Negative results of EU integration
This may shock you.
Frankly, I find it obscene.
Yet, I’ve no choice, dear reader, except to drag you down with me into the very depths of hell against all semblance of good taste or sophisticated manner.
You must accompany me along this twisted path to multicultural enlightenmentation. The darkside of integratorious amalgamation and multisourced influentationalism. That seedy underbelly of common acceptancism. This very cesspool of EU ascensionalistisms.
Got your mental visa?
Let us embark then, my depraved friend, for a rude awakening.
The scene: an apartment in Bucureşti.
In the starving circle of the southwest cartier of this newly accepted European capital city. At the peak moment of integration, celebration rings out across the urban landscape. Not far from Ceauşescu’s behemoth, we, too, strive to participate in the moment at hand.
Amidst the new tiles covering last year’s peeling paint, we have just witnessed the glorious ingenuity of the indefatigable Romanian ethic. The purity of our cause has released unto us grapes which were grown, fermented, and sold in Romania. We are on the very cusp of satiating our most debased evening desires perchance to dabble in but just a wee bit of vino.
Acum, me intelegeţi mai bine, nu?
You see, it all started off so innocently. With the cork no longer enslaved to its glassy captor, libations were free flowing. And it never hurts to have an appealing guide when setting out upon such a journey as this.
I know what you’re thinking. Everything seems so pleasant. How was I, simple me, to know we would all be unceremoniously betrayed?
What you fail to understand is just how mashable this new Europe can be. Ideas seems to increasingly free-flow from one group to another. The resulting pollination brings some consequences I’m not at all sure we’re collectively prepared to accept.
Granted, my past history includes a venue which has enabled me to see the benefit of agricultural purity. So, understand I’m predisposed toward unadulterated beverages whose content is beyond reproach.
All of this roughly translates into the idea that there are circumstances where one ought not pervert particular drinks. Perhaps I was poorly educated.
Nonetheless, I have adverse reactions to situations whereupon certain sacrosanct liquids are imbibed under impure conditions, having effectively been infected with gastronomical toxins.
Should I change? Nu cred.
And so it is I bear witness to you of an unholy practice currently occurring in Bucureşti, if not elsewhere. Oh, if only we could call upon our religious leaders to save us from certain corruption then we might not have had our assumptions shaken and stirred.
Alas, we are alone in this place and this time.
Yet, hold fast. For it did happen.
Indeed, much to my dismay, the perversion took place before my very eyes. I stood there drop-jawed as this unholy practice unfolded.
Despite the blinding stupor, my instincts fumbled about for the camera so I might capture her nonchalant routine. As I snapped away and lost yet another piece of my precious cultural virginity, she remained willfully ignorant of my gasps and sighs.
Trust me when I relay to you my being abjectly flabbergasted by the crime undertaken which must have been invented by a stark raving mad Tepeş. There are no words to describe the horror. The very savagery burned my eyes.
I stood speechless while Shaitan took physical form, pouring himself into, amongst, amidst, around, between, and as part of the previously unscathed weyn.
Are you immediately repulsed to the point of physical convulsions by the mere sight? Then you are American or Americanized. For it is a vile transgression unfit for the lowest dregs of the most corrupt society. So completely illogical, Spock would spontaneously combust. It is, quite simply, beyond any reasonable comprehension.
Unless, that is, you’re astute enough to factor in the cultural debasement engendered by ascension into the European Union. Perhaps Tudor and Becali were correct all along: the flea-ridden mongrels will seep across the border and impregnate Romania with their foreign-tainted filth.
Yes, brothers and sisters! Listen up and embrace the truthiness!
Sure, the fashion magazine wackos will tout this as progressive integration and even as evidence of Bucureşti trending towards diversity in beverage service, but the fact is someone has to draw the line somewhere.
Stop the madness. It’s all fine and well to allow pizza delivery and kebab vendors, but when you start messing around with the wine, kids, you’ve crossed the threshold.
You might mumble some mealy-mouthed excuse about how adding cola to red wine is considered a legitimate drink in several nations. You could even protest that it’s immensely popular in many places. I won’t even listen to apologist claims that this has been practiced by some Romanians for years.
It seems this appalling behavior has a name: kalimotxo.
As your better, it is incumbent upon me to awake you from your wayward strayings. Kalimotxo originates from the Euskaldunak in the Pyrenees of the European Union, an isolationist raft of paleothic DNA surrounded by an ocean of Indo-European language.
They created the drink back in the 1970s as a response to poor economic conditions. Traditional recipes call for mixing the cheapest red wine available in equal parts with a very particular brand of famous cola in order to produce an inexpensive beverage with a unique flavor.
