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Post by Swampirella on Sept 16, 2021 21:27:08 GMT
Two drinks that have been around a long time are Ovaltine and Horlicks. I don't know if they are available in Canada or the USA. Ovaltine is available in supermarkets, but Horlicks only at Amazon or speciality stores.
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 16, 2021 21:30:49 GMT
I like rooibos myself, and pu' erh (those are teas, not relatives of one of Lovecraft's monsters. Many years ago, I was given some pu-erh from Hong Kong as a gift. After drinking it I was violently ill. It may have had nothing to do with the tea, but I have stayed off it ever since. I'm sorry that happened; hopefully it wasn't the tea but I'd have kept away too if that had happened to me. I've been drinking it regularly (during the fall/winter months) for a few years & never had a problem.
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Post by ohthehorror on Sept 17, 2021 11:32:23 GMT
Rooibos is a strange one. I've tried a lot of those herbal-type teas, which my sister describes as 'smelly water' and rooibos is actually one of the only 'smelly-watery' type teas that's really quite tea-like, and really quite nice.
Ovaltine is lovely of course and has the advantage over Horlicks that it can be made with water. Horlicks was much too sweet for me, and lumpy when you add the milk. Didn't matter what I tried, I just couldn't get rid of the lumps. Horlicks wins in the malty taste(and smell) stakes though. Lovely maltyness. Still too sweet and lumpy though. Shame. If anyone ever invents a less sweet Horlicks that can be made with water and guaranteed lump-free it'll be a turning point in the beverage industry.
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Post by đrincess đ”uvstarr on Sept 21, 2021 15:12:15 GMT
I was looking at bad winters and came upon the year
1979
It was The Winter of Discontent, when strikes crippled the country, but there was very bad winter weather as well.
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Post by ripper on Sept 22, 2021 10:05:22 GMT
I remember the strikes of 1979 very well. As for the weather, I don't recall if it was particularly snowy, but at the time I worked in a factory, and they had to rent large space heaters to keep the temperature above the legal minimum as the boiler system couldn't cope.
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Post by samdawson on Sept 22, 2021 11:06:43 GMT
I remember the strikes of 1979 very well. As for the weather, I don't recall if it was particularly snowy, but at the time I worked in a factory, and they had to rent large space heaters to keep the temperature above the legal minimum as the boiler system couldn't cope. Me too. I don't recall snow until after the new year but it was cold and sometimes wet and the winter and short days and long nights seemed to go on for ever. I had a temporary job in a WH Smiths and a long bus journey there and back, and there was always a wait in the dark and cold and (often) rain after work. There were terraced houses by the bus stop and you could see the fairy lights through the windows. They looked so warm and decorated, something that home, unfortunately and an hour and a half away, was not. Occasionally a car driver would take pity and pull up and call out where he was going and did anyone want a lift (something that was still not uncommon and which I occasionally still try and do). One of the abiding televisual images was (apart from the stacks of rubbish and the open air strike ballots outside factories) of donkey-jacketed picketers standing by braziers made from oil drums and burning pallets and scrap wood. That said, there was, I think, power on and food on the table at Christmas itself throughout the land.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2021 13:29:35 GMT
I remember the strikes of 1979 very well. As for the weather, I don't recall if it was particularly snowy, but at the time I worked in a factory, and they had to rent large space heaters to keep the temperature above the legal minimum as the boiler system couldn't cope. Me too. I don't recall snow until after the new year but it was cold and sometimes wet and the winter and short days and long nights seemed to go on for ever. I had a temporary job in a WH Smiths and a long bus journey there and back, and there was always a wait in the dark and cold and (often) rain after work. There were terraced houses by the bus stop and you could see the fairy lights through the windows. They looked so warm and decorated, something that home, unfortunately and an hour and a half away, was not. Occasionally a car driver would take pity and pull up and call out where he was going and did anyone want a lift (something that was still not uncommon and which I occasionally still try and do). One of the abiding televisual images was (apart from the stacks of rubbish and the open air strike ballots outside factories) of donkey-jacketed picketers standing by braziers made from oil drums and burning pallets and scrap wood. That said, there was, I think, power on and food on the table at Christmas itself throughout the land. I am not sure there were power cuts during the Winter of Discontent, or, if there were, I don't remember them. I do, however, recall those during 1974 and the accompanying three-day week. Also, TV shut down at 10.30pm. There was a rush for candles in the shops. We were lucky as we had a gas fire, so at least we had heating. There were also two general elections that year. I stood outside the polling station, a Methodist chapel, with my parents' friends baby in her pram while they went inside to vote.
