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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Welcome Back, Fnarf

posted by on October 2 at 12:26 PM

We missed you.

Gold%20Sounds.jpgPhoto of Fnarf (c) 2007 John E. Hollingsworth.

(Did you really go to Great Britain for the food? And how did you stay away from the internet while traveling? It’s a hard urge to shake.)

RSS icon Comments

1

is it just me or does it always seem like fnarf has a giant lightbulb in his unitard in this photo

Posted by vooodooo84 | October 2, 2007 12:44 PM
2

Hooray! Fnarf, you have been missed.

Posted by Aislinn | October 2, 2007 12:47 PM
3

i second that, all we've had have been Mr. Poe and Issur to entertain the comments

Posted by vooodooo84 | October 2, 2007 12:49 PM
4

Fnarf is back and I am moving to Chicago this weekend!! GOOD BYE SEATTLE!!!!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | October 2, 2007 1:02 PM
5

And while Mr. Poe and Issur are their own kinds of entertaining, nothing beats the original.

Welcome back, Fnarf!

Posted by Jessica | October 2, 2007 1:05 PM
6

That picture always gives me a raging clue.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 2, 2007 1:10 PM
7

Cato, you'll be happy to hear that they have Slog in Chicago, too.

Posted by Amy Kate Horn | October 2, 2007 1:22 PM
8

The funny thing is that I've completely forgotten why the photo was taken. Unfortunately I'll never be able to forget the photo.

Posted by Kristi in Kitsap | October 2, 2007 1:44 PM
9

Fuck that jerk off Fnarf.

Posted by Sammy | October 2, 2007 1:48 PM
10

Fnarf we love you and especially love your comments : )

Posted by mj | October 2, 2007 1:48 PM
11

But Amy I thought the internet only existed in Seattle?! :)

It is ALL about the Chicago Reader next week! Have fun and use a condom kids!!!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | October 2, 2007 1:49 PM
12

Fnarf... this must make you feel all warm and happy inside. lol. Do you feel the immense pressure to live up to the golden-suited legend? What if you say something stupid? :( We're here for you. At least I am, I say stupid things all the time so there's no pressure.

Posted by Katelyn | October 2, 2007 2:30 PM
13

Oh God, Fnarf says dumb things all the time ; )They are fun dumb things but he can be a real butt head a lot of the time.

Love You Fnarf...

Posted by mj | October 2, 2007 2:38 PM
14

I love you too, Sammy.

Amy Kate, Amy Kate
Here's what I ate
in Britain:

* Full English breakfast -- two fried eggs, four pieces of back bacon, four sausages, two black puddings, baked beans, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried potatoes, fried bread, toast and tea; free jump start if your heart stops beating;

* Ulster fry -- same as above minus the potatoes and the black puddings but plus FOUR DIFFERENT kinds of fried bread including pancakes;

* Liverpool Chinese food -- served with chips (french fries) instead of rice, and made of Char Sui barbecued pork in a gallon of sauce -- unspeakably vile;

* Blackpool curry -- hunks of mystery meat in a gallon of HP sauce, over rice -- dramatically worse than even the Chinese;

* The best fish and chips in the world, from the Lobster Pot in central Liverpool, unless it was the stuff at Pirate World in Blackpool or the place in Scarborough, which were also pretty outstanding;

* The second-best South Asian meal I've ever eaten (after Vij's in Vancouver) at Coriander in Waterloo or is it Crosby, North Liverpool -- I had the Sri Lankan black pork;
* An unspectacular meal with a great bottle of wine with two charming transsexuals in Manchester's thriving gay district, outside by the canal, after which we visited the statue of Alan Turing, the gay man who cracked the Enigma code and won WWII and was rewarded by being imprisoned and pumped full of hormones to make him straight, driving him to commit suicide by eating a poisoned apple; and
* many, many pints of the best fucking beer on the planet, real ale, the likes of which you just can't get here, particular favorites being Cain's Mild, Samuel Smith's OBB and Dark Mild, and of course the Guinness. The stuff you get in bottles or kegs ain't the same.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 2:40 PM
15

PS - it's a wrestling cup.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 2:44 PM
16

PPS - Kristi in Kitsap, you never knew. Just be glad that the seven-foot-long papier-mache turd didn't survive the immersion long enough to be photographed properly. And that you didn't see the view from the rear.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 2:47 PM
17

Fnarf, but why northern England
and Northern Ireland? People are
trying to escape from these
places.

--- Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | October 2, 2007 3:03 PM
18

I am interested in the heritage of the Industrial Revolution, and it is located in the North of England. The docks of Liverpool and the cotton mills of Manchester, and the railway (the world's first) that runs between them, and the ship canal that does likewise, which we cruised. In addition, Mrs. Fnarf went to college in Liverpool, and has friends there too. She also has friends in Belfast (a former UVF paramilitary and his Catholic wife), so we had to go there (it was absolutely charming). Blackpool simply because it's the largest, tackiest, tattiest, most ridiculous seaside resort in the world. And so on.

Read Stuart Maconie's "Pies and Prejudice", if you can find it in the States, for more on the mystique of the North.

We could have gone someplace with loads of the same old crap to look at, but we wanted to do something different.

Museums? We visited the Lowry in Manchester, which features the work of LS Lowry, who is more interesting than anyone who's operated in London in the past 100 years, and which had a terrific exhibition on The North as well. Smiths record sleeves in a museum! Cathedrals? We saw York Minster, which is in the top tier with Chartres and Notre Dame. The beer is much better in the North. We saw a Liverpool Football Club match at Anfield. We saw a ton of real English people (a mixed blessing), not busloads of Italians and Germans. I think we did quite well.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 3:39 PM
19

Wait, so what's the difference between the Full English B-fast, and a Full Irish B-fast?

Ah, now I see: with the FEB, you don't get white pudding in addition to the black.

Posted by COMTE | October 2, 2007 3:41 PM
20

Allow me to also recommend George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" as an must-read text for those interested in the Northern England industrial class.

Posted by Gurldoggie | October 2, 2007 3:43 PM
21

I think that's it, Comte: no white pud. I don't think the Irish has potatoes, either, but I could be wrong. And not every English had them, either. Ironic if you think about it, Ireland being a wee bit famous for potatoes. Just not for breakfast. You won't find either the black or white pudding in Ulster.

To be honest, the white pudding is a little much for me. I absolutely love the black, aka boudin noir, or blood sausage; the white is suet and oatmeal, I believe. Neither is "pudding" as Americans know it; they are sausages sliced into rounds and fried. Either is a vegetarian's worst nightmare.)

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 3:49 PM
22

If we're gonna talk about all the things the British call "pudding," we could be here all night.

Btw, a Scottish breakfast contains many of the elements above, but you're liable to get a wee bit of haggis as well.

Posted by Gabriel | October 2, 2007 3:59 PM
23

It's not that complicated. "Pudding" just means "dessert", normally. A slice of cake or pie or a bowl of ice cream or a candy bar are all "pudding" if they are served as a sweet after dinner. Or rather, "tea", since "pudding" is a working class, Northern kind of word, and Northern working class people eat their "dinner" at midday and their tea at 5 or 6 -- "supper" is a very light nosh right before bed, 11 pm, and is eaten in one's jammies. "Lunch" is a soft, posh Southern word.

"Tea" in this context has nothing to do with that mid-afternoon frilly Merchant Ivory business with the cucumber sandwiches in Claridge's, at £30 a head. That's not only posh and soft and Southern, it's completely daft as well, partaken of only by wankers and great-aunts and people who are still upset about letting In-djah get away. Tea in working class families is meat and two veg, or meat and a gallon of HP sauce over rice, or kebabs from Abrakebabra if you're going out on the piss (consuming numerous pints of beer in public houses).

However, if your "pudding" is a black pudding, it is made of cooked blood and not a dessert. then there's white pudding, and haggis, which is a kind of savory pudding similar to white pudding, and steak and kidney pudding, which is a type of suet pudding, in a pastry, like a steak and kidney pie, but steamed instead of baked. That's about it for savory puds. Figgy pudding and Christmas pudding and so on are like our "fruitcake" -- sweets, not savories.

What we call "pudding" they would call "mousse" or possibly "custard" if it is eggy.

I don't think the Brits have yet been exposed to Jello Pudding Pops, which is a shame.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 4:29 PM
24

I have completely forgotten to mention sausage rolls, which is a lump of sausage containing no more than 15% actual meat, wrapped in a flaky pastry, stored under a heat lamp in a glass case for weeks or months, and consumed on the street. 60p. Delicious. Will shorten your life more than a hundred packs of cigarettes.

Or the aforementioned kebabs, which is pronounced to rhyme with "ripped abs", which might be what we would call a "kebab" but is much more likely to be what we would call a "gyro". Also pretty delicious.

Or pies, the quintessentially Northern dish, chopped meat in sauce in a pastry, with or without a lid, eaten on the street or in a pub.

All of the above items kick ass over the garbage I ate in sit-down restaurants, with a few exceptions. The pizza ranged from mediocre at best to dog vomit at worst, and I didn't see a green vegetable, or a raw one, the entire time I was there. Most English food outside of London exists only to tide you over between their real sustenance -- "a sandwich in every glass". Beer. Ironically, London itself, which we didn't visit, is widely considered to be the food capital of the world now, with more interesting and better (and more expensive) offerings than New York or Paris.