From there, the disease has spread across other parts of Europe and even now threatens the purity of our wine here in Romania. You might say that I should drink my wine normally but still allow others to ignorantly fabricate noxious drinks of their liking.
But, I ask you, how can we condone the actions of foreign invaders when they damage our own heritage? It’s well known that the Basque peoples are often associated with terrorism. If that’s true, we should be invading them not embracing them. Particularly if they have any oil.
And here’s where the conspiracy gets thick, my brothers.
All these science researchers with their so-called pursuit of truth and supposed facts have been studying the genetic make-up of Euskaldunak because their origins are shrouded in mystery. It may be a surprise for you to find out they did not come extraplanetary aliens, but the reality is they are the parents of Britain.
It’s easy to see the connections still running through their common blood. First clear your mind of all the things you already know about how Blair’s England produces fascism, employs censors for teachers, works on totalitarian data keeping over its chattel, and spies on its serfs in a manner straight from Ceauşescu’s wet dream. We just call that: being shady.
Where the common point of DNA reveals itself is in the liquor, dear reader. If you thought ruining wine with cola was bad, check out what our Brit friends do. They destroy quality beer by watering it down with ginger ale or Sprite (which they mistakenly call “lemonade”). Like their post-Thatcher government, it’s immoral and disgusting. But they call it: beer shandy.
In Spain and South America, there has been a rapid spread of “Calimocho” as it moved beyond the Basque territory, spilling over into the impressionable minds of poor youth elsewhere.
So, too, has shandy seen expansion off the British Isles into Scandinavia and Germany as biermischgetränke, where I personally first was dumbfounded by the proposition of murdering good beer by stabbing it with 7-Up.
Things have gone completely overboard as shandy is at the center of newly accepted practice of marketing to women. In this case, Germans package watered down beer as a natural health drink with the subtle implication being that a woman can “handle” it. Blech.
Who are these nihilistic nutjobs torturing beer and wine?
The horrible pollution of quality alcoholic beverages cause a great emotional stir deep inside me. Both kalimotxo and shandy are the negative results of EU integration which must be uncategorically rejected and, indeed, expelled from the faux sophisticates of Bucureşti.
We must turn our backs on the Euskal-Breton invasion and decry it as Satan’s ploy against the great unwashed masses!
For, it is evil.
And, just as when mankind was created 6,000 years ago from garden clay under an apple tree, even today, the naturally wicked female uses her charms to beguile honest men into joining her sins.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:04 am
LOL!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Ummmm=Ummmm………. Sounds Good!
I’ll have to give that one a try! =0
Would that perhaps taste like cough syrup? Just curious!
January 29th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Sprite? No, we use something that we wrongly call lemonade for shandies, that is true, but it’s nowhere near as sweet as Sprite/7-Up.
I do remember the first time I encountered this bizarre wine/coke combo - Hungarians call it “hunter” - here. Freakish isn’t it?
But, let us not forget that you come from a nation that has created a million different flavours of coffee. Coffee, the most delicious drink on god’s green earth, rich, smooth, multi-faceted. Ruined, ruined I tell you, by being artificially tainted with cinnamon or vanilla or hazelnut-almond-chocolate-gorgonzola. We all have our culinary skeletons.
And don’t get me started on iced tea.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
AmFri - Heh, that’s probably a very close guess. I bet it does taste something like cough syrup. Fortunately, I was able to maintain a fervorant devotion to my monastic order, thus resisting the temptations of the she-devil and avoiding the foul swill.
I did witness its’ effect on others who drank it. Something like…
Csiki - What is it that’s most common in your shandy then? It cannot be tonic. Something halfway between tonic and Sprite, then? Not that I’d want it in my beer, but I’m curious.
You’ve brought truly sad news. I thought, perhaps, the Hungarians might have survived this onslaught and been our last bastion of hope to throw back the barbarians. If it’s “hunter,” then I can only imagine the prey must be skunk.
I’m with ya on the coffee. Chocolate Lemon Berry Snicker Crunch is an entirely bizarre phenomenon. While I have been guilty of a vanilla latte, Irish coffee, or coffee and Kahlua on more than one occasion, it is my belief that generally speaking coffee ought be served as coffee without flavors, sugars, milks, or other impurities.
However, the right honorable gentleman from Csikszereda need not publicly embarrass himself on the topic iced tea before this body.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
No it’s not tonic. It’s a bit like sprite, but nowhere near as sweet. It’s a refreshing drink, shandy. Perfect for knocking back after you’ve been playing football on a warm day, for example. You get to satisfy your thirst AND your need for beer at the same time.
I do understand where you are coming from though. In Spain they have something called a “Clara” which is similar, but with a more lemony soda.
