Best of British No. 3: The Coffee Morning

Last Saturday, my mother, youngest sister and I went to a coffee morning. It's been a while since I went to one, and, being somewhat out of the habit of coffee morning attendance, I was able to observe it with, as it were, new eyes. Not really new eyes, you understand- I'm still myope comme une taupe, or blind as a bat, depending on which small mammal you want me to be. But yes. Anyway.

I'm not sure coffee mornings even exist outside the UK, so I'd probably better explain. The principle is that individuals, often but not exclusively women of a certain age, gather to drink coffee and eat biscuits in the name of charity. You pay for entry, which entitles you to the said drink-and-a-biscuit. In actual fact, it's more or less an institutionalised form of elevenses (see previous Best of British post).

Then, there is the raffle. There is always, always a raffle. It is rare for anyone to enter a raffle because they actually want to win one of the prizes. Coffee morning raffle prizes are notorious for being re-donated to the next coffee morning raffle, so the same things go round again and again and again, until some small child wins one of the prizes and gives it to a great aunt for Christmas, at which point the prize may be displaced geographically and enter onto another town's coffee morning circuit. People buy tickets because, well, it's vaguely fun in a soft-gambling sort of way, and it's another way of supporting the charity.

On top of the raffle, there's always a cake stall and a tombola, which works along the same lines as the raffle, a bric-a-brac stall or two, and a book stall if you're lucky.

Then- and this is what I really wanted to talk about- there are the games.

Saturday's coffee morning was the district Brownie and Guide one. This species of coffee morning is notorious on a number of counts. First, you don't go for the coffee: the leaders see these occasions as the ideal opportunity for Brownies to pass their Hostess badge, so you get half a cup of lukewarm coffee served by a seven-year-old who will, more likely than not, manage to get the remaining contents of the cup all over the table. Secondly, the cake stall is presided over by the Trefoil Guild (retired guiders who often bear more than a passing resemblance to Miss Trunchbull in Matilda) who charge ridiculous prices and refuse to smile. Thirdly, they make the Guides come up with new games each time. This Saturday's was a classic, possibly the worst I've ever seen.

Dropping two-pence pieces onto five-pence pieces in a bucket full of water.

No kidding.

£1 for five goes, and if you managed to cover the 5p with your 2p, then you won a penny sweet.

Seriously. And then they wonder why the Guide stalls never make any money.

Magic Roundabout

Carousel is over now, and I have a better idea of what actually happens in it. If anyone's interested, there's a plot summary on Wikipedia- it helped me a lot in understanding what was going on (you can't see much from an orchestra pit, it being, well, a pit, and all that).

This nearly ended up being a Best of British post on amateur dramatics, but I think the Americans do a pretty good line in that too. Ah well. If this was in French, I could call it a phenomène anglo-saxon, but the last two words have different connotations in English, where an "anglo-saxon phenomenon" could only really be something to do with pre-1066 British history. Not that that would be an odd thing to find on this blog, but still, y'know...

Anyway. Yes. The production was very good indeed. It displayed a number of classic features of small-town amateur dramatics, to whit:

-one of the male leads was pushing seventy and clearly at least twice the age of his female counterpart (Mr Snow and Carrie, for those who're following

-the second female lead (Carrie) was visibly pregnant, in spite of the best efforts of the costume department to hide it

-a pretty spectacular range of accents- various forms of american (the story is based in Maine), generic northern, and one notable example of full-on Cumbrian: " 'e works ont' carousels..."

-most of the acting was really good, which made the two or three really bad actors really stand out, to great comic effect

-REALLY DODGY sound effects from a tape played over the PA system

-Overenthusiastic tech blokes with dry ice. Oh good grief, the dry ice. Cold smoke coming over the edge of the stage sinks. What's just below the stage? The orchestra pit, that's what. *Coughs, splutters, and the like*

Though some of this may sound critical, it's actually not. You see, these are the things that make amateur dramatics so wonderful. Everyone joins in, everyone gives what they can, and the audience goes along with it. There were teary eyes at the end of You'll Never Walk Alone, and they clapped along to June is Bustin' Out All Over. (Actually, my mother- no great fan of musicals- has a new set of lyrics to that one, involving the word "bra" and a nice rhyme of "jiggly" with "wiggly"- I'll let you work the rest out for yourselves).

So, yes. That, as they say, is that. The week is over. I'm going to miss it- well, once I've got the music out of my head I will- it aint 'alf tenacious.

Best of British No. 2: The Pink Wafer Biscuit

No silly poems this time. Sorry.

No picture, either. For those of you who don't know what a pink wafer biscuit looks like (i.e. the French contingent, mainly- ze boy, zis means YOU), Google image search produces a quite respectable number of results.

When I was even smaller than I am now (yes, that IS possible) and went to toddler group, half way through the morning there was drink-and-a-biscuit o'clock. I'm thinking of reinstating it, actually- how much more fun would life be if there was a drink-and-a-biscuit o'clock sometime between ten and eleven? Anyway. Yes. When I was smaller than I am now, I really, really loved pink wafer biscuits. At toddlers, I would eschew the chocolate biscuits in favour of THE PINK ONE. It wasn't even that I liked the colour- I was more inclined towards plastic dinosaurs than barbies- but there was just something about them.

Last Sunday, at drink-and-a-biscuit o'clock (after church, where there is a far bigger selecction of biscuits than at home) I had a pink wafer biscuit for the first time in years. I expected great things.

I was sorely disappointed. You can't really dunk them, which is to be expected, but they taste like cardboard with sugar and food colouring. That would explain why even the Irish shop in Grenoble, which even sells fig rolls (FIG ROLLS, for heaven's sake!) doesn't sell them. Why did I waste so many drink-and-a-biscuit o'clocks on them? WHY?

Best of British No. 1: The Cornish Pasty

Firstly, please understand that the title of this series of posts- "Best of British"- is not meant to be taken seriously. This is not a Murdoch-owned newspaper, nor is it an outlet for any kind of jingoistic patriotism. The idea of a British-themed series of posts comes partly from the fact that most of the people who read this site aren't, well, British, and partly from my own attempts to come to terms with major bouts of culture shock every time I come back. As for the title...well...I kind of like alliteration (looks ashamed and shuffles towards cupboard).

Titles and disclaimers aside, the idea for this series of posts is to look at British oddities, otherwise known as "stuff you can't get in France". As ever, there will be food, and there will be gnomes. There will be very little factual information and, in all likelihood, an Awful Lot of Silliness.

The Cornish Pasty was my first candidate for inclusion, not because of any personal preference, but because I had an idea, and, being completely unable to resist the oportunity for a parody...well... you'll see.

So, without much further ado (about nothing... now there's a clue...)

To a Cornish Pasty

(with apologies to William Shakespeare)

Shall I compare thee to a chicken pie?

Thou art more juicy and more succulent.

Rough winds may shake the flaky crumbs of crust

And pastry's life hath all too short a lease.

Some time too hot the fire of oven shines

And then is pastry's gold complexion dimmed

And every pie from pie some time declines

By chance, or waiting, willing teeth untrimm'd

But thy eternal flavour shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that sauce thou ow'st

Nor shall bin bag brag thou lurkest in his shade

When in his bulging gut wise man pie stow'st

So long as man can taste, and smell, and see

So long live pasties- Cornish, just like thee.

I'm sorry, Mr. Shakespeare. Really I am.

I'll go back to my cupboard now.