M&D - Chapter 18 - Rather early for a Ploughman's Lunch

[Johnny Marr]

Our heroes return, "back with Senses Boggl'd from War, Slavery, Successful,
Obs, the wind at St Helena, unaccustom'd Respect from their Peers". In
short, they have seen the stars, and the darker side of mankind, yet
arrived home as a newfound success. They decide not to reveal and
misgivings when they address the Royal Society, omitting any concerns about
Maskeylne as they "find they have nothing but good to say of all they have
met at St. Helena and the Cape".

The Tops a-spin comment suggests both the giddy daze of new celebrity, but
possibly also that they are unwitting pieces in some greater force's game?

Dixon soon leaves home - he is a man of simpler pleasures than London
insists upon, unmpressed by a lunchtime helping at the Mitre, instead left
reminiscing about The Jolly Pitman in Staindrop (An actual pub? A
convincing name? Or an oblique reference to Northern English mining
communities, the forgotten furnace of the Empire?)

The Ploughman's Lunch continues the cheese theme - in case you've not
sampled the delights of British pub food, it's essentially a big slice of
cheese (nothing fancy, preferably Cheddar or Stilton), with plenty of
pickle and butter, sandwiched between two thick sliced crusts and with a
side order ranging from beetroot, aplles, miniature salads and Scotch eggs).

Yet our close and trusted advisor wikipedia informs us that the Ploughman's
lunch is a neo-classical culinary invention - introduced in the 1960s to
invoke a traditional British pub menu that never existed in the first
place. In short, TRP seems guilty of an anachronism! Scandalous
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