So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread with
garlic Parmesan, rosemary herb, "everything" topping, and a couple
others. When my roommate or myself buys loaves of these bread we try
to inspect as much as possible to check for air bubbles. (Because I'm
not fond of gaping holes in my sandwich.) Sometimes we have to resort
to buying unsliced bread rather than sliced bread either because the
sliced all has air bubbles or there's just no sliced available.

So it's a little annoying to have to slice bread in the morning, but
it's not too bad. Plus it actually gives you more control over your
sandwich. It allows you to increase the ingredients to bread ratio
without absolutely piling on the what you want in the sandwich. So
while sliced bread is a nice convenience I don't quite see how it's
the "greatest thing since sliced bread."

Wayland
...what do you think?

In our last episode,
>,
the lovely and talented Wayland
broadcast on alt.usage.english:

> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread with
> garlic Parmesan, rosemary herb, "everything" topping, and a couple
> others. When my roommate or myself buys loaves of these bread we try
> to inspect as much as possible to check for air bubbles. (Because I'm
> not fond of gaping holes in my sandwich.) Sometimes we have to resort
> to buying unsliced bread rather than sliced bread either because the
> sliced all has air bubbles or there's just no sliced available.

You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner>
Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. --Tom Stoppard

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 15:50:59 -0500, Lars Eighner
> wrote:

>In our last episode,
>,
>the lovely and talented Wayland
>broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread with
>> garlic Parmesan, rosemary herb, "everything" topping, and a couple
>> others. When my roommate or myself buys loaves of these bread we try
>> to inspect as much as possible to check for air bubbles. (Because I'm
>> not fond of gaping holes in my sandwich.) Sometimes we have to resort
>> to buying unsliced bread rather than sliced bread either because the
>> sliced all has air bubbles or there's just no sliced available.
>
>You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!

It's OK as long as you slice them lengthwise.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Lars Eighner wrote:
> In our last episode,
> >,
> the lovely and talented Wayland
> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
(snip)
>
> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!

It's actually Italian bread, not French.

--
The Duct Tape Avenger

http://www.holyducttape.com

There are some things Man was not meant to know.
For everything else, there's Wikipedia.

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:03:14 GMT, The Duct Tape Avenger
> wrote:

>Lars Eighner wrote:
>> In our last episode,
>> >,
>> the lovely and talented Wayland
>> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>>
>>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
>(snip)
>>
>> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!
>
>It's actually Italian bread, not French.

Eh, I knew it was one of those European counties.


Wayland
...style in search of a subject.

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 14:11:55 GMT, Wayland >
wrote:

>On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:03:14 GMT, The Duct Tape Avenger
> wrote:
>
>>Lars Eighner wrote:
>>> In our last episode,
>>> >,
>>> the lovely and talented Wayland
>>> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>>>
>>>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
>>(snip)
>>>
>>> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!
>>
>>It's actually Italian bread, not French.
>
>Eh, I knew it was one of those European counties.

I just made a sandwich, it says French on the bag.


Wayland

Once Upon A Time The Duct Tape Avenger wrote:

>>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
>(snip)
>>
>> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!
>
>It's actually Italian bread, not French.

I knew that from his description. If it was French Bread, as soon as he
approached it with the knife it would surrender and slice itself.


**
Captain Infinity

Wayland wrote:
> On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 14:11:55 GMT, Wayland >
> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:03:14 GMT, The Duct Tape Avenger
> > wrote:
> >
> >>Lars Eighner wrote:
> >>> In our last episode,
> >>> >,
> >>> the lovely and talented Wayland
> >>> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> >>>
> >>>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
> >>(snip)
> >>>
> >>> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!
> >>
> >>It's actually Italian bread, not French.
> >
> >Eh, I knew it was one of those European counties.
>
> I just made a sandwich, it says French on the bag.


I just took a look at the entry "French bread" in several online
dictionaries. None of them appears to cover what is traditionally
called "French bread" in the US. In particular, the dictionary
definitions refer to a crisp crust, but as it is traditionally made in
the US, French bread has a crust which is hardly more crisp than that
of an ordinary American loaf of bread.

The definition at www.infoplease.com , from the _Random House
Unabridged Dictionary,_ comes closest to the US version of French
bread:

From
http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0449319.html


"a yeast-raised bread made of dough containing water and distinguished
by its thick, well-browned crust, usually made in long, slender,
tapered loaves."


Some of my French friends have indeed said that what is called "French
bread" in the US is closer to Italian bread than it is to the French
baguette. I once asked a native speaker of Swiss French what he thought
of the French bread sold in the US--this was several years ago and
there was no question that I was referring to the American-made
product. He said it was "infect"--French for "vile."


