Saturday, January 29, 2011

Betty and the Real World

Love Can Wait:
Kate has a kitchen helper who tells her that she's planning to use her overtime pay to take a trip with her husband to Blackpool, a popular seaside resort:
Documents have been found to suggest that the reason Blackpool escaped heavy damage in World War II was that Adolf Hitler had earmarked the town to remain a place of leisure after his planned invasion.  Despite this, on 11 September 1940, German bombs fell near the North railway station and eight people were killed in nearby houses.  
Hey, Kate, let's put the 'fun' in funicular
I think I threw up in my mouth a little at the thought of Hitler in swim trunks...


Kate is unable, while in Bergen, Norway, to take a funicular up Mount Floyen. (Only the o has one one of those Norse slashes through it that I'd rather grouse about than look up.  Betty Magdalen, I look forward to ignoring your tutorial on the subject.)


At Odds With Love:
Betty Debbie left this note for me on this post: "Jane and Nik take a walk through Hog's Bottom (real world??)"  To which I reply, 'Maybe.'  I did come across a purveyor of vinegars, dressings, jams and chutneys named Hog's Bottom but no nearer clues.  It's a wonderful name, if you don't mind coupling a part of an animal's anatomy made for wallowing with, er...dressings, jams and chutneys...

Nothing says 'what's for dinner?' like Hog's Bottom
They lunch at Le Poulbot in London.  My online French dictionary suggests that this means 'urchin' but I'm not willing to promise it does.  Betty Debbie suggests that it sounds like Robot Chicken.  I am not willing...ahem.  A review of London restaurants suggests that it is patronized by the 'early-rising bowler-hat brigade'.  The same review generalizes: Since the British waste so much money on soccer, dogs, horses, warm beer, cold women and breakfast, there is not much left for decent dining on most of the island. If you want to eat well in England, have breakfast three times a day, postulated savant-vivre Somerset Maugham.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2011 at 9:49 AM

    You mean, tell you how to do this: Mount Fløyen? I wouldn't dream of lecturing the Great High Pooh Bah & Arbiter of Everything! LOL

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  2. Barb in MarylandJanuary 29, 2011 at 2:30 PM

    Betty Barbara here--
    Hating to rain on your parade of rude remarks re: Hog's Bottom. But here goes anyway--
    Bottom, of course, has a multitude of definitions. This one:Low-lying alluvial land adjacent to a river. Often used in the plural. Also called bottomland. seems to fit best.
    So, obviously, dear old Hog's Bottom is the local name for a known spot where swine used to wallow. (If the swine still wallowed there today, it wouldn't be suitable for a walk, now would it?)
    BTW, it is not a name I would use on non-pork food items. Might make a good brand of bacon or ham.....

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