Top Ten British Imports - Part 2

What a weak lot we are. Why is it that the top five are all in the category of confectionery? Yes, we all eat very sensibly in January after our new year's resolutions, but by December we are scoffing choccies and candies again as fast as we can get them. Anyway, here is your choice of the premier league of imported British comestibles.

5. Walkers Andy Pack Original Toffee
Time was when we carried multiple flavours of Walker's toffees. Customers soon taught us which ones they liked and which ones they could take or leave. Take young Malcolm, for instance; a sprightly 91 years old and a regular visitor to Blighty's. Malcolm has spent almost a hundred years deciding what he likes - you can't argue with that kind of experience! And Malcolm chooses Walker's Original Toffee. The familiar "Andy Packs" are those blocks of 10 chunks of chewy toffee. Before you open the pack you have to smash it down on a hard surface to separate the chunks. Next step; pop one in your gob and start to chew. Hard work at first isn't it? Don't worry; a little mandibular exercise soon softens the toffee and releases its flood of flavour. We also carry Walker's Treacle, Liquorice and Brazil Nut flavoured toffees - but they don't distract young Malcolm from his long considered choice.

4. Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate Buttons
I have tried telling customers: "this is the most expensive way of buying Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate". They don't listen. But it's true. If you emptied the little bag of Cadbury Buttons and melted the contents into a single tiny block of chocolate you would be crying out for me to be hanged as a highwayman. So what is it about those little nickel-sized bites of nectar from Birmingham? I honestly don't know, but Blighty's customers buy hundreds of bags every month. We have them in white chocolate too.

3. Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate
The redline on my neck rose up to my cheeks then steam burst out of my ears. A customer's child had requested a bar of delicious Great British Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate. His parent refused then uttered the words that pulled the trigger on my internal thermonuclear detonator: "no, you can get that anywhere". "Aaaarrrrgggh!" I thought to myself; "Visigoth, devil worshipper, Onanist ... Ignoramus!". Yes, you can buy a product called Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate - "anywhere". Yes you can get water anywhere too. You can get it from a pristine mountain stream or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean - it's all just water isn't it?

Canada Food Inspection Agency has a strict definition for what constitutes "chocolate" and the stuff made in the place where it was invented - by the company that invented it - doesn't cut the mustard. Only God and their mothers love Canadian Government bureaucrats. I am supposed to re-label Great British Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate as "chocolatey-flavoured candy". Frankly I would sooner have that description tattooed on my bum than sully the appearance of the real, the one and only Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. The devil shall have his due though. Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate made in Canada contains a genetically modified emulsifier which, under present rules and regulations, make it a toxic and illegal product anywhere in Europe.

Genetic modification really does apply only to Canadian made chockers. I'll admit I had my doubts. I have often harboured the belief that Blighty's British chocolate grew legs and ran out of the store because it disappears so fast. It is number three on Blighty's customers' favourites list.

2. Fry's Turkish Delight
Turkish Delight is the oldest confectionery in the world. I like to joke with customers that it was first made over 3000 years ago so I regret it is now well past it's "best before" date. Turkish Delight is essentially sugary gelatin flavoured with rose water. Fry's Turkish Delight is a big chunk of the stuff covered in chocolate. It sells like hot meat pies at halftime on a rainy Saturday afternoon at any soccer stadium in the north of England. One of my regulars, who like me has type 2 diabetes, claims that eating Fry's Turkish Delight helps him regulate his blood sugar. Sure it does; one bar of Fry's Turkish Delight and his blood sugar hits the high life, but he controlled its ascent! The same customer also believes his aging aircraft carrier size car is economical on gas. Oh help me Lord, I want to believe.

Tomorrow, Blighty's customer panel's curvaceous number ONE!

Top Ten Imported British Products

When customers enthusiastically bustle through the great door at the front of Blighty's Tuck store they are faced with over 700 choices of Great British grocery and candy products. And yet, if I close my eyes, I can almost predict which products will be in their shopping carts when they come to the checkout.

