Noticeable Oddities of the Day:

A. told me about BYO a while ago, a -in my opinion- strange phenomenon since I’ve honestly never heard of it until he mentioned it… For you out there who are as daft as I am, here’s a definition: BYO (Bring your own) is a term used at restaurants to show that you can bring your own drinks (usually alcoholic beverages), as opposed to Fully Licensed where such drinks must be bought at the respective restaurant, which would be fully licensed to sell alcohol. A restaurant can have both of these labels applied to it. Corkage fees may be applied for consuming/opening wines and other drinks at both kinds of restaurants.

I don’t believe we have anything similar in the Lowlands and I must admit I have mixed feelings about this. I believe if a restaurant is not allowed to serve alcohol it can’t be a good restaurant, to me the whole idea of having to bring your own bottle of whatever-that-is, seems weird and unreal. I’ve never even been in a restaurant with a BYO policy and each restaurant I went to here in London I did have a glass of wine [or two, or three, or…] so I reckon I must have been to licensed restaurants only *lucky gal*. To me it just doesn’t add up, it sounds ‘cheap’ somehow. I thought the Dutch had a reputation of being ‘cheap’ over here, perhaps the English copied it?…

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e.g. “I’m a Dutchman”; “Dutch courage”, “Dutch treat” . All these come from the time of the 17th century when the Dutch were hated military and commercial rivals of the English. Examples include Dutch reckoning, a bill that is presented without any details, and which only gets bigger if you question it, and a Dutch widow, a prostitute. In the same spirit are Dutch auction, one in which the prices go down instead of up; Dutch courage, temporary bravery induced by alcohol; Dutch metal, an alloy of copper and zinc used as a substitute for gold foil; Dutch comfort or Dutch consolation, in which somebody might say “thank God it is no worse!”; Dutch concert, in which each musician plays a different tune; Dutch uncle, someone who criticises or rebukes you with the frankness of a relative; and Dutch treat, one in which those invited pay for themselves.

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