Remember this 80s ad? Scroll down to watch.
If you travelled back in time to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance and went to a market in England, you'd probably see women wearing tall, pointy hats standing in front of big cauldrons. But these women were no witches; they were brewers. When water was often unsafe to drink, people turned to wine. But beer takes a lot less time to make, and is somewhat nutritious besides. Brewing beer is akin to cooking, so making beer became one of the household chores that women performed.
From the Stone Age to the 1700s, ale – and, later, beer – was a household staple for most families in England and other parts of Europe. The drink was an inexpensive way to consume and preserve grains. For the working class, beer provided an important source of nutrients, full of carbohydrates and proteins. Because the beverage was such a common part of the average person's diet, fermenting was, for many women, one of their normal household tasks. Some enterprising women took this household skill to the marketplace and began selling beer.
But then came the Reformation, a religious movement preaching stricter gender norms, and condemned witchcraft. Male brewers saw an opportunity. To reduce their competition in the beer trade, some accused female brewers of being witches and using their cauldrons to brew up magic potions. Women accused of witchcraft were often ostracised in their communities, imprisoned or even killed and by the 1500s some towns actually made it illegal for most women to sell beer, worried that young ale-wives would grow up into old spinsters.
John Coburn watched the way drivers negotiate the broken speed humps you see on Auckland roads. "Eighty percent of drivers moved to the centre of their lane without slowing, straddling the humps, a little dangerous. A further 10 per cent, however, crossed to the centre of the road, straddling the double yellow lines. My question is this: do Auckland Transport bother to assess the effects of their "safety measures"? Or do they install them, walk away and assume they've nailed it? Then pay themselves a bonus for being so awesome?"
The best thing written after THAT interview was in the Irish Times, by Patrick Freyne. "Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it's like having a neighbour who's really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.
"Beyond this, it's the stuff of children's stories. Having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state. What's the logic? Bees have queens, but the queen bee lays all of the eggs in the hive. The queen of the Britons has laid just four British eggs, and one of those is the sweatless creep Prince Andrew, so it's hardly deserving of applause."
