... and very OLD sweets.

Recently I commented on facebook that after not tasted smarties for a long, long time I was disappointed to find they did not taste as I remembered. A tiny box of smarties was a treat we were given as children - often by guilt driven parents. The box could barely take two fingers and the number of smarties inside was not many, less than 25. The shell colours were as bright and shiny as new toys and children were tempted to line them up and sort into colours and swap with others to make patterns and let the colours stain their fingers and tongues.

Smarties, referred to in the industry as 'hard tablet sweets' apparently began life, in England, as Rowntree's Chocolate Beans in ... 1882! and were renamed as Smarties in 1937, so kids have been enjoying them for over 130 years!

Back in the days when Rowntree's made Smarties they had a thin candy coating that melted in the mouth allowing the sweet chocolate centre to flow over the tongue. Sweet and creamy. It was possible to eat them one at a time and really enjoy each one and as kids we were convinced that the colours had different flavours. 

Then Nestle took over Rowntree's and, not content to leave yummy enough alone, they changed the recipe in 2009. The motivation may have been to make them healthier - if any  sugar coated chocolate thing can be healthy - but the colours faded to almost pastel and the chocolate changed texture and tasted stale.

The Smarties web site explains there are eight colours, pink, red, orange, yellow, blue, violet, green and brown AND the orange Smartie is flavoured with natural orange oil.  Hmmm, so what are the other seven colours flavoured with?  

The other little treat we had from time to time, in our house, was a two bar Kit Kat, also a creation of Rowntree's. An interesting little story is - the chocolate bar we know today was developed in 1935, after a suggestion by a worker in the York factory, to make a snack that 'a man could take to work in his pack'.

The Kit Kat is composed of a block of two or four fingers that can be snapped apart. Each finger is made with three layers of wafer and cream covered in an outer layer of chocolate.  

Kit Kat has been enjoyed all over the world since 1940 and everyone knows the 1958  advertising line, 'Have a break, have a Kit Kat'.

And as above, Nestle bought Rowntree's in 1988 (but not in the US where it is owned by Hershey). So, what did they do to Kit Kat?  Well, they added a flavour range from orange, caramel to almond flavours, and a choice of dark, milk or white chocolate coating. There are chunky versions, snack pack sizes and Kit Kat easter eggs as well as 'Pop Choc' pieces, square 'Kubes', praline-filled 'Senses' and Kit Kat pieces in yoghurt or iceceam cones.  In Japan a Bake 'N Tasty mini Kit Kats Custard Pudding Flavour was launched in 2014  - you bake that in the oven and the outside caramelizes. O M G

So, apart from ONE SINGLE EASTER EGG per year, and the occasional very small block of Cadburys chocolate or a coconut rough in a show bag, and the occasional half-penny's worth of mixed lollies at the corner shop, the above treats were just about all we had in those good old, healthy days when everyone was a size medium. That might be difficult to understand in the 21st century.

We had cake of course, and they were always homemade, using real butter and actual sugar and locally milled flour and real cream and often homemade jam or lemon curd - all good stuff and you could almost live on Aunty Mab's jam and cream filled sponge with a beaker of homemade fruit cordial or a cuppa, and a few homemade sausage rolls, dipped in sauce cooked up from Uncle Harry's tomatoes - add a stick of celery and you've got all the food groups covered.  No tortes or mud cakes back then.

My life in the outer suburbs, without TV, limited my early experience of sweets. I can actually remember the day when, at the age of 21, I took a short cut through Sydney Central Station on my way to an Art Class, and stopped at a mobile newsagent (it was a tiny cream caravan) to buy a magazine and I bought a Polly Waffle.  I'd never had one before but I liked the name and so I bought it and ate it over two days.  And no, I did not repeat this often, it wasn't until years later, after having babies, that I discovered we need a daily hit of chocolate.