You see, there are certain favourites. It's not just our regulars; even new customers seem to migrate toward the same shelves. So consistent is the trend that I have been able to identify a Top Ten list of people's favourites. Bear in mind this is not my list, it is yours! Let's start at the bottom of the list with number 10.

10. Lucozade
What Lucozade? Bottom of the list? No, of course not. Lucozade is a member of the select top 1.5% of customer favourites. We sell so much Lucozade I almost think customers must be powering their pickups with the stuff. I am anxiously awaiting a call from NASA. Alright, Lucozade might not get you into Low Earth Orbit but it will certainly get you feeling fit enough to be ready for call-up to astronaut duty. Lucozade is Britain's favourite high octane energy drink. If you are feeling down in the dumps and you need the kind of pick-me-up that won't get you arrested then guzzle Lucozade. Unfortunately, only the original flavour is available in Canada - there are other varieties available across the puddle.

9. Marks & Spencer Custard Creams
Marks & Spencer is one of the leading retailers in Britain and its products are legendary. But M&S is after all, a retailer - not a manufacturer. M&S sells M&S branded products, but scratch the surface and you will find they are really made to M&S specifications by somebody else. A competing brand of custard creams wears the crown of Britain's favourite biscuit and you can find it on Blighty's shelves too. So why is it that Blighty's customers choose M&S Custard Creams over the leading brand? To be completely honest, I cannot tell the two brands apart on taste alone. Perhaps the answer lies in the whopping great size of the M&S package compared to the leading brand. M&S delivers value!

8. Crosse & Blackwell Branston Pickle
Could Branston be Britain's favourite pickle? You would certainly think so if you could see the daily parade of Blighty's customers hauling out wheelbarrow loads of the stuff. We have lots of pickles, chutneys and sauces, but when it comes time to choose, they bring out the Branston. Crosse & Blackwell Branston pickle is a sweet pickle made from finely diced veggies in a brown sauce. It goes down very nicely with cheese although I like it on turkey too. Its chief rival for the British tea plate is Picalilli made by Heinz. Picalilli is made from coarsely diced veggies in a sweet mustard sauce - very nice but Branston wins the top pickle prize in it's class.

7. Haywards Pickled Onions
No surprises here really. To make Great British pickled onions you need Great British onions and Great British vinegar. British onions owe their flavour to the soil in which they are grown and to the rain which enriches that soil. British vinegar owes its flavour to the British barley grains from which it is made. And British barley grains owe their flavour to the soil and the rain that falls from British skies. Some say that crunchiness is the only quality by which onions should be judged. Sure, Haywards onions are crunchy, but their flavour is unmatchable. My favourite, and our customers' overwhelming favourite, is Haywards "Traditional" pickled onions, but you could also choose Haywards "Strong" onions if you dare.

6. Walker's Cheese & Onion Potato Crisps
I swear I lose money stocking this product. I ran out of them once and had to face the wrath of disgruntled Walker's Cheese & Onion crisp addicts who couldn't get their fix. Now I deliberately order more than I can sell before the "best before" date. The remainder get donated to worthy causes. Blighty's carries over a dozen varieties of Walker's Crisps (potato chips) but Cheese & Onion outsells all the others at least five times over. Walker's has been making its crisps using healthy Sunseed Oil for the last couple of years so you could even kid yourself into believing they are good for you. Or, you could be honest and just accept they taste great.

Tomorrow, the top five according to an independent panel of judges - Blighty's customers.

Britain Finally Adopts the Euro!

The British have always been proud of the Pound. The dust had only just settled following the 1971 change from LSD (Pounds, Shillings and Pence) to the new decimal currency when pressure was piled on Whitehall to adopt the Euro. The Irish - eager to discard their own Pound to create a clear distinction between themselves and the Brits - jumped on the Euro immediately. The British public rebelled. While the rest of Europe coalesced around a single common currency, the Island nation stood steadfast in defence of its Pound.

