Stan Bowes, from Diggle, has uncovered some interesting and entertaining facts – you just couldn’t make them up.
DRINKING, particularly alcohol, has many traditions. One such is common with Port.
The decanter is passed round the table in a clockwise direction, starting with the host. This continues until the container is empty.
In some organisations it is considered an insult to let the decanter touch the table before it is finished.
It is considered rude to ask for the drink to be passed so various coded phrases are in use.
Whispering ‘Does anyone know the Bishop of Norwich?’ is sure to get the decanter moving. An alternative is with a hoggit – a round-bottomed decanter that cannot stand on the table.
Incidentally, in the southern hemisphere it should be passed anti-clockwise. The original custom was it should follow the direction of a shadow, as in a sundial. This is reversed down south.
MEANWHILE, an old English game, known name as ‘conkers’, played with the fruit of the horse-chestnut, was at one time called ‘conquerors’.
However, the name is not derived from battles. It comes from the French ‘conque’, the conch shell.
The game was originally played with snail-shells, then hazel-nuts, before changing to the nut from the horse-chestnut.
Improve your vocabulary
Buz: To share equally the last of a bottle of wine, when there isn’t sufficient to fill everyone’s glass
Apothegms
An error only becomes a mistake if you choose to ignore it.
A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner.
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