Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 4: High School Pubs
Robert & Laura
Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 4: High School Pubs
Wed, Apr 11, 2012
As we thought, we didn't stop at the The Plough in Kingham (home of Snails and Mushrooms on Toast) after walking into town, but instead we sat on the moss-covered bench outside the pub and sent out the trip log. We did that so that we could go have a drink in a different pub down the street.
Bear in mind that Kingham is an itty-bitty village with maybe 40 quaint stone houses, but according to the maps, there are four pubs in town. So we felt we ought to visit at least one of the other pubs. We ended up at The Tollgate Inn which is just down the street (Church street as it happens) from The Plough.
It's more the sort of pub you see in a movie, with a teeny little bar, and a big fireplace, and folks bringing their dogs in (and their dogs lying under the stools keeping an eye on everything). This pub was, as it turns out, voted Most Pubbish Pub (or something similar) in 2008. Or maybe it was most pet-friendly pub. One (or both) of those.
While we were quaffing our ciders in The Tollgate, who should we chance to spy but Bass Player Guy With Car from yesterday! Turns out he's staying here, in the Inn part (you don't seem to be able to sleep in the pub part, but the overlap might be a bit fuzzy), and he offers us a ride back to the school after he finishes his dinner. Given the choice between spending 45 minutes in a pub or walking uphill for 45 minutes, we choose the one that involves alcohol consumption.
Anyway, Wesley (which is probably not his name and not because we want to protect his privacy, but because we really don't know his name) turns out to live about 40 miles from here ("too far away to commute") and has lived here in Oxfordshire for a while and is quite versed in local economic theory. Which we'll share with you!
This area used to be a lot of small family farms, where generations of farmers would raise some crops, plow some sheep, shoot some goats and so forth. They weren't getting rich, but families were provided for, even tenant farmers.
Then England applied to be part of Europe (which just goes to show the inadequacy of our public school education; we thought Europe was a continent, not a club you could apply to join). But Europe didn't like England for some reason and rejected them.
As a result, the UK family farms couldn't compete with European sheep and crops (subsidized by the governments in Europe--Wesley said that if you go to France, you'll still see lots of small family farms) and they got bought out by banks and investment firms (BIFs).
The BIFs bought up fields and tore out the hedgerows between the fields to make them easier to farm with big machines and moved to monoculture crops. So all the fields grow pretty much the same crops at the same time. And, of course, tearing out the hedgerows also raises heck with the local wildlife, such as birds and foxes, because that's where they lived.
This process has taken place over the last 40 years, and now the government is trying to reverse it by subsidizing family farms, but the markets for farm products are tougher competition now, so prospects look bleak.
(We also found out that the fields full of yellow flowers that look like weeds are really rapeseed plants, which is where we get canola oil.)
And then we got a very exciting ride home driving on the wrong side of the road. Although, really, the road from Kingham to the school isn't wide enough for two cars to go past each other. It's about one-and-a-half cars wide and we don't know what happens when two cars meet, because everyone goes 120 MPH (6,000 KPH) so that they don't have to worry about it.
7:00 am
We did score a bag of coffee at the local store, but it's not a big improvement (we might even say, "it's a bit rubbish"). They only had one kind of coffee at the store ("Bad Brand Coffee"). We're beginning to despair of every getting a decent cup of Joe while in England.
We thought it was weird that the general store in an upscale town like Kingham didn't have really good stuff, but it was explained to us that in England, the posher and more expensive something is, the worse it is.
8:00 am
Breakfast!
We seem to be alternating the breakfast menu. Today, we're back to bacon, textureless sausage, hard-boiled eggs, and beans. We're still puzzling over the beans, but we did find out about the Spaghetti-O's for breakfast.
There's a chap in our bass class who explained that after The War (the second one) pasta was very exotic and hardly anybody had seen or eaten any. But the only pasta they got was from Chef Boy-Ar-Dee who makes Spaghetti-O's, so that became an exotic dish. We still haven't figured out how it got from being a delicacy to being a breakfast dish, but everybody seems to accept that Spaghetti-O's are part of a balanced breakfast.
Laura says that British butter is better than Washington butter. For one thing, it's more yellow (Washington butter is sort of a pale yellow, this stuff is BRIGHT yellow). It also has less water ("and more salt," adds Robert).
The odd thing about the hard-boiled eggs is that they serve them piping hot. Still in the shell. Which means you're sitting there juggling a hot egg while trying to peel it, and peeling it releases more steam and so you have to toss it even faster. The British have an odd sense of humor (or humour).
9:10 am
General Assembly
The EmCees are quite pleased to announce that the catering company (home of the Slow Meal) has now got more staff. ("Now with More Staff!"). We're still sticking to our strategy of showing up to queue early and eating soon.
One of the announcers realizes he has the wrong set of notes and wanders off to find the proper set of announcements while the other announcer refers to him as "Professor Bumbledore" (feel free to appropriate this for your own use--we sure intend to!).
11:00 am
Tea Time
Robert gets to chatting with another guy in the bass class (let's call him Jimbo, because we know that's not his name). Jimbo has been playing bass for a while and used to live in Scotland when he was younger. He would appear with various orchestras on the BBC Scotland.
One of the gigs he would do was to play Scottish Country Dance music for a radio programme, sometimes with Jimmy Shandling's band in the 1950's. While they were playing, the Scottish country dancers would go through their dances. On the radio. Jimbo explained that the dancers would get very nervous about it, "because we're on the BBC radio!"
1:00 pm
Lunch time
There's a pub here where in the wee hours, various musicians gather to jam and play music and drink booze (wait--we'll have to add this pub to our list of pubs to visit!). It all seems very quaint and wonderful until we got to thinking--wait, this is a boarding school for 12-to-18-year-olds. Why is there a pub on campus?
Well, apparently, it's for the teachers. We're not clear on whether or not the teachers are drinking before or after classes, but they don't have to go far to do it (it's right off the lunch room).
Other odd British things: EE-lectricity. And musical measures are ALWAYS called "bars" (we use the two terms interchangeably). Whole notes are "breves" and quarter-notes are "crochets."
And they think 40 miles is too far to commute! Ha! We'll drive that far just to get a good cup of coffee!
We got to be ambassadors for our country as well, explaining that every American is issued a gun when they turn eight, and a bigger gun when they turn twelve. Automatic weapons are always an appropriate house-warming gift, and drinking while driving is not only encouraged, but expected and you can get a ticket if you're not talking on your cell phone while driving.