--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

On 5 Aug 2006 14:14:59 -0700, "Raymond S. Wise"
> wrote:

>
>Wayland wrote:
>> On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 14:11:55 GMT, Wayland >
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:03:14 GMT, The Duct Tape Avenger
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >>Lars Eighner wrote:
>> >>> In our last episode,
>> >>> >,
>> >>> the lovely and talented Wayland
>> >>> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>> >>>
>> >>>> So the Super Wal-Mart near me has "Value Added" French Bread
>> >>(snip)
>> >>>
>> >>> You make sandwiches from baguettes? The horror! The horror!
>> >>
>> >>It's actually Italian bread, not French.
>> >
>> >Eh, I knew it was one of those European counties.
>>
>> I just made a sandwich, it says French on the bag.
>
>
>I just took a look at the entry "French bread" in several online
>dictionaries. None of them appears to cover what is traditionally
>called "French bread" in the US. In particular, the dictionary
>definitions refer to a crisp crust, but as it is traditionally made in
>the US, French bread has a crust which is hardly more crisp than that
>of an ordinary American loaf of bread.

If you buy the prebaked and packaged bread on teh shelves that's
what you'll get. But fresh-baked bread at the bakery is pretty
good.

Not always that easy to find, of course, except in certain areas
of the US. Now that we're here in Tucson one of the things we
really miss about our years in and around San Francisco is the
bread, especially the sourdough, which isn't teh same here at
all.


************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:23:11 GMT, Wayland >
wrote:

>So
>while sliced bread is a nice convenience I don't quite see how it's
>the "greatest thing since sliced bread."
>
>Wayland
> ...what do you think?

I think "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is actually meant as a
bit of sarcasm. In other words, not so great at that.

In the 1950's and 60's we said "the greatest thing since canned beer."

Brian Wickham

Raymond S. Wise wrote:

> I just took a look at the entry "French bread" in several online
> dictionaries. None of them appears to cover what is traditionally
> called "French bread" in the US. In particular, the dictionary
> definitions refer to a crisp crust, but as it is traditionally made
> in the US, French bread has a crust which is hardly more crisp than
> that of an ordinary American loaf of bread.

That seems to be a good description of what is called "French bread" in
Australian supermarkets. It has absolutely no crunchiness, and its only
similarity to a baguette is the shape. It's made in only small
quantities, presumably because nobody who has ever tasted it would ever
bother to buy it again.

On the other hand, we have a few (not many) "French bread shops",
usually run by Vietnamese, and many of these make genuine baguettes. The
trick to it, I'm told, is to have the sort of oven that can get hot
enough. The air inlet has to be placed properly with respect to the
prevailing wind, and you get the best bread on windy days.

One disadvantage of a baguette, and indeed of French bread in general,
is that it goes stale very quickly. It's therefore essential to buy the
bread just before the meal, and to throw away what's left; there's no
question of saving half a baguette for tomorrow. (This also is why
French bread is unsuitable for sandwiches that you can take to work. By
lunchtime, your sandwich is stale.) This means, of course, that a
baguette is unsuitable for a person living alone, unless you have a
prodigious appetite. When I lived briefly in France, my solution was to
buy a "ficelle" on the way home from work and use it for the evening
meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette but is very much thinner, so
it's just the right size for one person's worth of sandwich.
Unfortunately, I've never been able to buy une ficelle anywhere in
Australia.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer
reliably receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses.
The optusnet address still has about 2 months of life left.

Father Ignatius wrote:
> "Peter Moylan" >,
> in > , a écrit:
[...]
> > and use it for the evening meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette
> > but is very much thinner, so it's just the right size for one
>
> In fact, it's a bread-stick, yes?

Aha! A linguistic discrepancy! In BrE, a "breadstick" is one of those
crunchy Italian jobs called "grissini". As at:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl...GB&sa=N&tab=wi
or:
http://tinyurl.com/evw3d

I have had the honour of offering one to Mr Kirshenbaum fils. He liked
it, as children always do. (That isn't him top right on the image
page.)

--
Mike.

On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 21:48:44 +1000, Peter Moylan
> wrote:

>On the other hand, we have a few (not many) "French bread shops",
>usually run by Vietnamese, and many of these make genuine baguettes. The
>trick to it, I'm told, is to have the sort of oven that can get hot
>enough. The air inlet has to be placed properly with respect to the
>prevailing wind, and you get the best bread on windy days.
>

There is a Vietnamese restaurant and bakery here in Orlando that makes
small (about 6" long) loaves of French bread with a crust that is
sharp enough to shave with. They must be eaten either on premises or
at least within a few hours of leaving the premises because they go
stale so fast.