My thoughts on iced tea: http://szekely.blogspot.com/2005/08/iced-tea_11.html
January 29th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Man, you haven’t even started until you’ve done Buckfast Tonic Wine (Glasgow’s national Drink made by, err, monks at Buckfastleigh in England), Thunderbird a.k.a. Chunderbird (another fortified wine from god knows where), or Tennets Super Strength lager (ABV 9.5%) coming in its very own special Purple Tin. And the culinary delights- deep fried Mars Bars, Lorne Sausage in a white floury roll…..
Amateurs compared to Scotland, I’m telling you.
Maybe one day, if Scotland ever becomes independent and a member of the EU in its own right, fritteurs de saucisse Lorne a l’Ecossais may make it onto the menu of the European parliament.
January 29th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Ok, that hurts! Poor red wine…Oh, well, I can pretty much picture what the wine tasters at my mom’s work place would say when showed such photos. And they would surely think or dozens of dirty swears at the same time. Diplomacy will keep them from also reading the list out loud. :P Anyway, I am one of those freaks who believe you should only drink good wine, the kind that water, soda or whateverelse one might add would ruin.
January 29th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Actually, Cabernet mixed with Pepsi is not that bad.:-P
January 29th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Csiki - You almost make a convincing case for shandy, but it still falls short. Beer should never be watered down with nastiness. I’m not opposed to a slice of lemon in my hefeweizen, but clara sounds awful.
Before we get maligning the qualities of delicious iced tea, we should first deliberate all that Earl Grey leaves to be desired…
steeplejack - Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose? Oh, oh, wrong country.
How can they dare to call it “tonic wine?!” I just have to shake my head in wonder. We all make different choices and I enjoy diversity, but slashing one’s wrists falls outside the bounds of civilized drinking.
I’ve two more queries. If it’s fortified, then what with? And how can Tennet’s be 9.5 ABV, if it’s watered down?
Deep-fried Mars Bars sounds slightly worse than the Texan deep-friend twinkie, of which I’ve eaten… once.
Alina - Thankfully, you and your family and extended circle of friends must come from a proper background! I daresay the justifications of this dilution are alarming, indeed, so I’m happy to see there are cultured folk who reject the insanity.
sunshine - Heretic! Sacrilege! =P
January 30th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Earl Grey is vile. Of that you have my complete support. Mind you Earl Grey is rarely if ever drunk by your actual English people, and is instead sold to foreigners as some kind of symbol of high-class English style. I’ve never met an English person who drinks Earl Grey.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
“No matter the technicalities, when it comes down to it we crave some dried leaves, hot water and bovine lactation.”
It’s worth chuckling over a bit more.
January 30th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Hi Romerican:
according to Wikipedia, the wine in question is “fortified” with more alcohol for “preservation” reasons (presumably the preservation of the liquid at the expense of the drinker’s liver):
“A fortified wine is a wine to which additional alcohol has been added, the most common additive being brandy (a spirit distilled from wine).
The original reason for fortification was to preserve wines, as the higher alcohol level and additional sweetness help to preserve the wine (when supplemental alcohol is added before fermentation finishes, it kills the yeast and leaves residual sugar). Even though other preservation methods exist, the fortification process survives, as consumers have developed tastes for wines preserved this way.” (Wikipedia “Fortified wine” entry)
I love the coyness of the last sentence, which must have been penned by an alcohol industry PR man.
Tennents Super Strength is many things, but watered down is not one of them. After two lethal purple tins one becomes a profound stranger to reason.
January 30th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I used to live in Porto which as you may know is pretty hot on fortified wine. The reason for it was that the British were there making wine (I know that sounds unlikely but bear with me). (Britain and Portugal have a long historical friendship and never went to war with each other - unlike everybody else). Anyway, they got all these grapes from the Douro valley, brought them down to Porto/Vila Nova de Gaia for the wine making process, and then got a bit stuck. You see wine doesn;t travel that well (or at least it didn;t then) and they needed a way of transporting it to England without it going bad or something, so they hit upon the novel idea of sticking some brandy in the barrels. This apparently halted the fermentation process and allowed them to transport the vats of wine (or, as it had now become, “Port wine”) to the UK, without loss of quality.
So there you go.
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm
The French would be appalled and disgusted! Americans are probably a bit opened-minded about these issues. After all, we actually can go into a restaurant and order an “Arnold Palmer” (iced tea mixed with lemonade). Then there is a friend who drinks Dr. Pepper mixed with Jack Daniels! So experiment…it’s fun!
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Actually, the French would only be appalled if it were FRENCH wine! Any other wine or concoction thereafter would probably just make them wince.