so pisht she dropped the farl on the dymatron
This is the most expensive TV set manufactured in Britain. Assembled by thousands of highly trained paramecia in 1948, it was called a ‘Dynatron Ether Sovereign’.
“I don’t think that frying the soda farls is typical in an Ulster fry. I have eaten Ulster fry in Belfast many times and I dont think the soda farls were ever fried,except when I fried them myself. When I did make my own breakfast, I fried the farls, and the folks with whom I was staying seemed to consider this a surprising innovation.”
What a wonderful paragraph. I couldn’t keep my hands off it. I pinched it from a Wikipedia dispute about the definition of an Irish breakfast.
The whole story is taken up at Crooked Timber, which embeds the whole thing in wonderful fun.
I am also going to abscond blatantly with a fabulous description from World Wide Words, which introduced me to the word “etheromaniac”.
‘The imbibing of ether was a widespread practice in parts of Ireland during the nineteenth century. Some contemporary reports point to a temperance campaign by one Father Matthew in 1838 for starting it, while others say it was an unintended result of a crackdown by the authorities at that time on the illegal brewing of poteen, whiskey made from potatoes.
The effects of ether were like those of alcohol, but the drinker passed through the stages of intoxication to insensibility much more quickly. He also sobered up after only a few minutes with no hangover. One problem with drinking ether was that it turns into a gas at body temperature. To get around this, the usual technique was to drink a glass of cold water followed by a shot of ether. The water cooled the mouth and throat sufficiently to get the ether into the stomach in liquid form. A frequent side effect was violent belching of flammable gas. Since houses were lit by naked flames, ether drinkers sometimes set themselves and others alight.”
The whole thing is here.
September 9th, 2006 at 12:22 am
I’m off to Ireland in October, but sadly not enough time for Belfast. I’ll let you know about breakfast, although to be truthful, I’m not one to feel particularly hungry of a morn. Usually a good coffee and perhaps a piece of rye bread and carraway seed toast with a small, delicate, smear of the national spread on it, is mostly enough.
On the other matter. I can’t say that I have tried the old ether drink, but I’m willing to bet that nabakov has a machine set up in his smoking room library to dispense the gaseous stuff post pranial.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:57 am
Ah, Sir,
well spotted!
I just know you’re fishing for this:
“There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge,” he once wrote. “You can turn your back on a person but never turn your back on a drug.”
or was it this?
“Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas … with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.”
It does, however, leave a sickly-sweet taste in your mouth & nose for weeks…
Bless Y’all
September 17th, 2006 at 7:15 am
THE SODAS ARE ALWAYS FRIED FOR AN ULSTER BREAKFAST.
THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED AN ULSTER FRY
September 17th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I had to read that par about the soda farls twice to make sure there wasn’t a typo there: my mind kept on substituting ‘farts’.
Irish soda bread was orright, from memory, kind of like damper with a soda flavour. Their dairy products, chocolate and guinness are far superior to ours (but this is going back fifteen years or so ago).