What is Dundee Cake And What's To be Seen In Dundee?

 Dundee cake

Dundee cake is a cake you will see loose or maybe in a fancy tin at Christmas time. It is said to be Her Majesty The Queen's favourite tea time cake. You can recognize it immediately by the  concentric circles of almonds on the top. Whole blanched almonds.

The story goes that another queen, Mary Queen of Scots, did not like the candied cherries which featured as decoration on the top of cakes in her day. So a new cake was designed for her minus the decorative cherries which were replaced by almonds. I have not yet seen any corroboration of this story. But, as another popular saying goes, why let the truth get in the way of a good story.

A variation on the story of the cake's origin has it invented by Keiller's Marmalade factory.

My husband, who used to live in Scotland, in Aberdeen, went to Dundee once or twice. He says, "Like most foods, there are lots of stories about it and its origin."

Dundee cake is rather dry, for my taste. I like moist cakes such as cheesecake and apple strudel. But if you are into dry foods which you find filling, this might be the thing for you.

Whilst you are eating your Dundee cake, you might consider planning your next trip to Dundee and what you would like to see. The city is Scoatlan'd fourth largest, and promoted as one city, many discoveries. Highlights include:

Dundee cake, Rich fruit cake topped with flaked almonds which you can buy on the internet. From Nevis bakery. On Amazon, UK.

1 Scott's Ship HMS Discovery

The ship was built here.

2

The Victoria and Albert Dundee Deign Museum

The distinctvely modern museum is designed to look like a ship.

3 Dundee Museum of Transport 

Motorbikes in the Museum of Transport.

It contains a piece of the original Tay Bridge.

4 The modern Tay bridge which replaced the bridge tragically destroyed with the train and all aboard it, as immortalized in the poem by Scaotland's worst poet, William McGonagall.

Tall tower of the jute factory. The city was known for jute, jam and journalism. 

D C Thomson offices. Producing magazines including Dandy and Beano. A popular character was Desperate Dan whose statue was erected in the city centre.

Clothing of the type worn 

on the Discovery ship.

What next and where next?

If you are keen on Scottish history, or ancestors, or want to have a themed evening, for New Year's eve and Auld Lang Syne, or Burns Night in January, how about a kilt to go with it. Add some bagpipe music to put you in the mood for bonnie Scotland!

If you are into history, there's Edinburgh and authors, or Glasgow and art, or Glencoe and the battle, or Aberdeen, or the Harry Potter bridge in my next post.

Useful Websites

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=dundee+cake

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/dundee-cake

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20180529234901/https://news.gov.scot/news/go-nuts-for-dundee-cake

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Discovery_(ship,_1901)

https://kiltsociety.com/collections/kilts

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kilts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Thomson

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

 

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

Looking for the world's worst poet, McGonagall, and the Scottish Tay bridge disaster

 

McGonagall's family was from Ireland, from County Donegal, as their name might tell you, but settled in the north of Scotland in Dundee. McGonagall one day received a call from a voice telling him to write poetry. His first poem was to praise a minister of religion.

He had grasped the concept of rhyme, but not of syllable counting, of intonation, so his poetry created an unintended humorous effect. He tried to make a living from selling his printed poems and performing them. 

He performed as Macbeth in the Shakespeare play, the starring role. However, in the last act, where Macbeth is supposed to die, McGonagall refused to die.

He once performed a poem against drinking in a pub. He was surprised when the annoyed publican threw peas at him.

He wrote a poem about the local wonder of construction, the Tay Bridge. When the bridge collapsed with a train on it, killing numerous passengers, he wrote another poem, which was dreadful, but got widespread publicity. 

Go to Dundee where he and his family lived in their early years. He had a wife and seven children.

He wrote a poem about the grand Tay Bridge.

The bridge after the disaster.

The poet McGonagall.

He wrote another poem to Queen Victoria.  Despite the fact that her lackey's lukewarm response showed she was not amused, treated the fact that he got a reply as an endorsement.

The poet honoured.

• But I may say Dame Fortune has been very kind to me by endowing me with the genius of poetry. I remember how I felt when I received the spirit of poetry. It was in the year of 1877.
  • "The Autobiography of Sir William Topaz McGonagall", published in the Weekly News
    • McGonagall's "knighthood" was an honorary one conferred on him by King Theebaw of the Andaman Islands: "Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah".

• I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears –

  "Write! Write"

  I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself– "I know nothing about poetry."

  • "The Autobiography of Sir William Topaz McGonagall".

You can see a plaque on a site where he lived in Edinburgh. A bench where he was buried in a pauper's grave has been photographed and can be seen on the website although unfortunately the bench and its plaque have gone.

Tay bridge disaster column in Dundee Museum of Transport, Dundee, Scotland. Photo by John White.

British comedian Spike Milligan featured McGonagall many times.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20119/william-topaz-mcgonagall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster

The Tay Bridge Disaster poem in full:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster 

Tay Bridge Disaster Virtual Cemetery

https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

 

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

The Major Edinburgh Bridges In Historical Order

Problem
I can't work out which bridge is which.

Answer
You will find loads of detailed information on construction on Wiki plus links to newspaper articles and can spend hours on it (as I have) but here's a simplified version.
Let's take the four well known bridges in historical order.

1 The Tay Bridge Disaster (Railway)
This was immortalised by the dreadful doggerel of William McGonagal.  This is the one I heard about in English lessons in school and it's quoted all over the place and in poetry anthologies and examples of how not to write a poem. The Tay is not Edinburgh. Edinburgh is on the Forth.

2 The Queensferry Bridge (Road)
Open 30 Aug 2017. (Pedestrians could take a look earlier.)

3 The Firth of Forth Bridge (Railway)

4 Queensferry Crossing (Road bridge)
Cable stay bridge.
Two lanes in each direction, total four lanes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensferry_Crossing

***

Now let's get up to date and concentrate on the three major bridges:

When you drive up to Edinburgh from London or take the train you are going to cross one of these major bridges with spectacular views.

Three main bridges linking Edinburgh and Scotland to the south (England).

1 The Queensferry Bridge (Road)
Open 30 Aug 2017. (Pedestrians could take a look earlier.)







From Wikipedia.

Oops. Those cables are wearing out. The bridge had much more traffic than originally intended. We need a new road bridge, just in case it ever collapses completely, or rather we see in advance that it will be unsafe, and to prevent that, less traffic on this one.

2 The Firth of Forth Bridge (Railway)
The red railway bridge.

From Wikipedia.

3 Queensferry Crossing (Road bridge)
Cable stay bridge.
Two lanes in each direction, total four lanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensferry_Crossing

I find it confusing to have the two road bridges similarly named but this name was chosen by popular vote.

(How I remember: The new crossing made environmentalists cross because they wanted a tunnel.)

The new Crossing involved demolishing a landmark lighthouse and excavations revealed the oldest archaeological find of a dwelling in Scotland.

From Wikipedia.

More information:
List of Edinburgh bridges and links to pages on them in wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bridges_in_Edinburgh

Author,
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages. See my other posts. Please share links to your favourite posts.