Google tells me the inventor of the Polly Waffle, in the year I was born, was Abel Hoadley of Hoadley's Chocolates in Melbourne.  Polly was a waffle wafer tube, filled with marshmallow (yummy) and coated in compound chocolate (Yuk, I didn't know that).  Compound chocolate is made of cocoa, sweeteners and  cheap vegetable fats that are not cocoa butter. And back then a Polly Waffle had a sugar content of over 50% !!! Wow.

Eventually Hoadleys was acquired by Rowntree's and in 1988 - one guess - by Nestle.  Nestle managed to change the waffle wafer to a more sugary, and probably cheaper, brittle wafer in 2009 and sales dropped off.  I wonder why? It also developed a flat bottom where it had once been round.  Polly Waffle was discontinued at the end of that year.  Poor Polly.

Sadly the Polly Waffle legacy is the use of the name for something similar in looks that might be unwelcome when found floating in a swimming pool. Again, poor Polly.

Cover art work by Barry Rockwell

Life with insects

They say that as you get older you often feel imaginary things crawling on your skin, but it's just

some sort of nerve damage.  I feel something crawling on me every day.  I brush it away, as you do and find there actually is some tiny little beetle or flying thing on the back of my neck or climbing up my legs or arms. I suppose that is normal for the sub-tropics.

The really amazing thing is - they are all so different.  Just while writing this I've flicked off a flying ant and a tiny spider and squashed a long narrow climbing thingy. They all share my living room.

So, how many different types of insects are there?

Just in Australia, the number of insect species is estimated at 300,000.  And, scientists tell us that there are more insects yet to be discovered than we already know about.  In fact, there could be as many as 200,000 insects on the planet PER person.

Lots of creatures eat insects, so they are handy to have.  Entomophagy is the eating of insects by people.  Three thousand ethnic groups around the world include insects in their diet, including cicadas, ants, grubs and worms.  Crunchy!

I like looking at the pretty ones.

... saying please AND thank you

My grandmother lived by a list of rules that often only she understood - for example she felt saying 'please' and 'thank you' meant very different things and it was not necessary to say both for the same action. She wasn't able to explain details of the dos and don'ts but I remember she often softened requests with other words.

"Pass me that book, dear". - "Thank you".

"Please clean that up."  -  "Now, isn't that better?"

She didn't think it was necessary to say 'thank you' to someone who was being paid for what they were doing, such as delivery men or waiters, and this horrified my mother who was all about making people feel comfortable.

While working with exchange students some years ago I came across different customs regarding politeness. One student from Finland told me their language had no words for 'please' and 'thank you' - but another explained that 'kiitos' is used for both. 

A Canadian student complained that Australians overdo 'thank you'. She thought it should only be for nice things, like when receiving a gift. In her words "I handed the girl a bag of trash and she said thank you?  You don't say thank you for trash." 

In Italian the word Prego stands for please. It actually means I beg, or I pray, but in context it is used as - certainly, sorry, pardon, excuse me, you're welcome, don't mention it, no problem, it's alright.  And, when someone says 'Grazi', or thank you, the response is ... 'prego'. So many things sound romantic in Italian.

An old fashioned word, probably understood by my grandmother, is etiquette. This describes a code of behaviour expected by a particular society. Even if it was not technically accurate, etiquette demanded people at least appeared to meet a certain standard.  From the 1500s to the 1900s etiquette was a school subject in most English speaking countries and people were judged on their good manners.  Today there is an element of meaningless to some of these rituals.

One ritual is the handshake, originally a gesture of peace, because the weapon hands are held tightly. Polite language, "How do you do," "How are you?" developed to create an sense of respect and peace, even if people were talking through clenched teeth.

In English 'please' is short for 'if you please', or 'if it pleases you to do this', as does the French 'si il vous plait' and the Spanish 'por favor'.

When we ask someone to 'Pass the butter, please', we are saying - 'Pass the butter to me, even though I am not saying you must, it is a social obligation'.  Of course this can't be refused, even though it is not an order.

