The Lemon Fool

AleisterCrowley wrote:How often do you need to wash a chicken? Does the chicken mind?

I think it's generally dead by the time it gets its chlorine bath. If it isn't, it damn well ought to be.

BJ

JMN2 wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:...

One thing I've never forgotten was the taste of bottled water in 1960s Germany, which was so heavily carbonated that it almost literally stung your tongue. Delivered to your home in beer crates, in those "patent cork" bottles with swivelling wire snap-shut tops. Probably too chalky for today's tastes, but on a hot afternoon I could cheerfully sit and swig that stuff instead of beer. Does anybody know of anything like that these days?

BJ

I wonder if you are talking about "vichy water" instead of mineral water, very popular on the continent in the olden days. Vichy water has a bit of salt in it which makes it different from mineral water.

I bought some Saskia sparkling water. Sodium (Na) content is 6mg/L. The vichy water that comes France (Vichy Celestins) has 1172mg/L so it looks like Saskia does not qualify as vichy water.

I'll stick to Northumbria Water's excellent soft tap water, it is as soft as the water I used to get from my own non-bore well.

bungeejumper wrote:Yeah, but why does it have to glow in the dark?

That'll be the outfall from Aldermaston into the Thames (yes, there really is one). To be fair, they've cleaned up their act at the factory but there's so much radioactivity locked into the limescale in the pipeline that it comes out more radioactive than when it goes in.

bungeejumper wrote:ISTR that Coca Cola once got themselves into a scrape by marketing a mineral water that was essentially tap water.

To be fair to Coke, they never said Dasani was mineral water, merely "pure" water. But it was rather tainted by association with Only Fools & Horses, in a media storm whipped up in part by the companies that truck bottled water from the Alps. Then a very minor carcinogen was found when their process was used in Sidcup but not elsewhere (they sell Dasani all around the world, but not in Europe) and that was the end. Mind you, their advertising suggested that the launch was controlled from Atlanta without much heed for British sensibilities...

stewamax wrote:I have been a long-term (and quantity) buyer of Lidl's excellent and very good value Saskia fizzy water sourced from the Loningen spring in Germany.
No longer.
It recently switched from 1.5L to 2L bottles. No problem with that.
And then I tasted the water and found there wasn't any taste, and it went flat quickly. Odd I thought.
Then I looked at the small print and found that is is now sourced from the UK.
Caveat emptor (or should it be permalum bibit cave).

I find myself with a bottle of that, and it's worse even than you describe. No longer the relatively-acceptable Quelle Löningen, but gassiness at its worst.

On the other hand (and what misled me into picking it up), there's another Lidl fizzy water alongside it, and at half the price (19p/bottle). The cheaper one is also gassy, but much more acceptable! Not a gourmet experience, but jolly decent value for anything short of the positively nice (and Sainsburys seems to have stopped stocking Badoit).

UncleEbenezer wrote:(and Sainsburys seems to have stopped stocking Badoit).

My local branch has it, I bought a six pack the other week - and the town in question isn't a very sophisticated area. Mind you, perhaps that means that it's year-old stock that's now been discontinued, but the bloody wurzels still won't buy it?

Sainsburys do seem to be having some logistical problems at the moment, though. Fizzy drinks in particular seem to run into regular shortages. And they've altogether stopped selling alcohol free wines in my local Sainsburys branch, which is a bit of a p1sser.

You know the distribution chain's stuffed when they run out of potatoes, though. Happens every couple of months. Eighteen varieties of spuds, and none available on the shelves.

But back to water. Buxtons or nothing if it's plain water. Everything else is too soft or too hard.

BJ

I have now stopped buying Saskia, but Lidl's San Celestino water in smaller bottles at least has some taste.