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Post by samdawson on Sept 23, 2021 14:05:22 GMT
No, I don't either, just the rubbish piles and the reports of unburied dead, plus the growing sense that the unbelievable might happen and the Tories under Margaret Thatcher might actually get elected. (You still have to wonder at how nearly Labour might have kept power, and what a vastly different country this would have been if they'd served a full term, leading the Conservatives to ditch Thatcher and select a more One Nation leader). I associate power cuts more with 1970, 73 and 74. A few years back my Mum passed on to me the Aladdin gas mantle lamp we drove to their factory in West London to buy during the three day week. I remember it was easier to do homework with it than by candlelight. It joins the emergency store of candles and other essentials that, having grown up in the 70s, I still keep and which for the first time actually paid off under the pandemic, when we were able to supply paracetamol, masks, eggs etc to people who needed them.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2021 16:41:38 GMT
James Callaghan was widely expected to hold an election in the autumn of 1978 but put it off. I think one wasn't required until October 1979, by which he was expecting better economic data. The Winter of Discontent put paid to those plans in terms of the public's perception of the unions. There was a decent chance of Labour winning an autumn 1978 election, but little chance after those seemingly endless strikes. After Labour lost a vote of confidence by a single vote, the game was up. If they could have soldiered on until October 1979 maybe public anger would have abated enough for them to have a realistic chance of winning, but the mood in the country in spring 1979 meant that they were staring at defeat. The irony is that it was the unions, Mrs Thatcher's most vocal critics and opponents, who led unwittingly to paving the way for her victory with that Winter of Discontent.
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Post by samdawson on Sept 23, 2021 16:55:34 GMT
Indeed. There were significant periods in Labour's term where they were more or less equal in the polls but their support plummeted with each strike. That was behind the sense of unreality I remember: Thatcher was unpopular even in her own party, you couldn't believe she would win, yet each week, seemingly, there was a new strike, an even higher wage demand, that cost Labour even more support. Then the next week it would be even worse, there was a horrible downward spiralling momentum to it. Still, perhaps like you, I'm glad to have lived through that time, it remains fascinating
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Post by helrunar on Sept 23, 2021 18:09:56 GMT
Thanks for sharing these memories, Sam and Ripper. About four years ago I was reading Alan Holllinghurst's novel The Sparsholt Affair (not a Vault item) and when it got to the part set circa 1974, I was very bewildered when the blackouts and people having to carry torches with them as part of their routine after hours equipment was mentioned. At first I wondered if the novel was set in an alternate version of Britain's history. How little, how very little, did I know.
H.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2021 20:44:58 GMT
Indeed. There were significant periods in Labour's term where they were more or less equal in the polls but their support plummeted with each strike. That was behind the sense of unreality I remember: Thatcher was unpopular even in her own party, you couldn't believe she would win, yet each week, seemingly, there was a new strike, an even higher wage demand, that cost Labour even more support. Then the next week it would be even worse, there was a horrible downward spiralling momentum to it. Still, perhaps like you, I'm glad to have lived through that time, it remains fascinating If I remember correctly, Labour had been trying to persuade a Northern Ireland MP to vote with them or not vote, can't quite recall which. He didn't do what Labour hoped for and the government lost that vote of no confidence by just one vote. If the guy had played ball they would have won by one vote or there would have been a tie, in which case the Speaker would have used a casting vote to side with the government, which is what happens when there is a tie. Losing that vote of no confidence is one of the big 'what ifs' of UK history of the late 20th century. Personally, I think Labour would still have lost an October '79 election. A lot would have rested on the public's willingness to 'forgive and forget' the Winter of Discontent. There was a lot of anger that coalesced around the view that things couldn't go on like that anymore: endless industrial unrest and an elected government unable to govern due to the perception that the unions had the real power. News reports of the dead not being able to be buried, union officials deciding who was an emergency when it came to hospital treatment, and piles of uncollected rubbish in the streets, were very bad for people's sympathy with unions and their belief in the government's ability to sort it out and govern. An October election may have been closer than the May one, and, of course, once an election is called it can be unpredictable (ask Mrs May), but overall I think the damage caused by the Winter of Discontent would still have seen Mrs Thatcher becoming PM. Yes, it was fascinating to have lived through it all. I don't think many realised just how profound the changes were going to be, and if anyone had said that Labour would be out of power until 1997 they would have been laughed at.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2021 20:55:47 GMT
Thanks for sharing these memories, Sam and Ripper. About four years ago I was reading Alan Holllinghurst's novel The Sparsholt Affair (not a Vault item) and when it got to the part set circa 1974, I was very bewildered when the blackouts and people having to carry torches with them as part of their routine after hours equipment was mentioned. At first I wondered if the novel was set in an alternate version of Britain's history. How little, how very little, did I know. H. There were some very bleak times back then. I remember doing homework using a torch for illumination. It must have been much worse for those with electric ovens and central heating. I have a vague memory that there were schedules for when power cuts would occur for different areas. There is a wide perception that it was the miners strike which brought down the Heath government. I remember a sense of relief when they resumed work and power cuts ended. A decade later it seemed that history would repeat itself when the miners went on strike in 1984, but things had changed a lot in that ten years, and there were large stocks of coal to run power stations, and, of course, the miners lost after a very bitter and sometimes violent struggle.
