favorite of mine, but I stopped buying when they were swallowed up (by Budweiser? can't remember). Goose Island here in Chicago isn't bad and has been distributing out-of-region for awhile now. There's a great small brewery in Victor, Idaho called Grand Teton Brewing Co. which makes the infamous 'Moose Juice Stout' - black as coffee mixed with creasote but mighty tasty ISTR. If you're ever in Jackson, WY... I had some Guinness in London one night that absolutely took my freakin' head off - four pints on top of a couple lagers with meal, and I was shitfaced...and I distinctly remember using the Tate Gallery for support on the stagger back to our hotel (I was walking fine, but my shadow wasn't doing too well :) ). And that's when I had built up a substantial tolerance. On a seperate visit I was treated to a few Carlsberg Export lagers that were something like 12% alcohol. Yeepers. The absolute bestest, freshest, most tasty beer I ever had was a Paulaner draft on the Freidrichstrasse in Berlin. That showed me what beer could be. Anyone else East of the Rockies remember what it was like to see Coors back in the 70's? Any family who took a vacation out West was mandated to throw a couple cases in the back of the Buick...and upon return, the males from the neighborhood would gather to knock 'em down on patio of the 'lucky' provider. Granted it was pure piss water, but it seemed more special because you couldn't get it. Now sadly relegated to the n/a category, I can recommend Haake Beck as a quite tasty alternative, with St. Pauli in second place (and, oddly enough, Old Milwaukee makes a n/a that really tastes like beer - scuzzy beer, but beer nonetheless). Michael "the more beers, the more better" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 11:55:36 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. On Mon, Mar 17, 2003, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > I know I'll risk alienating all others here, but I don't think very highly > of either US or UK beers. Samuel Adams is OK and I had a few other beers in > New York that were drinkable, but *all* of them lacked depth in taste. As > for British beer, the only one I *really* liked was something called "... > cream ale". The bitters and stouts and lagers didn't do much for me. > Granted, I had only about 5 different ones. One of my favorite beers is Ipswich Ale, from Ipswich, MA. Unfortunately it's next to impossible to even get it out of MA. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 12:03:07 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Beer On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Mike Wells wrote: > On a seperate visit I was treated to a few Carlsberg Export lagers that were > something like 12% alcohol. Yeepers. Back about ten years ago I had a British import called Thomas Hardy Ale (I think) which was also about 12% alcohol. I can't remember how it tasted though; not sure if that's because so much time has passed or because I got wasted. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Good way to celebrate: listen to Irish music. Bad way to celebrate: have a Budweiser with green food dye in it. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:07:48 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: I found this mouse in your beer. On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Matt Sewell wrote: > Aaah... Old Speckled Hen - beer brewed in my home town of Abingdon. I > could smell it being brewed from my school... sadly the brewery was > recently swallowed by a bigger one and the brewery was closed (after > about 300 years of brewing). Brewery is now trendy flats... :0( The Ushers brewery in Trowbridge closed a few years ago, and the equipment was bizarrely sold to Taiwan or some such place - I believe that the Ushers which is sold now is actually brewed by Huntsmans. I don't drink the barley wine or Old Peculier type stuff any more, only the weak and watery - and even then my limit is now well below the 4 pints I used to regard as 'standard'. But virtually all of the following breweries produce a stronger beer for hardened topers. Anyway, my recommendations: Butcombe - I can go on supping this happily for most of the evening. Wadworths of Devizes. The 6X is drunk by almost all my drinking cronies, but I usually stick to the IPA. Abbey Ales - sad to say this is currently the only Bath brewery. Timothy Taylors - this is the one to look for if you're in Yorkshire. Failing the Timothy Taylor's, choose Theakstons - but as I say, beware of the Old Peculier Felinfoel is the nicest Welsh beer: http://www.felinfoel-brewery.com/ Smiles - reasonably priced Bristol brew: Before I eased back on consumption, Marstons Pedigree was my regular drink. It was reckoned to be an endangered species but it still seems to be extant: Matt, are the Hook Norton people still in business? - - Mike "glug" Godwin n.p. Slim Dusty "A pub with no beer" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:21:46 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Beer On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Christopher Gross wrote: > Back about ten years ago I had a British import called Thomas Hardy Ale (I > think) which was also about 12% alcohol. I can't remember how it tasted > though; not sure if that's because so much time has passed or because I > got wasted. Probably the former. And apparently it improves with age: It used to be brewed by Eldridge Pope in Dorchester, but their current website is full of retail management jargon and makes no mention of any brewing activity, so I guess that Huntsman Ales are no more. - - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:39:09 +0000 (GMT) From: crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V12 #99 > > "Americans are just beardless Taliban." Yeah, nice satire, that -- free > > of all the subtlety and wit of un-nice satire. Well, if you cheat, and rob it of all context as you have done, yes. But that's not how Matt put it, is it now? You could probably defuse the wittiest satire ever if you employed this dishonest technique. I can't *imagine* why > > Quail might have mistaken this satire for anti-American bigotry. > > > > BTW, British men are all either football hooligans, inbred aristocrats > > or sadistic headmasters. Yeah. And...? The whole point is that I, and many other Brits, don't mind this sort of stuff. Why certain Americans have got in such a bate about this, I don't know. To borrow an Americanism - lighten up. > The always reasonable and increasingly more > charming Crowbar Joe writes, Coming from someone who recently couldn't give 'a rat's ass' for my opinion, and seem to get involved in an unhealthy share of name-calling and list scraps, this smacks of motes and beams, dear boy. > > > 'Overreaction'? I thought Mr Sewell's Texiban > comment was a nice little bit of satire. But, being a Brit, > I would say that... > > Well, I'm not sure that you speak for all Brits, I'm sure I don't. > but if you > do I am even more surprised. Considering the wealth > of satire that Britain has produced, I would credit you > with being able to recognize the difference between an > insult and satire. Satire requires a knowledge of the > subject coupled with a certain sense of wit; Mr. Sewell's > comment was merely yet another arrow of contempt > fired for no good reason at the people of my country. It > was hardly Swiftian, or even Monthy Pythonesque. More > Anne Robinson, I think...? Swift, as many people have pointed out, was Irish. And, yes, I know what satire is. > > > Crowbar Joe > > Yes, an excellent name for yourself, as it evokes the > subtle, searching quality of your intellect quite nicely. Ah! The 'subtle' and 'searching' intellect of Quail at work. Ad Hominem Attacks 'R' Us... > > > A list of Great Britons would have followed, but I was > so 'aaawwwed' by Quail's list, I decided against > exposing our puny culture to ridicule... > > Ah....Funny story, this. My reply was in response to a > comment that equated Canada to the United States, > "minus the arrogance." I also backed it up by indicating > that history, culture, and resources were very important > for enabling great artistic expression -- in fact, I used > the Germans of the European Enlightenment as an > example. I was going to add another sentence, like: > "This list does not mean to imply that any 'great' culture, > such as Great Britain, France, China, etc., cannot > produce a similar or even more extensive list." The > reason I didn't do so is because I thought that anyone > with two neurons to rub together would find it obvious. > What is it -- the bad beer? Now the bad sit-com writer gambit. Is this what you call Swiftian? > > > but start bleating and flapping at any perceived slight > from the 'Commonwealth' and 'Mother Country'. That > old, national inferiority complex rearing its head again, > eh? > > Oh my God, you really can't believe that! (Not to > mention that my "Mother Countries" are Ireland, > Germany, Bohemia and Poland.) Oh well, that's me shot down in flames. > I admit, I am > impressed that England, for such a small > place, has managed to produce so many great cultural > figures -- despite a long history of effette and insane > royalty, psychopathic puritans, colonial apologists, > artistic snobs, and Imperial mass murderers. (And I > mean this even after you've subtracted the Irish, the > Welsh, and the Scots from your list of artists.) I'm Scottish by birth. My father was Scottish. I know England's failings well (and Scotland's) that's why I don't go around saluting the flag and getting uppity about perceived insults when someone disses my country(ies). But I > assure you that I am happily free of any Anglo-inferiority > complex. I mean, the Beatles were pretty cool and all, > and there's that Robyn fellow, Interesting to note Robyn's attitude to America. Perhaps you ought to send him a pompous e-mail slapping him down. but I think the States have > done quite well for themselves these last 227 years. I agree. My degree was in English and American Literaturte, and I'm coming over to New Orleans soon (again), to the Jazz and Heritage Fest, the Ponderosa Stomp and to the Cramps at the Shim Sham Club. That doesn't mean the US hasn't got faults. Not the least of them being a tendency to get a little po-faced on the vapours of patriotism. > (And we even have better candy and beer!) De gustibus non est disputandem Charmless Joe ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #100 ********************************