Have you been to the General Store in Hackberry?

@GuyKeith No, but if I ever go to the States again, I'll look it up. Being a Kenyan I love arid, remote countryside, and the type of people who live in it

Same in East Africa, except that if you're the passenger, why stop?

@Petter It's an awful lot of skin graft needed if you let go.

I'll bet my lady friend would have enjoyed that show. I was on a travel date. What misery.

@GuyKeith I once had an 8 hour bus ride having eaten double portion of an over zealously chillied curry whose intensity was hidden by coconut. Very painful.

You gotta come to Australia, man. We put beetroot on our burgers.

@Palindromeman And an active yeast infection on your toast.

@GuyKeith Prefer Marmite, personally. Do you know how to make your own?

@Petter Be gone with you - it's got to be Vegemite!

@Palindromeman Maybe there's room on this site for a Marmite v Vegemite group.

@CeliaVL I have my sleeves rolled up - it's gotta be Vegemite! But I will listen to The Misguided about Marmite.

@Palindromeman The main difference is thst Marmite uses the sludge from European beer (I preferred it when it used the sludge from English beer) whilst Vegemite uses Aussie sludge. Both are merely cleaned up, and then mixed with salt. You can make it at home.

To even think about making it at home you would have to have beer sludge at home, and i don't drink beer. I have never visited Australia so have never tasted Vegemite, but I doubt that it is as nice as Marmite. I could just fancy a cheese and Marmite sandwich now.

@CeliaVL There are so many historical rivalries. Protestant vs Catholic. Sunni vs Shia. Arsenal Hotspurs vs Hull. Queensland vs New South Wales.

And then there's Marmite vs Vegemite

@Petter And toothpaste and town drinking water is frequently poisoned with aluminium smelting sludge aka fluoride, a poison so deadly that the American EPA will not allow it to be buried there.

@Petter & I'm sure that @palindromeman will remember the hullabaloo made over proposals to install expensive water recycling plants in the country. Nearly Everyone was up in arms at the thought of drinking recycled effluent.
What a load of ninnies. Every drop of water drunk on this planet will have at some time in the last 300 million or so years have passed through at least one kidney be it belonging to dinosaur , tiger, ape or man.

@CeliaVL A cheese and Marmite sarnie. It's breakfast time here right now. I'm preparing toast and Marmite. The cheese can wait 'til later.

@CeliaVL, @FrayedBear Yet thousands of Aussies head for London and happily drink the water there, which is "multi-recycled", in that the recycled water is recycled.

@Petter I will stick to marmalade - figuratively and literally...unless one of those round rubbery things with one side full of holes from the gas of the raising agent bursting through during cooking - then I love them smothered in honey followed by thick slices of butter - a little squeeze of lemon or lime adds as does a dusting of cinnamon, ginger or nutmeg.

@FrayedBear Sounds good. I love grapefruit marmalade, on well darkened fried bread, and topped with some fried bacon.
It's really good for cholesterol levels, too!

@FrayedBear That's right. In Madrid (Spain) they are so short of water that they say every drop that comes out of the tap has been through at least six people.

@FrayedBear, @Petter Just finished making some grapefruit marmalade - see the photo. I like it quite chunky so it's a bit like eating preserved goldfish.

@CeliaVL Oooh! Wow!! Where did you say you lived? Can you deliver to Mojacar, Spain?

@FrayedBear Those desalination plants have become whipping boys for the Right.

@FrayedBear, @Petter I just love grapefruit, straight up.

@FrayedBear, @Petter London water tasted fine to me when I was there last year.

@FrayedBear And you used the word "hullabaloo" - I love that!

@Petter A long way from you, I'm afraid, or you could have a jar. I am an hour north-west of Madrid on the edge of the Sierra de Gredos. I don't know your part of Spain at all.

@Palindromeman I slice them in half, sprinkle the cut surfaces with brown sugar, add a hint of vodka and then put them in the fridge overnight.

@Palindromeman Precisely. Recycling can be very effective.