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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 23, 2021 21:35:29 GMT
If I remember correctly, Labour had been trying to persuade a Northern Ireland MP to vote with them or not vote, can't quite recall which. He didn't do what Labour hoped for and the government lost that vote of no confidence by just one vote. If the guy had played ball they would have won by one vote or there would have been a tie, in which case the Speaker would have used a casting vote to side with the government, which is what happens when there is a tie. There was also the situation with Alfred Broughton, a Labour MP in Yorkshire. This is from wikipedia - "Broughton was in poor health throughout the 1970s, spending much of the time living in hospital in Yorkshire. The fact that the Labour government's majority had been lost meant that his treatment was often disrupted so that he could be taken down to London to be 'nodded through' to win key votes. On 28 March 1979 the government faced a knife-edge vote of no confidence when Broughton was on his death bed. Broughton's doctors were extremely concerned for him and strongly advised him not to travel. Although he was willing to come down to vote knowing that death was imminent, Prime Minister James Callaghan decided it would be unacceptable to ask him to do so, in case he died during the ambulance journey. In the event, the government lost by one vote; had Broughton been present, assuming Speaker George Thomas would have broken the tie in favour of the status quo per Speaker Denison's rule, the Government would have survived. Broughton died five days later, aged 76."
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 61
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Post by peedeel on Sept 24, 2021 7:12:01 GMT
Indeed. There were significant periods in Labour's term where they were more or less equal in the polls but their support plummeted with each strike. That was behind the sense of unreality I remember: Thatcher was unpopular even in her own party, you couldn't believe she would win, yet each week, seemingly, there was a new strike, an even higher wage demand, that cost Labour even more support. Then the next week it would be even worse, there was a horrible downward spiralling momentum to it. Still, perhaps like you, I'm glad to have lived through that time, it remains fascinating The Good Old DaysThe three day working week - came into force 1st January through to March1974 - I.5 million workers laid off [no furlough scheme back them] and rotational power cuts for domestic electricity users. I read Thomas Tryonâs The Other by candlelight â not an experience I have any wish to repeat. I also read [for I think the fourth time] Ray Bradburyâs Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ah, those were the days! I worked in a small shop and we managed to rig a system of car batteries to provide lighting during the power cuts [but no heating and it was bloody cold]. My tatty flat was all electric; so for up to nine hours a day we had no lighting, no cooking, no hot water, and no heating. Like so many others, I lived by torch light. There was a shortage at the time of both torch batteries and candles. I was in danger of become a Morlock. Couldnât get a draught pint of beer in the local pubs because the pumps were all electric; so existed on bottled ale and vodka. That changed by 1978-79 because the truckers strike meant no booze deliveries to pubs or anywhere else. No petrol, either. In fact I seem to recall more than 2,000 strikes erupting across Britain [charmingly encapsulated in the term âWinter of Discontentâ â because it was very cold, too] The country seemed to have spent five years waddling from one crises to another â strike after strike, massive loans from the IMF, who in turn began to dictate economic policy. The 1979 General Election campaign followed the âWinter of Discontentâ â a period when I seriously contemplated leaving the UK and relocating to join other family members in the USA. It was a time of high taxation, record and rising unemployment, and mounting chaos - with inflation totally out of control. Then Mrs. Thatcher came to power, and I read Anna Riceâs Interview with the Vampire.
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