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 4:55 PM
25

Mrs. Fnarf went to college there.....
Hmmm, I think I am beginning to better understand. Oh! but wait, I'm sorry,
I forgot your interest in the Industrial Revolution.....

Last year my wife wanted to practice her French and so she decided the
best place to do that was Tahiti.
Of course, Quebec, France and Louisiana are closer and cheaper, but what fool denies the person they cherish the
the oppotunity to become a better person?

--- Jensen



Posted by Jensen Interceptor | October 2, 2007 5:10 PM
26

"Last year my wife wanted to practice her French and so she decided the
best place to do that was Tahiti."

Uh, no offense, Jensen, but I think your wife is smarter than you are! That's some first-rate deciding going on there....

Posted by Fnarf | October 2, 2007 5:24 PM
27

FNARF Wrote:
"Uh, no offense, Jensen, but I think your wife is smarter than you are!"

Absolutely no offense taken, Fnarf. She is much smarter and that is just one of
the reasons I wanted to marry her so many, many years ago.....

---Jensen



Posted by Jensen Interceptor | October 2, 2007 5:42 PM
28

Everything is just a little bit better with Fnarf on it!

Posted by tim | October 2, 2007 7:58 PM
29

@27, the reason, you, you might say, "intercepted" her?

Posted by Jude Fawley | October 2, 2007 8:03 PM
30

Yay Fnarf! His return makes me feel so fnarfy! I remember the last time he fnarfed a fnarf in the middle of the fnarf.. amazing! And later, he totally fnarfed my fnarf, and we fnarfed a lot more about it later! Mmmm, fnarfy.

Posted by treacle | October 2, 2007 8:27 PM
31

Fnarf @ 23, actually the use of "pudding" is more complex than that. It often does just mean a sweet or dessert, and so you might see a list of puddings on a restaurant menu as an after-dinner treat, but for some English accents, particularly the Northern Newcastle-region accent, "pudding" means dinner itself.

And then, of course, you have black pudding, white pudding, and so on.

Posted by Gabriel | October 3, 2007 12:48 AM
32

And then there's Yorkshire Pudding, which can be either sweet OR savoury !

Posted by Boz | October 3, 2007 2:12 AM
33

I'm sorry for what I'm about to type.

You guys must be pudding me on.

I suck.

Posted by PdxRitchie | October 3, 2007 2:20 AM
34

I'm sleepy, and gawd that was awful. You should be proud.

Posted by lawrence clark | October 3, 2007 2:59 AM
35

Who are you calling "we", Amy?

Posted by Roger Williams | October 3, 2007 3:50 AM
36

Actually, Gabriel, I believe that's just a theory, as no one can actually understand anything a Geordie says.

Posted by Fnarf | October 3, 2007 5:12 AM
37

FNARF - wut r u on about? Didnt know you had visited the North. I've been there quite a few times. I mostly stayed with friends in Andy town and the falls, so I didnt spent most of the time in nationalist areas. It is something being the only brown man for miles and miles and convincing drunk Ulstermen that i wasnt a wee paki. I was there before the peace process actually had taken place. So your wife's friend with a UVFer? Is not Michael Stone is it? ha! welcome back ye wee bastard!

Posted by SeMe | October 3, 2007 11:24 AM
38

oops. that should read, i spent most of my time in nationalist areas. the falls and andersontown are the heart of the nationalist-catholic areas.

Posted by SeMe | October 3, 2007 11:26 AM
39

We toured the Falls Road area and the Shankill estates both. Pretty grim. My UVF pal is all nice and reformed now and married to a Catholic woman and trying to stay far, far away from any kind of conflict. They go to Spain every year during July to avoid the marches and march controversies.

Most people there are heartily sick of the bombings and shootings, even the dedicated nationalists and unionists. Seeing Ian Paisley (with his doctorate from Bob Jones University) and Martin MacGuinness (with his doctorate in killing people) sitting and smiling together is rather bizarre and wonderful. The situation is far from settled forever, but the peaceful status quo, with a somewhat devolved Northern Ireland still standing apart from the Republic, but with actual representation and human rights for Catholics, is a good thing, and maybe the most hopeful thing going on anywhere in the world.

The real credit is to the people, in Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and the Republic who stuck with a maddeningly difficult process long enough to make it work. You'd think some of the other conflicts in the world could make use of what they've learned, but I guess not. There aren't any George Mitchells in George Bush's Republican Party.

Posted by Fnarf | October 3, 2007 12:22 PM

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