Someone I know is headed to London at the end of the month and I'm just a wee bit jealous.
But that's okay. I'll be back one day.
She asked me about places to eat and one of my favourite places was Fortnum and Mason. My grandpa took me to lunch there. I'm positive it was leagues out my price range at the time (probably a little more within reach but still out there now), but it was so good. That got me to wandering around their website.
And discovering that there wasn't a General Post Office until 1839! Can you believe it? Royal Mail, one of the most talked about mail services in the world, is older - it was founded in the 1500s, but anyone who wanted to could deliver the mail and you paid for the mail when you received it...I had no idea.
The other thing I had no idea about was baked beans. They're such a big part of pub fare and English breakfast and lots of meals with chips that I thought they had been around forever. I have no idea when baked beans were introduced, but Heinz baked beans were first introduced to the UK by Fortnum and Mason in 1886...
Of course I recommended the Hampstead Creperie...so now, here I am, on a rainy Vancouver afternoon wishing for baked beans and a crepe on Hampstead Heath. Now that's a strange combination!
Apparently one of the issues that prompted a change to the sender paying for the mail was that senders would put a mark (like a small 'x' in the corner or write the name with/without a middle initial) on the envelopes to notify the receiver "everything's fine, no need to read this letter" so then the receiver would refuse to accept it and then wouldn't have to pay.
ReplyDeleteThat's very interesting...people are so sneaky...it's like calling collect when they got rid of the operator and used a computer system and instead of saying your name you'd quickly say some message and then hang up after they heard the message but before they accepted the charges!
ReplyDeleteNot that I ever did that...I just heard about it....