It's an unpretentious place with a few tables, food served from behind
the counter, and the only decor touch a bad copy of a French horse
racing print that is hung crookedly. So unpretentious that they call
the mini-baguettes "rolls" and sell them for 50 cents or three for a
dollar.


--


Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

Brian Wickham > had it:

> On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:23:11 GMT, Wayland >
> wrote:
>
> >So
> >while sliced bread is a nice convenience I don't quite see how it's
> >the "greatest thing since sliced bread."
> >
> >Wayland
> > ...what do you think?
>
> I think "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is actually meant as a
> bit of sarcasm. In other words, not so great at that.

Not in the UK it isn't. It carries no sarcasm here.

--
David
=====

Mike Lyle > had it:

>
> the Omrud wrote:
> > Brian Wickham > had it:
> [...]
> > > I think "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is actually meant as a
> > > bit of sarcasm. In other words, not so great at that.
> >
> > Not in the UK it isn't. It carries no sarcasm here.
>
> I don't think I can agree with that. Even people who buy the typical
> stodgy wrapped sliced loaf know it's inferior -- and I'm sure that's
> what "sliced bread" usually conjures up, not good bread put through the
> baker's machine as you buy it.

I agree, but I don't believe that has any bearing on the saying.

> And in any case, for the expression to
> be meant literally, a significant number of people would have to
> believe that there really had been no better recent invention: that
> seems highly unlikely, no?

It's an idiom - I doubt that anybody takes it literally, but I do
believe they mean it sincerely.

--
David
=====

The Peter Moylan entity posted thusly:

>One disadvantage of a baguette, and indeed of French bread in general,
>is that it goes stale very quickly. It's therefore essential to buy the
>bread just before the meal, and to throw away what's left; there's no
>question of saving half a baguette for tomorrow. (This also is why
>French bread is unsuitable for sandwiches that you can take to work. By
>lunchtime, your sandwich is stale.) This means, of course, that a
>baguette is unsuitable for a person living alone, unless you have a
>prodigious appetite. When I lived briefly in France, my solution was to
>buy a "ficelle" on the way home from work and use it for the evening
>meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette but is very much thinner, so
>it's just the right size for one person's worth of sandwich.
>Unfortunately, I've never been able to buy une ficelle anywhere in
>Australia.

When I lived in northern France, my apartment was directly above a
bakery. Aside from the incredible smell of baking bread, the other
advantage to the place was that I could get bread (yes, fresh-baked)
on Sunday. They used to put in a dozen or so loaves on Sunday morning,
to be given to close friends. Other folks had to make do with day-old
stuff.

wrote:
> >
> >
> >I just took a look at the entry "French bread" in several online
> >dictionaries. None of them appears to cover what is traditionally
> >called "French bread" in the US. In particular, the dictionary
> >definitions refer to a crisp crust, but as it is traditionally made in
> >the US, French bread has a crust which is hardly more crisp than that
> >of an ordinary American loaf of bread.
> >
> Huh.... I've never bought "french" bread in the USA which didn't have
> a typically French crisp crust and soft interior.
>
> Wonder where/what brands you've been buying???
>
>
> In fact, the french "style" is such a cliche in the US that the bread
> can be TERRIBLE as long as the crust is crisp 'n crusty . . .

Wonder if there is a disconnect he All shops around me sell (also)
all shapes of plastic-bagged, hence obligatorily mushy stuff with a
1-inch capital-letter "French" on the plastic bag.

On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:21:55 +0000, the Omrud wrote:

> Not in the UK it isn't. It carries no sarcasm here.

Well, given the mind-boggling domination of the sliced white, and
sometimes brown, but always factory-prepared and soft, variety on which UK
(well, London; can't speak for the rest) bread market, I understand why
there's no sarcasm here. It took me *months* to find viable alternatives
to living on crumpets. (Yeah, factory-made, too, but at least tasty, and
they had novelty-value for me.)