The English 'please' is used to add politeness to a request.  It is used at the end of a sentence, after a comma.

May I borrow your pen, please?

Could you wait for me, please?

And, 'please' is used in the phrase 'Yes, please', to confirm an offer.

Would you like more ice cream?  - Yes, please.

We also use 'please' to add a polite note to a single order or instruction, and then it comes at the beginning.

Please sit down.

Please be quite.

We do not use 'please' when giving a firm order or a list of instructions.
Stop that right now.  

Put the gun down and step away.

And 'please' is not used as a response to 'thank you'.  Other expressions are used instead.

Thank you.  -  You're welcome.

Thank you. - It was my pleasure.

We use 'thank you' when a compliment is given.    

You look lovely today.  - Thank you.

Your sponge cake was delicious.  - Thank you.

Offers can be accepted and refused with 'thank you'.

Can I get you a cold drink?  - Yes, thank you.

Will you come for a swim?  - No, thank you. I don't have time.

In English 'thank you' comes from the word 'think'. It originally meant 'In my mind I will remember what you did for me' (in order to pay you back).

The Portuguese 'obrigado' means 'much obliged' or 'I am obliged to you' or 'I am in your debt'.

The French 'merci' comes from 'mercy', as in begging for mercy because you are (symbolically) in your benefactor's power because a debtor is a criminal.

The Chinese have various ways of saying 'thank you' for a gift or a favour but not for a compliment as their desire for humility forces them to politely deflect compliments.  A forced humility can be seen in our culture at times, but is often translated as 'fishing for more compliments'.

The next stage of response is - 'You're welcome' or 'It's nothing' or 'It's my pleasure'. In French it is 'de rien' and in Spanish 'de nada'.  This is a reassurance that there is no debt, in fact it is often a credit position.

So the simple request at the dinner table can be a coded message.

"Would you pass the butter, please?"  (Pass the butter to me if it pleases you to do that as while this is not an order, it is a social obligation.)

"Certainly".   The butter is passed. (The favour is done.)

"Thank you". (I will remember that you did this for me and I am now in your debt.)

"You're welcome". (You are not in my debt as you have provided me with the opportunity of doing something that pleased me.)

But we can't write this off as being outdated because over 500 years these niceties have become signals that form part of our relationships. "Please' and 'Thank you' can still signal the difference between a requested favour and a demand for something owed.

Many people feel we should err on the side of overuse because the boundaries are vague and different values mean not saying the polite words can be misinterpreted. Others say that overuse, or incorrect use causes confusion.

Today, saying 'thank you' can be a great motivational tool - as a show of respect, appreciation and also encouragement.

We'd all agree it is very good to say "Thank you" when presented with flowers or a box of Belgium chocolates, and it doubles as a reward for the giver, and, if we have asked someone to pass us the bag of rubbish (trash), as appreciation or compensation for doing an unpleasant job, but, should we say "Thank you" when a friend repays money that has been owing for some time and causing great inconvenience? We do, but I think my grandmother would say no to that one.

...seeing both sides

... seeing both sides.

Last week I was chatting with the girl I usually see at the supermarket checkout and found we both have birthdays in October - yay.  Also, we both enjoy reading and watching movies, both have strong opinions on a variety of things and we both have a talent for seeing more than one view of a situation. This constant balancing act can be tiring but, we agreed, it does not make us indecisive.

I don't mind 'seeing both sides of the coin,' I wouldn't feel normal if I was different - but what is this condition called?  Do I have a syndrome or a disorder?

"It's a bilateral view," someone  said. But then, "No... I think that means having a mammogram of both sides."

"You are your own discussion group," said someone else. 

Google finds some interesting comments.

"Seeing both sides of an issue only gets you halfway to your goal.   In many big companies, the unintended dysfunctional consequence of doing so is passivity and fence sitting.

But I think that comes from having too many people involved.  And, fence sitting is ambivalence, conflicting reactions or mixed feelings.  That is different.

