Greetings from Tufnell Park

[shewhomust]

We are staying in London with the Bears in order to attend a major birthday party, which runs through this afternoon and into this evening. The Bears have already set off, because it is the sort of party at which musicians get to play, and they want to arrive early and set up. And we will follow within the hour, but meanwhile, here I am.

Drove down yesterday via York, where we had lunch with a client at the Yorkshire Food Company in Micklegate: giant platter of smoked fish, and curd tart to follow.

BoyBear had major dentistry yesterday morning (removal of a tooth which his dentist has struggled long, heroically and ultimately in vain to save) and surprised us all by being full of bounce thereafter. In deference to his delicate state, there was soup and ice cream for supper, and the after-supper cabaret was a demonstration of how to change all the strings on a guitar (and why you should).

There was also much general conversation, as a result of which interrogated Google this morning about the Macedonian language (South Slavic, apparently) and Egyptian Walking Onions (they have their own website!). Armed with this information, we are ready to party!

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about the Egyptian walking onions. The triffids of the onion world. Thank you!

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

You know, I can actually forgive the Egyptian Walking Onion guys for using papyrus as their font. Seems fitting. ;-)

Hope you had a wonderful time.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Font geek!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

There was a conversation at the party at which I wanted your advice. We were talking about sitting below the salt, and what happened when you wanted to salt your food: did someone pass you the salt, or did you get up and serve yourself from the salt cellar?

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Notice how I didn't mention the use of Comic Sans (or something similar) on their testimonials page. Tsk tsk.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

The etiquette manuals don't talk about this specifically, from memory. (I haven't seen a much in the way of evidence for the sitting above and below in that way) but they do say that if one needs anything, one should not reach but one should ask nicely. The question is if I'm remembering the right manuals. The ones you need are mostly in Furnivall's Babee's Book. If I didn't think you'd enjoy looking, I'd go to my bookshelf and check, but I rather suspect you'd prefer this: http://www.archive.org/details/babeesbookmediev00furnrich

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I should have thanked you for that link days ago - how right you are, I'd love to go explore it for myself! And will, as soon as I catch my breath...

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you find (and how wrong I was!).