Chris Waigl
who has now found TWO places that make normal bread
not, like, four or six within 100 yards of her place like in Paris, but
it's a beginning

--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/

Peter Moylan wrote:


> meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette but is very much thinner, so
> it's just the right size for one person's worth of sandwich.
> Unfortunately, I've never been able to buy une ficelle anywhere in
> Australia.
>

Living on a shoe-string, eh?
--
Rob Bannister

On 6 Aug 2006 08:29:15 -0700, "Mike Lyle"
> wrote:

>
>the Omrud wrote:
>> Brian Wickham > had it:
>[...]
>> > I think "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is actually meant as a
>> > bit of sarcasm. In other words, not so great at that.
>>
>> Not in the UK it isn't. It carries no sarcasm here.
>
>I don't think I can agree with that. Even people who buy the typical
>stodgy wrapped sliced loaf know it's inferior -- and I'm sure that's
>what "sliced bread" usually conjures up, not good bread put through the
>baker's machine as you buy it.

Having seen our local bakery install a slicing machine to slice
their own bread, I have never takn it to mean factory-wrapped
stuff like Wonder Bread (American national brand of substance
best dampened with wter and rolled into little balls for baiting
fish hooks)

>And in any case, for the expression to
>be meant literally, a significant number of people would have to
>believe that there really had been no better recent invention: that
>seems highly unlikely, no?

In America sliced bread became common not long before I was a
tad.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Hatunen wrote:

> Having seen our local bakery install a slicing machine to slice
> their own bread, I have never takn it to mean factory-wrapped
> stuff like Wonder Bread (American national brand of substance
> best dampened with wter and rolled into little balls for baiting
> fish hooks)

I dunno - hasn't that practice been banned by PETA?

In our last episode, > , the
lovely and talented Peter Moylan broadcast on alt.usage.english:

> That seems to be a good description of what is called "French bread" in
> Australian supermarkets. It has absolutely no crunchiness, and its only
> similarity to a baguette is the shape. It's made in only small
> quantities, presumably because nobody who has ever tasted it would ever
> bother to buy it again.

> On the other hand, we have a few (not many) "French bread shops",
> usually run by Vietnamese, and many of these make genuine baguettes. The
> trick to it, I'm told, is to have the sort of oven that can get hot
> enough. The air inlet has to be placed properly with respect to the
> prevailing wind, and you get the best bread on windy days.

I made baguettes at Texas French Bread for about as long as I could stand it
-- about a year (and it is as well I gave it up because I developed, without
knowning it, an occupational disease from the constant contact with yeast
and dough). We had a gas-fired oven the size of a small apartment which
was Texas French Bread's jewel, as it had been imported at great price
and had to be refitted to work with locally available fuel and electricity
(the electricity was necessary to operate the Ferris-wheel-like device
which moved the bread in the oven to assure even baking. The result was
that no one person living knew exactly how it worked. A think that never
worked as it was supposed to was whatever provision had been made to keep
the humidity in the oven up. To get around this, the bread master used a
garden hose with a spray nozzle to add moisture to the oven.

There was a legend that the bakery had once thought of going
kosher-for-passover for one day to make passover specialties, but the Rabbi
took one look at that oven and threw up his hands. Oy! So although we
continued to make challah the rest of the year, there was no more talk of
kosher-for-passover.

One surprise I experienced when I served as bread master was the roar
of the bread as it stood in racks after it came out of the oven.
That was a good sign, I was told, because the best bread has a finely crazed
surface, and if the baguette does not crackle as it cools, it has not been
done properly.

> One disadvantage of a baguette, and indeed of French bread in general,
> is that it goes stale very quickly.

It is not so much that it is stale in the sense of old white bread. It is
very glutinous and tough when fresh and it continues to toughen, so when it
is a day old you cannot get your teeth into it, even if you have your own
teeth. A day old loaf, if uncut, will not be dry and brittle like stale
white bread, but will have the consistency and edibility of leather. It
still makes a good base for canapes if sliced very thin and toasted or makes
substantial bread crumbs, croutons, etc. That is too say, the stuff has not
become nasty and infested in so short a time as a day, its only that it is
useless as bread after more than a few hours.

> It's therefore essential to buy the
> bread just before the meal, and to throw away what's left; there's no
> question of saving half a baguette for tomorrow. (This also is why
> French bread is unsuitable for sandwiches that you can take to work. By
> lunchtime, your sandwich is stale.) This means, of course, that a
> baguette is unsuitable for a person living alone, unless you have a
> prodigious appetite.

A baguette, a little cheese, a bottle of wine, and making love
will fairly sustain two people for a day or one if there is no wine
nor cheese nor love.

> When I lived briefly in France, my solution was to
> buy a "ficelle" on the way home from work and use it for the evening
> meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette but is very much thinner, so
> it's just the right size for one person's worth of sandwich.
> Unfortunately, I've never been able to buy une ficelle anywhere in
> Australia.

