Cadbury's Chocolate ( and cheese)

[Kate]

Well, I honestly do get called a stuck up bitch - but it's usually by people who've met me, and whom I wouldn't want to associate with anyway.

I tend to treat waitstaff pretty well, although being consistently broke, I can't leave outrageously good tips. Which is why I rarely go out to eat.

[davec]

The smaller the town, the more likely the folk are to hew to the local culture, and see nonconforming behavior as stuck-up. You're different because we're not good enough for you. I used to get that as a schoolboy from time to time. Actually, I was willing to fit in, and thought maybe I'd bring a little novelty into their lives, but if it's novelty that doesn't interest them, well... And of course, many Americans have a fairly stunted general curiosity about the world around them, except knowing how to get to theme parks and the like.

[SepticTone]

As an addendum to my first initiating this thread, ref. Cadbury being swallowed up by Kraftfoods Inc., (burp), I note with interest that Kraft have today announced that, despite their promise to keep open the Cadbury plant in Somerdale, nr Bristol, whilst they were wooing the Cadbury shareholders during their takeover bid, they've decided to shut it down & move the jobs to Poland. With the net UK loss of 459 jobs.

Sound move, as despite the fact that chocolate has been manufactured in Somerdale for the last 280 years, it's colder in Poland, which will keep the chocolate in tiptop condition & ensure it's even more delicious than before.

Nothing to do with the fact that Polish workers are on average paid 50% less than UK workers, & live in weeping insanitary 1950's Soviet style concrete highrises & have no National Insurance costs to be borne by an employer, & as Poland's now part of the EU, there's free movement of goods & services there, with no import/export duty....oh no.

Just for info, as I don't consume Cadbury product, nor Kraft product, but it just goes to show.

I hope Kraft don't employ any US workers over there. Poland's looking increasingly attractive if you want to save costs as a multi-national.

I never liked Curly-Worlies anyway.

[Kate]

Hm. Well, I have to say, in my desire to get to Europe, I hadn't considered Poland. Working there might be a nice place to base the rest of my travels in Europe from.

*considers Poland*

Erm, nope.

Desperate, but not that desperate.

Besides, Polish is third only to Welsh and Gaelic in "random letters thrown together and claimed to be words" languages. At least to me. I'd much rather take English, or even German, and I could possibly learn to swing it with French, but it would take a lot of effort learning the Celtic languages or Polish. I'm not sure it's even possible if you're not born into that culture.

[davec]

Yes, the Slavs do have a surprising capacity for getting by without vowels. Some words look like hell to us if they're written with the Roman alphabet. They look a lot better in Cyrillic, which was designed for Slavic languages, since combinations like 'sh', 'zh', 'ch' and even 'shch' are represented by single letters. However, most nonRussian Slavs don't use it.

Welsh is a bit L-heavy. I'll have to get out and play some to see how it sounds, as I've never actually heard it. Just some more backfill for when I get an odd moment.

I find Irish Gaelic pretty reasonable, though, and easy to pronounce. The extra vowels are there because of the pronunciation rule 'caol le caol, agus leathan le leathan', or 'broad with broad, and slender with slender'. On either side of a string of one or more consonants, the vowels must be either both broad (a, o, u) or both slender (e, i), which is what gives the language its smooth sound. If you are learning Gaelic, you soon get used to seeing it, and it doesn't look so strange. There are languages much harder to learn.

[SepticTone]

Besides, Polish is third only to Welsh and Gaelic in "random letters thrown together and claimed to be words" languages. At least to me. I'd much rather take English, or even German, and I could possibly learn to swing it with French, but it would take a lot of effort learning the Celtic languages or Polish. I'm not sure it's even possible if you're not born into that culture.

Gaelic's a dead language, really, only spoken by diehards in the West of Ireland, the Northern islands of Scotland, members of the IRA & Father Jack. Welsh is spoken by even fewer people, & if you watch the Welsh language TV channel here ( avg. viewing figures per annum c. 1035 ) you'd see why, as it's mainly random throat-clearing sounds and every other word is an English borrowing. It's funny listening to though. For about 5 minutes. All Gaelic speakers also speak English much better than they do Gaelic, as speaking a dead language is severely limiting, as you're confined to talking about rain, dirt, snow, animals, light, dark, stones and one or two other very basic Neolithic concepts. Trust me: my wife's Irish & can barely manage to.... no, I'll stop there.

Polish, on the other hand, is a living language, but not much use outside Poland, admittedly.

Wales.
We once went, on a whim to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. The town with the longest train station name in the world, allegedly, on Anglesey (umm, that's N. Wales), which is about a two hour drive from where we live. It was shut & raining. So we came home, carefully avoiding Liverpool. Thank God it was only two hours away.

[AndaLi]

This seems to be an old discussion, but in case of revisits, I offer to Kate:
Forget Wisconson cheeses, they're mostly bland and unsatisfying; better to seek out an imported Wensleydale or real Cheddar. I moved to Britain in the 70's to get decent cheese (and tea) and would do it again were it not for the infinite availability of everything via imports and/or the internet these days. Found Wensleydale there, to my utter delight, well before Wallace & Gromit appeared. though I'm very glad they did appear.

Not only are kraft products schlock, and I gave up Cadbury's when I discovered real chocolate, but Hersey's are actually radioactive. Still it is an intriguing combination, and perhaps a British cheese baron could buy back Cadbury's, add some 70% cacao, and restore jobs to the Midlands. We have great 70% here in California, better than our cheeses by far.

[SepticTone]

Nice response, AndaLi, & welcome.

I like the idea of a 'British cheese baron' buying back Cadburys, but try as I may, I can't think of a British cheese baron, let alone one who can scrape together more than the $19.6 Billion Kraft paid for Cadburys, to buy it back.

Incidentally, today we went to Glasson Dock near Lancaster, to buy some smoked fish. I hate fish. Wife likes it, so we had to go, of course.

But happily, I was able to purchase some Grandma Singleton's Smoked Mature Cheddar Cheese.

Glasson Dock: Something out of an American's worst nightmare/dream of a provincial English fishing port.

Grandma Singleton's Mature Cheddar smoked for 7 days in a little smelly smokehouse: a cheese lover's dream.

I'm still hallucinating, as you may infer from this post........

http://www.polsco.co.uk/acatalog/Smoked_Cheese.html

[manishfusion]

Felicity Loudon, great granddaughter of George Cadbury, said: “For us to sell out to a company that doesn't bear any resemblance to us at all is a horror story. Kraft won't understand the history and quality of the company.

“Kraft will have to asset strip to afford this. They will cut corners, they will sell out. To me they are a plastic cheese company and this is the jewel in the crown.”

The fate of one of Britain's few remaining world class manufacturers was sealed in the City this morning when the Cadbury board confirmed it had accepted an improved 840p a share offer.

[davec]

Anyone who considers Kraft as anything other than a 'plastic cheese company' wouldn't know pate de foie gras from used floor sweeping compound. I'm pretty sure most of what goes into that bright yellow rubbery gunk comes from deep in the bowels of the Earth, and the quantities of it I was fed as a hapless youth will doubtless come to haunt me in my old age. Ms. Loudon is bang on there.

But, as this thread confirms, many people do not consider her dear Cadbury's any sort of 'crown jewel'. Well, except maybe by Kraft standards. Hmmm...my...didn't she finesse that one a treat??

No, not really, I guess. Now I wonder why I'm posting this. The residue of all those Kraft Singles is addling my poor Septic brain.

Screw it. I'll just get my hoodie...