Cry God for Harry, England and St George!

Oh yes … the famous battle cry made famous by William Shakespeare!

But do we really know much about the history of St George’s Day?

 Probably not … especially when you consider these facts!

• Despite the fact that St. George has been the patron saint of England since the 14th century, only one in five people know that St. George’s Day falls on 23 April.
• More than a quarter of people living in England do not even know who their patron saint is!

So, who was the real St George and what did he do to become England's patron saint? St George was a brave Roman soldier who protested against the Romans' torture of Christians and died for his beliefs. The popularity of St George in England stems from the time of the early Crusades when it is said that the Normans saw him in a vision and were victorious.

 St. George is the patron saint of England.

His emblem, a red cross on a white background, is the flag of England, and part of the British flag. St George's emblem was adopted by Richard The Lion Heart and brought to England in the 12th century. The king's soldiers wore it on their tunics to avoid confusion in battle.

Dragon-Slaying Patron Saint of England

One of the best known stories about Saint George is his fight with a dragon. But it is highly unlikely that he ever fought a dragon .... and even more unlikely that he ever actually visited England. Despite this, St George is known throughout the world as the dragon-slaying patron of England.     

The History of St George’s Day

• In 1222 the Council of Oxford declared April 23rd to be St George’s Day
• It was not until 1348 that St George became the Patron Saint of England
• In 1415, St George’s Day was declared a national feast day and holiday in England
• However, after the union with Scotland at the end of the 18th Century, the tradition diminished and since has not been widely acknowledged and is no longer a national holiday
• Traditional customs were to fly the St George’s flag and wear a red rose in one’s lapel
• The hymn ‘Jerusalem’ was also sung on the 23rd April, or the nearest Sunday to that date, in churches across the nation

So, let’s raise a glass to St George’s Day! Cheers!

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer …. Agreed?!

Well, that is only part of the quotation... In full it reads:

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.” -Dave Barry

There was also wise words from Plato : "He was a wise man who invented beer"

And Benjamin Franklin expressed his view thus:

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”

So, yes beer is pretty great … but it also has a weird history such as: 

The Earliest Beer Recipe

Beer brewing dates to almost 6000 BC.

However, it was the Sumerians around 2000 BC who really loved the stuff. Their plaques and carvings often center on people or gods drinking from large jars of beer.

A hymn to one of their most important goddesses, Ninkasi, is actually a very detailed explanation of how to make beer; this was helpful in a society that was almost entirely illiterate. 

Want to make some beer but can’t read the recipe? Just start reciting the hymn and you’re set.

Beer was so important that the average Sumerian couldn’t be bothered to stop drinking it for anything apparently, as there is a carving of a woman drinking out of a beer jug in the middle of sexual intercourse. That’s some dedication to your booze.

People will do anything for Beer

Seriously, they will.

During Prohibition in America people took to drinking hair tonic and posing as members of the clergy to get alcohol. Sometimes people come together on a large scale in the never ending quest for free beer.

In Australia on Easter weekend in 2001, a beer truck blew a tyre and overturned into a river. The driver was able to escape but his cargo sank to the bottom of the river. Hearing about the accident, people gathered at the scene, some in full scuba gear, and spent the entire weekend recovering the beer. One man managed to get 400 bottles.

Did they return it to the company?

Of course not. Despite a warning from police that what they were doing was theft, the divers took off with the whole lot.

Brewing is Woman’s Work

In ancient and medieval times the job of making beer fell to women.

In some cultures it was considered such an honor that only beautiful or noble women could do it.

In medieval Europe brewing was one of a housewife’s regular tasks, just like cooking and cleaning and baby making. Some of these women became famous for being exceptional brewers and started supplying people other than their own families.

You never knew what you were getting though. One brewer let her chickens roost over her beer vats and when they defecated would simply stir the refuse into the beer. Yummy.

 

Why do people say ‘Cheers!’ before drinking?

Have you ever thought: Why do we say "cheers" when we clink glasses?

As a toast, "cheers" is an early 20th-century newcomer.

And as to why we tap glasses together, a few compelling theories have made the rounds…

In one, early Europeans believed that the sound of clashing tankards would scare away evil spirits.

A more recent notion suggests an appreciation among revelers for all five senses: sight, taste, smell, and, with the clinking, sound and touch. When enjoying a drink or two one can see it, feel it, taste it and smell it but can’t hear it. By clinking the glasses and saying cheers, we complete …the experience. Or so the legend goes!