@CeliaVL Actually you've probably seen it if you watched any Spaghetti Westerns. Most of them were filmed in the area. Famous movies are The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Nicholas and Alexander and Lawrence of Arabia. Plus The Three Musketeers. We're at the very bottom, right hand edge of Spain, on the fringe of the only officially designated desert in all of Europe.

@Petter Yes, indeed. I worked on waste management issues for over a decade, so I copy that.

@Petter You failed to mention Once Upon A Time In The West. Brilliant film, brilliant opening:

@Petter Last time, 2 weekd ago, I had fried bread, even though with olive oil, my gall bladder didn't take kindly to it. Perhaps time for that 1 week soften the stones and scare the daylights into them with a huge dose of oil ... Either that or persuade the ultrasound doctor to blast them again - todays preference seems to be removal which I do not like the idea of.

@Palindromeman I haven't tasted it for 30+ years. Back then it was full of chlorine. Fluoride does not leave a taste...

@Palindromeman yellow or the pink stuff lacking in taste. I like best as fresh squeezed juice mixed with tonic water.

@Petter There is one scene in one of them, I think 'A Fisful of Dollars' which was filmed near here on the Rio Alberche. When you know the area it is unmistakable. I love those films.

@Palindromeman ? Do not know the story.

@Palindromeman, @CeliaVL Beautiful. Yellow grapefruit or pink?
Have you got pomelo there? Makes fantastic marmalade and cordial.
[r.search.yahoo.com]

My ultimate favourite however is cumquat but what a pain getting the seeds out!

@CeliaVL With tripe?

@CeliaVL, @Palindromeman And lying female red heads into parliament.

@FrayedBear Oh, just that desalination plants are allegedly a green manufacture of the Left (if we can even use that terminology these days - oh, wait, Rupert Murdoch's goons still do); despite the fact that Australia is a continent which experiences droughts, so infrastructure that is an insurance policy is not a bad thing in my book.

@CeliaVL But is it potable?

@Palindromeman Was the best option chosen?

@FrayedBear Pomelo is Spanish for grapefruit.

@FrayedBear Chew 'em!

@FrayedBear, @Palindromeman Sergio Leone was a superb director.

@FrayedBear @palindromeman We've sure strayed a long way off the plot of this post. it's supposed to be about "dire rears"!

Yes, potable.

@FrayedBear, @Petter Back to the post!!!

@FrayedBea Yes. A bit like London tap water which is purer than some bottled stuff.

@FrayedBear I like red heads...

@Palindromeman Never had head from a red.

@Palindromeman I once drove through semi-arid bush country for some 30 miles, slowly, with the pasenger door open, and my mate's bare arse hanging out. We had stopped at a small "duka" (trading store, outpost, general store, whatever - it's called a duka in Kenya) where he had bought a small bar of chocolate and eaten half before offering me a chunk.
I looked at the packaging, read what it was and said "no thanks"!! I bought a roll of precautionary paper from the duka and we set off. After a while we stopped while my mate could nip into the bushes. Then again, and again, and again .....
Eventually, it was getting late and we had hardly progressed, whilst there was nothing worth speaking about emanating from my friends "dire rear" predicament, so we came up with the solution of hanging his arse out the door whilst I slowed down but didn't stop. 30 miles of dirt track later we eventually reached a small hotel where we stayed. Only I ate supper!

@Palindromeman I'm a film critic and I put Once Upon A Time In The West as my top film of all time.

@Palindromeman Yes, thank you

@Petter There you go - learning by doing (pun intended)!

@Palindromeman It was a shitty experience - especially for my mate.
Do you know the difference between Epsom salts and chocolate laxatives?
....
.....
.....
... about 10 seconds!

@Petter LOL!

@Petter, @GuyKeith And I find that Once Upon a Time in the West is either unknown or under rated. Say "spaghetti Western" and all you get is "A Fistful of Dollars". I'm not a movie critic, but I am a movie watcher and these people have missed so much.

@Palindromeman One of the problems with the original release of OUATITW in 'Merica was that the studio cut out 45 minutes of the film. The resultant butchery was unwatchable. Even Ebert originally only gave it 2 Stars. No respect.

@Palindromeman I know. I like that movie too.

@Petter Which means it was good that I watched on DVD. The full version. Love that movie.