A newsflash landed on Blighty's Blog's news desk this morning from our correspondent Mr Ya Hoo with the shocking news that Britain has finally relented and the Euro is today the official currency of Great Britain.

The Bank of England will continue to issue Euro paper money printed with the word "Pound" but, since the British Pound is now trading at par with the Euro, the old pound notes and the new "Europound" notes will be freely inter-changeable.

With contributions from Blighty's Blog financial editor Mr £. S. Poof.

What is Sterling Silver?

For years I have been selling Celtic Jewellery in Blighty's Tuck Store, proudly telling customers that it is made in England from sterling silver. "Sterling silver" is one of those terms that rolls off the tongue with ease and without question or understanding. The words "sterling" and "silver" just seem to go together like "fish" and "chips".

So what exactly is sterling silver? Well, first of all, it is not pure silver. Feel cheated? Don't be. If your beautiful Celtic necklace, or ring, were made of pure silver (or "fine silver" as it is properly known) it would not last very long. Silver, you see, is a very soft metal and quite unsuitable for making wearable jewellery. Sterling silver is an alloy of 92.5% fine silver and (usually) copper.

Unfortunately, alloying silver with copper introduces a small problemette. Fine silver does not react very easily with other chemicals, but the copper component of sterling silver readily reacts with environmental contaminants and causes the alloy to tarnish. Fortunately, the tarnish can be readily removed. Blighty's Celtic Fair brand jewellery can be simply buffed with a soft cloth to restore its lustre.

Incidentally, the origin of the word "sterling" is unclear. We also refer to "pounds sterling" in reference to the currency of the UK. There may be a link there because British coins were once made with silver or silver alloys. There are several theories surrounding the origin of the word "sterling" but none stands above the others in authenticity.

All we know is that the production of sterling silver goes back almost as far as the history of the Celts. So, when you wear your Celtic jewellery you are celebrating ancient traditions in both the style of the piece and the metals from which it was made. And what a great Christmas gift a nice Celtic weave or claddagh pendant makes!

Marks & Spencer Christmas Cakes

At first it was crushingly bad news. The annual shipment of Marks & Spencer Christmas cakes had sailed through the Bermuda Triangle. Half the cakes had been beamed to a distant galaxy and the other half were with the Devil in the deep blue sea. We weren't going to get any.

The next day, the admirable Pugwash - our importer - scoured below the decks of his frigate and found a case of cakes for us. We put them on our shelves but customers removed them even before the dust had settled.

A week later one of Pugwash's crewmen found another couple of cases of cakes. BBbbingorama! These ones were the big daddies that everybody wanted.

So, for a limited time only, Blighty's Tuck Store has a stock of Marks and Spencer Top Iced round Christmas Cakes. Weighing in at a hefty 907g these yuletide goliaths pack a New Year's resolution generating bellyful of rich butter fruit cake made with rich, juicy vine fruits and glace cherries, all topped with delicious almond marzipan and soft icing.

Christmas just isn't Christmas without a Marks and Spencer Christmas Cake is it?

We also carry Andrews Liver Salts which you may also need.

British Man Beats Up Santa Claus

Irate tourists who cashed their government gyro cheques to pay hefty admission charges to a new Christmas theme park in Hampshire, England have been swindled by an unscrupulous theme park operator.

The owner of "Lapland" on the south coast was caught masquerading as Santa Claus (of course, Canadians would have immediately detected the fraud. Santa lives at the North Pole which makes him a Canadian - well the magnetic north pole is indisputably part of Canada anyway eh?).

Once inside Lapland, visitors found the theme park to be little more than a collection of miserable huts. A much vaunted "tunnel of light" turned out to be nothing more than a string of old Christmas lights hung from a row of trees.

When "Santa" was found enjoying a sly smoke out the back of his grotto he was jumped on by a disgruntled park visitor and given a knuckle sandwich.

The owner of Lapland, it turns out, is a convicted tax fraudster.

