@Ticomaya,
Quote:What other kind of ketchup do you have, McT?
Where shall I start, the ketchup or the shovel?
For years the brand leaders here, and for all I know maybe they still are, were H& J Heinz and they marketed a product (they had 56 others, I believe) called Heinz's Tomato Ketchup. We on these blessed isles call the stuff tomato ketchup I believe chiefly for that historically- based reason. It doesn't look particularly like any real tomatoes were used in its manufacture but I suppose they are and they have a picture on the label.
Other products are available. Some may be called ketchup. But we, and I believe I may speak for most Britons if not all, call the stuff tomato ketchup. Sometimes red sauce, but only the very lowest classes do that I believe.
Now pipe down about that seeming tautological or redundant but historically and etymologically correct nomenclature while I tell you about the shovel.
The girl selling Christmas trees in the car park of a pub (more a paved frontage, really) up the Marple road promised me her brother would bring some snow shovels this afternoon and she would be sure to save one for me. Now I always believe what I am told, especially by the fairer sex, so during break time at the college this afternoon I buzzed up there. Further, I had told the teacher who comes from Punjab, India that I had this in prospect, and so she gave me some money to get one for her too. One for her too is a phrase that would give our pupils some difficulty, so we did not use it as part of the lesson. Upon my arrival at the pub however, and it took all of ten minutes to drive there, no snow shovels were in evidence and upon alighting from the vehicle, the young woman, who remembered me well from the previous visit, informed me that her brother had sold the last one and had none to bring her.
She apologised and commiserated with me, and I consoled her in her distress for my plight. Returning for that reason devoid of shovels, I had to relate most of the foregoing to my asian colleague and return the money with apologies, making no deduction for time, trouble and fuel expended because that's the kind of guy I am.
Later, in a hardware shop near here, I found to my considerable surprise some reasonable snow shovels for sale and got one of the last two, selling as they were like hot cakes. As luck would have it, I had no mobile phone with me to discuss the matter with my colleague, who had in any case located a possible supplier of a plywood-based model in Sale, nearer to where she lives and in fact was already presumably on her way to God knows where because she had to pick her husband up at a garage which was undertaking a warranty repair on his car which had become faulty although under guarantee, and would therefore presumably be in no position to make a U-turn back to my bailliwick to get the last shovel. Excellent price too btw, £9.99.
So I hope it bloody snows.