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner>
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
--Blaise Pascal

Brian Wickham > writes:

> On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 11:23:11 GMT, Wayland >
> wrote:
>
>>So
>>while sliced bread is a nice convenience I don't quite see how it's
>>the "greatest thing since sliced bread."
>>
>>Wayland
>> ...what do you think?
>
> I think "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is actually meant as
> a bit of sarcasm. In other words, not so great at that.

Not at all. For making sandwiches (say for your kids' lunches),
sliced bread was an amazing time saver and also more economical (since
you couldn't consistently slice it that thin).

The phase first shows up in the _Los Angeles Times_ in 1955:

The question now resolves into one of trying to figure out whether
the Santa Anita Derby fits into Finnegan's plans. If it does,
Blue Ruler is the best thing since slice bread. [2/14/1955]

Three of the first four hits, in 1955 and 1956, are from the same
author, Ned Cronin. The fourth is describing Wash-'n-Dri towlettes:

Alan Chudacoff, the pharmaceutical phenom who operates the famous
Chudacoff Pharmacy in THE FARMERS MARKET at West Third and
Fairfax, has come into possession of another shipment of the
greatest thing since sliced bread. [7/18/1955]

There's a slightly earlier hit in the _New York Times_ that treats it
as an understatement, but with no hint that it's sarcastic:

And it took an American to put the latest form of air travel in
its place when he was asked, on arriveing in a Comet jet liner
from Rome, how he liked the new machine. "Why," he said, "it's
the greatest thing since sliced bread." [12/7/1952]

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |To find the end of Middle English,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you discover the exact date and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time the Great Vowel Shift took
|place (the morning of May 5, 1450,
|at some time between neenuh fiftehn
(650)857-7572 |and nahyn twenty-fahyv).
| Kevin Wald
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Peter Moylan wrote, in >
on Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:23:27 +1000:

> Robert Bannister wrote:
> > Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> >> meal. The ficelle is similar to a baguette but is very much
> >> thinner, so it's just the right size for one person's worth of
> >> sandwich. Unfortunately, I've never been able to buy une ficelle
> >> anywhere in Australia.
> >
> > Living on a shoe-string, eh?
>
> And that seems to tie up the thread nicely.
>
> Actually, one thing I liked about Paris was that I could eat so cheaply.
> It cost me a fortune in rent to live in Montmartre in what might as well
> have been a garret. (It was good enough for me, but would have been
> hopeless for anyone who liked swinging cats.) The food, however, was
> plentiful and cheap. I had my main meal of the day at my employer's
> cafeteria, which was heavily subsidised as appears to be common in
> France, so I could get a steak, salad, dessert, and a half-bottle of
> wine for something like 10 francs. Then I'd be OK with a simple sandwich
> in the evening. Now and then I'd go to a restaurant for a change, but
> even there good food was cheap when compared with Australian restaurants.
>
> The wine gave me problems, though. A good thing about Australian wine is
> that even the cheap stuff is drinkable, provided that you avoid the real
> horse **** at the bottom of the scale. Good French wine is remarkably
> good, as we all know, but bad French wine is abominably bad, and you
> need some expertise or local knowledge to know what to avoid. I never
> had bad wine at a restaurant, but I had some bloody awful stuff from the
> supermarket. It cleaned out my drains good and proper.

On my recent trip to France we drove down to an area we were in three years
ago because the grandchildren wanted to revisit a particularly nice bathing
place. We had lunch at a small restaurant above the bar in the village of
Meyrals where we had eaten several times before. Lunch was still EUR 10 for
four courses the same as it was in 2003. Freshly made soup brought in a
tureen so you take as many helpings of it as you wanted, a sizeable piece of
rillette with a couple of cournichons, a chicken leg with frites and salad,
a choice of desserts and a bottle of anonymous but palatable wine among the
three adults. Coke for the two children and coffee for the adults came to
an extra EUR 7.50. Cheap indeed.
--
Nick Spalding

Peter Moylan wrote:
[...]
> The wine gave me problems, though. A good thing about Australian wine is
> that even the cheap stuff is drinkable, provided that you avoid the real
> horse **** at the bottom of the scale. Good French wine is remarkably
> good, as we all know, but bad French wine is abominably bad, and you
> need some expertise or local knowledge to know what to avoid. I never
> had bad wine at a restaurant, but I had some bloody awful stuff from the
> supermarket. It cleaned out my drains good and proper.

Really vile French wine is much rarer since the Australian wine-makers
moved in. French producers at the low end hadn't caught on to modern
commercial methods (these have their own drawbacks, of course).

--
Mike.