Story filed by Blighty's Blog Tourism Editor, Jim N. E. Cricket

Global Warming Ends in Britain

Reports reaching Blighty's Blog from the United Queendom today reveal a severe Arctic blast hitting northern parts. With temperatures falling to near freezing and snowfall accumulating up to 20cm, Britain is expected to grind to a slippery halt as massive school and road closures pound the country.

Britain's snowplow crew has been called out and asked to limit tea breaks to as little as 30 minutes in an effort to keep the country moving. Overnight reports from our Manchester bureau chief Corey Street tell of thousands of stranded motorists. Britain's snowplow will be working overtime in an attempt to clear the nation's highways. Corey reports the crew may be plowing as late as 7:00 each evening although their contract allows for a 60 minute paid meal break at 5:00pm.

Motorists are urged to push their stranded vehicles clear of the highway because under health and safety executive rules the snow plowman's union does not permit snow plows to drive around stranded vehicles.

The met office in London has put out a warning to motorists throughout Britain to stay off the roads except for essential journeys because temperatures could plummet to near freezing on higher ground.

Expat Canadians living in Britain have found shelter inside Spar grocery stores where Tim Horton's donut store outlets have been opening. Interviewed for Blighty's Blog, none of the expats have reported finding anywhere to buy a decent snow shovel, snow blower or snow tires for their cars.

The unusually harsh British winter is expected to last well into the early part of February when the garden centres re-open with early season sales of fresh daffodils and crocuses.

Staff writer.

On The Buses

As the song goes: "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner that I love ..." London buses. I rode the number 12 to school every day when I was a young, school cap wearing lad (the public would report us to our headmaster if we were seen without a cap on our heads on a schoolday).

The number 12 plied a route from London's Oxford Circus down the Brighton Road to Croydon where I hopped on the old Routemasters.

So, not surprisingly, that old British TV show "On The Buses" kindles nostalgic memories of riding the red double deckers when I was a not-so-innocent young Cockney street kid. As you may be aware, the uncrowned star of the show, Reg Varney, passed away recently. What surprised me about his passing was his advanced age - he was 92.

In the TV show, Varney played the part of 35 year old bus driver Stan Butler. In fact he was 53 years old when the show first started. By contrast his nemesis, the much older looking inspector "Blakey" was played by actor Stephen Lewis who was, in real life, 20 years his junior.

The TV show was originally filmed in North London, but later when the production studios moved to South London, the new facility was too small to accommodate double decker buses. As a result, single decker buses with a plywood upper deck mock-up were employed.

Another interesting fact about the show was that seven of the thirteen episodes of the fourth series were filmed in black and white as a result of ITV's colour strike. Early in the 1970s, in support of a pay dispute, ITV technicians disabled the part of their cameras that produced colour information.

Other members of the cast are also no longer with us. Doris Hare, who played Stan's mum died in 2000 at the age of 95. Bob Grant, who played cheeky, philandering bus conductor Jack Harper, took his own life as a result of depression in 2003 aged 71. Michael Robbins who played the role of disgruntled husband Arthur Rudge died of cancer in 1992 aged 62.

The only survivors are Anna Karen (Olive Rudge) aged 68 and Stephen Lewis (Inspector Blake) aged 72 and, until recently, still working in the show "Last of the Summer Wine".

Extended Christmas Shopping Hours

Astute Blighty's Blog readers will, no doubt, have noticed that a forbidden word was used in the title of this post. Yes we dared to swim against the current of political correctness by mentioning the word “Christmas”. No doubt there will be a sharp intake of breath in some quarters arising from this brazen reference to a Christian holiday. So, to all my pagan friends who may be reading this I say “happy Yuletide” and the doors of Blighty's Tuck Store will be open equally late for you too.

Until December 19th Blighty's will remain open late every Thursday and Friday. On Monday 22nd December and Tuesday 23rd December we will also be open late.

“What do you mean by late John?”.

“Well I dunno really; I'm going to let you decide. We'll be there until at least 8:00 pm. If customers are still coming through the door at that time we'll stay open until they stop coming. If you want to be sure to catch us then come before 8:00pm.”

Merry Christmas.