But the most provocative theory of all -- and one that's much-debated -- is attached to an ancient fear that an enemy might try to poison a drink.

To prove that a drink was safe, a host would pour some of his guest's wine into his own drinking vessel and drink it first. This evolved into crashing tankards together so that a little of each drink spilled into the other. Eventually, guests and hosts demonstrated their friendship (and their trust) by touching glasses.

And one last one: When ‘cheers’ is said, glasses are raised upwards (heavenward?), and a ‘good wish’ is traditionally said. So these customs appear to have originated with offerings of alcoholic libations to the gods, and to the requests to the gods, or to fate or fortune, for good health and blessings.

I guess it’s all down to your personal preference …. In the meantime, Cheers!

Here’s some amazing Facts about Wine

While people have been enjoying drinking wine since ancient times, this practice became more popular in the fourteenth century.

Wine, an alcoholic beverage is made from fermented grape juice.

Those who drink it appreciate the pleasure and joy associated with it.

Enjoying happy moments with a glass of wine and snacks is something you would remember for all your life. 

Here are a few interesting facts about wine, some of which will surely take you by surprise…!

  

• The flavour of young wine is known as “aroma” while a mature wine’s flavour is like a “bouquet”.
• In ancient Greece, a person hosting the party would drink the wine first just to make sure it was healthy to drink and not poisoned. It was here that the popular phrase “drinking to one’s health” arose. It was in ancient Rome that Toasting started when the Romans continue to follow the Greek tradition.However, they were the people to drop a toasted bread in their wine glasses to moderate excessive acidity and undesirable tastes.
• Except for the Book of Jonah, rest of the entire Biblical Old Testament talks about the wine.
• You will be astonished to know that early Roman women were not allowed to drink wine. If their husbands found about their wine drinking, they had the liberty to kill them. In 194 B.C.,a divorce also happened due the same reason.
• Since wine tasting is all about wine smelling, women of reproductive ages are better wine testers because they have better smell sense than men.
• Highest wine consumption was recorded in the cities of California, Florida and New York of United States of America. France, Italy and Spain are three largest wine producers in the world followed by California.
• Drinking wine regularly helps you stay fit and healthy. It has also been found that drinking wine reduces the risk of gum diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and heart diseases. So, the next time you drink wine, remember it’s health benefits as well.
• While tasting wine, leave the wine in your mouth for a second or two. Then, you can either spit it out in a spittoon or swallow it. A high quality wine not only tastes good but also has a long after-taste. On the other hand, a low quality wine would have a short after-taste.
• Ripe and rich dark shades of wine such as the most golden whites, deepest & blackest reds are produced at places that have warmer climate, whereas less lush and lighter shades of wine like white wines are produced at cooler climates. Not many people know that with time white wine becomes golden and brown yellow while red wines lose their colour and turns into a brick red colour.
• The European Union has decided that any sparkling wine produced outside France cannot be labelled as “champagne”.

Moderate beer drinking could have the same health benefits as wine

We've known for a while now that moderate wine-drinking can confer some health benefits.

Now a recent study reveals moderate beer consumption can also reduce the risk of heart disease by 31%. So what's behind this unexpected health benefit? 

Researchers at Italy's Fondazione di Ricerca e Cura combined several different studies conducted in the last few years that allowed them to explore the possible link between beer drinking and cardiovascular disease, with a data set of over 200,000 people. They found that regular, moderate beer drinking carries almost exactly the same health benefit that has previously been demonstrated for wine consumption, as moderate beer drinkers enjoy a 31% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease compared to non-drinkers. The best combination, they discovered, was drinking slightly more than an English pint's worth of beer containing 5% alcohol each day.

As lead author Simona Costanzo explains, the reduction in cardiovascular risk is nearly identical for beer and wine, despite earlier assumptions that only wine could carry such benefits:

"In our research, we considered wine and beer separately: you first observe a reduction in cardiovascular risk with low to moderate drinking. Then, with an increasing consumption, you can see that the advantage disappears, until the risk gets higher. The interesting part of our research is that, among the studies selected for this meta-analysis, there were 12 in which wine and beer consumption could be compared directly. Using these data we were able to observe that the risk curves for the two beverages are closely overlapping."

