Would you ever live in Europe? or retire there????

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: Freeborn

First thing I did when my name went above the door put sparklers on the pumps.
Made it a northern pub in london.
A pint without a head on isn't a pint.

I have been down here so long I had forgotten that a pint should have a frothy head on it.

Maybe that is why the beer tastes crap down here.

There was a pub down here that had some and if you asked them they would put on one and pull your pint, the locals would all go "OOOHHHH" and look at you funny until you left...

a reply to: nonspecific

I have a spare sparkler I carry about for emergency drinking moments.

a reply to: snowspirit

Here in the netherlands everybody cals ""Soccer"" Football or in my native tongue ""voetball". It is because American Football is very much unrepresented, we are a ""Voetball"" continent. The other big sport we have that is kinda like American Football is Rugby. Soccer..... yeah most people are going to question mark that.

Kind Regards.

a reply to: boymonkey74

I have a spare sparkler I carry about for emergency drinking moments.

That is now a must for all my future visits to 'the south', if for nothing other than comedy value.

a reply to: Freeborn

It does cause a scene. Last one I did it in I had to show them how to pour a pint and then loads a people wanted to have a pint with a head.
landlord wasn't happy.

originally posted by: snowspirit
As a Canadian this is confusing. I suppose I could google it..
In Canada, soccer is played with a soccer ball (round, black and white ball) , and football is played with an oblong pointy ball, which gets carried a lot.
2 completely different games...cannot mix them up.

The difference needs to be explained with a bit of cultural history.
In late Victorian days, there were two kinds of "football" game played in England. There was Rugby football, the oblong-ball game, played and watched mainly by the upper classes; and Association football, the round-ball game, played and watched mainly by the working classes. They were distinguished by the nicknames "rugger" and "soccer", but these were really upper-class abbreviations ,obviously devised by the kind of people who might talk about having "champers at brekker" (champagne at breakfast). Since the working-classes were only interested in the round-ball game, that was the one they called "football" and they had no need to use any other label.

The equal status of the two kinds of football was one of the casualties of the nineteen-sixties. I've got a children's book from 1960 which still describes them both under the full names, Association football and Rugby football. Those were the days when the upper-class still had a kind of cultural dominance. They would appear on television quiz shows and be discuused in gossip columns. Part of the impact of the Sixties, in England, was that this cultural dominance got overthrown. Modern English culture is much more influenced by working-class language.
And in working-class language, the round-ball game has always been "football". Nowadays, English people don't encounter the word "soccer" except when Americans are talking about the sport, so that's why they think of it as a weird American term and get snooty on the subject.

In reality, "soccer" belongs to that small class of expressions ahich have become "Americanisms" simply by surviving in American after being abandoned in their English place of origin.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Explain the whole 'sparkler' thing. I am not getting it.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

A pint of bitter has a foamy frothy head on.
A sparkler goes on the end of the beer pump to make a nice creamy head...unless you are a southerner then you have it flat

a reply to: boymonkey74

Gotcha. Over her a sparkler is something you light on the 4th of July and give to kids to wave around.

a reply to: boymonkey74
I don't know which"South" you are all going on about, get a head on every pint here in my corner of SW England. All the pub glasses have a 'pint line' about an inch below the rims to allow for the head.
The superior northern stereotype while mildly amusing, has been done to death.

Plenty of friendly people live in these parts as well but I guess that doesn't fit your stereotypes.

Happy new year though even if the only folk dissing regions in this thread are the northerners...no surprise either.

originally posted by: grainofsand
a reply to: boymonkey74
I don't know which"South" you are all going on about, get a head on every pint here in my corner of SW England. All the pub glasses have a 'pint line' about an inch below the rims to allow for the head.
The superior northern stereotype while mildly amusing, has been done to death.

Plenty of friendly people live in these parts as well but I guess that doesn't fit your stereotypes.

Happy new year though even if the only folk dissing regions in this thread are the northerners...no surprise either.

But you are technically Welsh so your opinions are disregarded.

Only joking mofo. have a good new year.

a reply to: nonspecific

Hahaha! I've lived longer in Devon and Cornwall than Wales now, more of farm cider chap these days as well so I'll raise a glass to you and all later.

a reply to: grainofsand

Devon and Cornwall aren't really classed as soft southern pansies.
It is really aimed at Londoners, Kent, the Home Counties etc.

a reply to: grainofsand

Lol by South I mean London way.
Oh and let us up north have a gripe about the south.
I lived there and they didn't do chips and gravy! .
Same up here the banter Yorkshire n Lancashire.
I love reminding Yorkshire folk their war cry...
"How much!".

a reply to: Freeborn
I suppose Dorset and Wiltshire are on sketchy ground as well being closer to the big smoke?!

On topic, need good money to retire in my parts, high property prices, high council taxes, the highest water charges, and a seasonal economy heavily dependent on minimum wage hospitality jobs.

Unless I win the lottery or my son gets to N.Zealand and 'sponsors' me to get in, I don't think I'll be moving too far when I retire. SW England is my favourite part of the island now.

I don't know if I'd retire to Europe, but I'd love to spend a couple of years exploring.

One place on my mind currently is Samuel Smith's mainly because I've got some of these waiting on me for tonight:

a reply to: boymonkey74

No chips n gravy??!!
What dark badland of a place doesn't sell that?
...that would scar me as well

a reply to: DISRAELI

A nice little potted history but it's not strictly accurate; I remember when growing up in the 60s/70s that the 2 terms were interchangeable - soccer/football - but there was a slight preference for the latter, as it couldn't refer to anything else.

Then the Americans started saying 'soccer' to distinguish it from their own game, so 'football' became the norm over here.

a reply to: grainofsand

Little homes it's the future.
I'm seriously looking into buying a bit of land and building a tiny home.
I have worked out It could cost me very little to run.

a reply to: CJCrawley
Yes, cultural changes are gradual, so it's easy to oversimplify.