This is all getting rather - well if not extactly false, then certainly surreal, at least as far as WAV's very singular take on England's Dreamtime is concerned.

Even if such places do still exist, one is increasingly reminded of Vivian Stanshall's Rawlinson End, or ye merrye musinges of the Amazing Blondel: thoughts of church and priory inspire me and fire me dwell on times gone by.... On Sunday we attended the scarecrow festival in the village of Wray, a good old traditional English event which records show dates as far back to 1992; along the way we basked by rivers with licking willows and fed the gliding swans with chunks of stotty cake* and there was a Lancastrian clog dancer...

Otherwise - chips and red-sauce I can accept; Mead however (and I'm with Ruth on this one) is perhaps taking things too far, though I'm sure the Amazing Blondel sang of mead, though maybe not as an ideal accompaniment to chips and red-sauce, for which the traditional tipple would be a bottle of Dog (aka Newcastle Brown Ale).

Sedayne

*Interesting to note that the Stotty is unique to the North East, and even then, as far as quality is concerned, unique to Greggs, who only do their stotties in their North East shops. Our monthly visits to Tyneside are therefore three-folk: 1) to visit my family; 2) to attend Joe's come-all-ye at The Cumberland Arms in Byker, and 3) to buy a bag load of stotties from Greggs for the freezer.