These results raise a tricky question - where exactly is this health benefit coming from? Wine and beer have largely different chemical compositions, with the rather obvious exception of alcohol itself. These results might well indicate that alcohol itself actually plays a part in reducing the risk of heart disease. That would be a departure from previous studies, which had assumed the benefits of wine were purely in spite of alcohol, never because of it. This may mean the pros and cons of alcohol and alcoholic beverages are more complicated than previously assumed.

Of course, there is another possibility, namely that the health benefits of wine and beer have little to do with the beverages themselves. Instead, the benefits mostly come from the healthier lifestyles that are associated with regular, moderate drinking, and compare favorably to heavy drinkers and non-drinkers alike. All available evidence does indeed indicate that this lifestyle difference is a huge factor in why wine and now beer provide this health benefit. What's currently unclear is whether the content of the drinks adds to or detracts from the lifestyle component.

62% of Brits consider the Pub as the Best Place for a first date in Spring!

The majority of people will be going down to their local pub to sit in the beer garden and enjoy the glorious weather for a date this springtime, according to a recent survey.

Findings by Real Time Market Research Company Usurv reveal that the traditional cosy pub is the best place to go for a first date during spring as a massive 62% of Brits confessed that this is their ideal date location.
The study found that most males and females opt to sit in their local watering hole when dating and that only 14% of singletons surveyed said they would like to go on a date to the zoo or the park. 

The pub is a great place to go if you want to get to know someone in a casual environment but the park and zoo are can be more adventurous.

Interestingly, more males admitted that they favoured the zoo as opposed to females as 15% said they considered it as a brilliant date location in comparison to 13% of women.

Furthermore, 6% of Brits chose the theme park as a great place to go on a date in spring and this was more popular with males than women. The theme park is perfect for an action-packed fun date but it isn’t ideal for non-thrill seekers.
The majority of people in high school and in college said the pub and a whopping 80% studying a Bachelor’s Degree said the public house too.  

• The majority of people in high school and in college said the pub and a whopping 80% studying a Bachelor’s Degree said the public house too.
• In terms of income, nothing really differed however 100% of those surveyed who were unemployed said the pub.
• And it seems that age is just a number because 100% of daters over the age of 60 said the pub as a great date location in contrast to only 57% of 18-29 year olds. 

Whatever setting you like to visit on a date this Spring, make sure you visit us here at the Shepherd & Flock … you will be most welcome!!

Mothering Sunday Vs. Mother's Day - What's in a Name?

The tradition of a special day to honour your mother could go back to when the Romans honoured their goddess of motherhood in the Spring with the feast of Matronalia. Or, it could have emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor. 

However, Mothering Sunday, otherwise known as Mother's Day, has been celebrated in Britain on the fourth Sunday in Lent since at least the 16th century. 

The custom possibly originated in the church festival of "Refreshment Sunday" when everyone was expected to revisit the church in which they were baptised, their "mother church", which of course meant they usually got to see there mums again!

It is a small step from honouring Mother Church to honouring our natural mothers and so in the mid-17th Century the custom grew of children paying special tribute to their mothers on this day.

Mothering Sunday became more established by the 18^th and 19^th Centuries when many people worked away from home as servants to the rich and wealthy (especially girls in service such as cooks and maids), they would be allowed to go home for the day to visit their home church and so naturally they visited their families. 

By the 1920's and '30s, the centuries-old traditions of Mothering Sunday had started to fade in the UK. Then along came World War II. During those dark and trying days, North American soldiers - lonely and missing their girlfriends, wives and mums - revived interest in Mothering Sunday by celebrating their own version of this day: "Mother's Day." 

Reminded by visiting soldiers of just how special this day still was, UK families once again began celebrating Mothering Sunday with enthusiasm.

Nowadays the greeting card industry makes a fortune and it is more usual for families to get together and take their mother out for a meal in a restaurant - booking is advisable!  Or buy chocolates and flowers (the price of flowers goes through the roof).

 It is also common for the younger children to prepare their mother breakfast in bed, and the mother must eat it no matter how badly burnt the toast is, or how cold the tea is! 

Today, Mothering Sunday in the UK is often called "Mother's Day" and is regarded as more or less synonymous with "Mother's Day" as celebrated in other countries around the world, though many still prefer the more historically accurate "Mothering Sunday."

What do you think? Is it time to change the name of this day from "Mothering Sunday" to "Mother's Day"?