"The best decisions come when you hold two opposing ideas in your mind at once."

But, I object to the word opposing, you can see more than one side, or more than two sides and they are not necessarily in opposition.

"The point of seeing both sides isn’t to avoid decision making.  The point is to make better decisions."  Well, yes but not always.

 And my hubby finds it annoying.   His conversations might begin with,

"Don' t interrupt me ...." or "I know you won't agree  ...."  or the big one -

"You never take my side."

"I do take your side."

"No, you  always take the other side."

"That's because you've already presented your side and when I see other sides I just offer them as alternative views.... to help."

"It doesn't help when I want to return a defective watering system, with a piece of my mind, and you say it's not their fault because the system came from China. You're always against me."

"For goodness sake, there is no for or against - just different ways of looking at it."

"Like when someone in a truck so old it's about to fall apart can't speed up, won't pull over and makes sure I can't overtake and you feel sorry for them."

"You shouted at him."

"You said maybe he was old, or sick or sad to be driving his truck for the last time but NO, it was because he had a dog in the manger attitude."

"I don't really understand what that is."  (but I planned to look it up)

"The dog is sitting on the straw in the manger so the cow can't eat it."
"Maybe the dog doesn't know that the cow wants the hay or maybe he was really tired...."

"See - now you're taking the dogs side!!!"

So, the dog in the manger is a metaphor or an idiom (a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words).  I didn't know this but apparently there are at least twenty five thousand idioms in the English language.  I wonder if there is a book.

The Dog in the Manger story comes from a Greek fable, possibly one of Aesop's, written around 600BC.  It's become a metaphor for those who prevent others from having something they themselves have no use for.  

A dog was sleeping on the hay in a manger when an ox came and tried to eat the hay. The dog barked and snapped at him and wouldn't let the ox get at his food, food that was useless to the dog. Finally the ox gave up and went away muttering, "Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.

in 1390 we find this version -

Though it be not the hound's habit to eat chaff, 
yet will he warn off an ox 
that commeth to the barn
thereof to take up any food.

in 1564 it looks like this - 

Like vnto cruell Doges liyng in a Maunger, neither eatyng the Haye theim seluse ne sufferyng the Horse to feed thereof hymself.

and a 1680 Spanish play, called The Gardener's Dog told the story this way -  A gardener sets his dog to guard his cabbages.  After the gardener's death the dog continues to forbid people access to the garden beds.  

And so we get a simile 'He's like the gardener's dog that eats no cabbage and won't let others eat either'  or  'playing the gardener's dog.'

I could retell the story as  - A market gardener loses money because his neighbours steal his cabbages before he can harvest them. One day the gardener saves a puppy that has been cruelly treated.  The gardener trains the dog to guard the cabbages and a strong bond grows between the pair. The dog is pleased he can help the gardener who saved him and the gardener is glad of the help to safeguard his meagre income.  Years pass and one day the gardener has a heart attack and dies.  The dog is grief stricken.  He fears he will be abandoned again so continues to guard the precious cabbages.  When neighbours come into the garden the dog drives them off.  Finally all the cabbages are dead and the field is empty, so the dog curls up, job well done, and goes to join his master. 

And the simile - 'As loyal as a gardeners dog. '
The metaphor - 'He's a loyal gardeners dog.' 

Or I could retell it as - A wealthy gardener , known for his mean and wicked ways, owns a large brutish dog.  The gardener grows far more produce than he can eat or sell while his neighbours starve. He trains the dog to viciously attack anyone coming into the field and the dog is so protective that when the gardener has a heart attack no one can come near to help him and he dies.  The neighbours are forced to poison the field, killing off all the produce and finally the dog. 
There must be lots of similes, metaphors and folksy advice in that.

So, next time I am sleeping on straw in a manger and a rude oxen, who arrives without notice, wants to eat my bed, I will refer him to the idiom - 'Let sleeping dogs lie' -

because the dog deserves a comfortable bed.

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