This week in Mash History: Sigmund Freud sees his mum in the nip, 1866

11th April 2023

PSYCHOLOGY often traces emotional problems back to our parents and, more controversially, sex. One man appears to be the source of this: Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud.

But did you know that Freud’s idea of the Oedipus complex, first introduced in The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899, is the direct result of seeing his mum’s tits? A keystone of modern psychiatry was put in place, and all thanks to his dad not being arsed to put a lock on the bathroom door.

In a childhood diary Freud wrote: “In the pages that follow I shall bring forth proof that every man is plagued by an obsession with his mother’s naked body, and I’m not just saying that because my mum has got smashing funbags.

“A story we did at school, about a king of the Classical era who mistakenly killed his father and slept with his mother, supports my hypothesis. I do not accept my classmates’ argument that ‘It’s just a story, you fucking weirdo’.

“This is incontrovertible evidence that they are merely suppressing their constant thoughts about shagging their mothers in a variety of positions and erotic lingerie.

“Further, my theory is watertight, as it explains why I still sleep in my parents’ bed and have an intense desire to cave my father’s head in with a hammer. Like Oedipus, and us all, I possess a typical human brain, and therefore my recurring dreams about Mama’s pert arse cheeks are not a bit strange.

“There is more work to be done on this, perhaps involving the study of naked images of other mums, and female teachers. If only there were a scientific term for this field of research.

“However I see no flaws in my theory. In my latest test I thought of girls I fancy and then completely involuntarily compared them to my mother. Good news, Mum, you’re the fittest and it’s a shame we can’t get married. Unless… no, I should really stop thinking about that.”

And so the young Freud was set on the path of psychoanalysis and reassuring men whose wives look a bit like their mum that they are not massive perverts.

Next week: To 1883, when Ivan Pavlov’s Alsatian pestering him for biscuits gave him an idea for a lucrative research grant.

Their national dish is cheese on bloody toast: The gammon food critic visits Wales

10th April 2023

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who doesn’t blame Trump for paying Stormy Daniels for a blowie if he can afford it, the jammy bastard.

THE wife only booked an Easter break in Wales, didn’t she? Ever the professional, I thought it would give the food critic in me the opportunity to try the local grub. I wish I hadn’t.

I had no idea what to expect from this backward, vowel-challenged, foreign land. Probably 50 ways to cook a leek, and the best ways to prepare and roast lamb after having sex with it. But I went into the experience with an open mind.

In our B&B we started the day in a civilised manner with a traditional full English. The landlady, rather curtly, informed me it was actually a full Welsh breakfast.

Yeah, right. It was bacon, fried eggs, grilled tomato, baked beans – our traditional English Heinz ones – and HP sauce, so they’ve basically just pinched the name. Nonetheless, it was all palatable enough – until I bit into a ‘Glamorgan sausage’.

Alarm bells should have gone off when I saw the sausage was coated in breadcrumbs – batter, yes, breadcrumbs, no – and it turned out to be CHEESE. Needless to say I spat it onto the table and rushed to the nearest toilet where I vomited uncontrollably.

Not the best introduction to Welsh cuisine, but once the nausea had subsided I ventured to the local pub for lunch, and decided to try the much-lauded – by the locals, anyway – national treasure Welsh rarebit. Fuck me, seriously? They think they invented cheese on toast?

They hosted a UN assembly here a few years ago with Barack Obama visiting. Can you imagine the conversation? ‘Who have we got coming for lunch?’ ‘All the leaders of the free world!’ ‘Right, both grills on then.’ Jesus wept. Sadly the dish ruined perfectly good cheese on toast with the unfathomable addition of mustard and beer, turning it into an overly rich slop which had me crippled with indigestion.

I asked what local drink they’re famous for, but apparently they don’t have one. You’d think over hundreds of years of relative civilisation they’d have come up with something. I had lager, which, to be fair, I’d probably have done anyway.

I decided to give the place a second chance and return for dinner. There’s another dish they’re questionably famous for called ‘cawl’. Turns out it’s just soup with bits in so I ordered something called ‘laverbread’ to help bulk it out. I almost had a coronary when it arrived.

Seaweed. Fucking seaweed! Boiled down to a dark green mush like the snot of someone with a serious chest infection. They have the nerve to call it ‘Welshman’s caviar’, and sure enough it’s every bit as disgusting as eggs from a fish’s vagina. Just thinking about it makes me heave. If the locals have to eat this shit it’s no wonder there’s a McDonald’s every ten yards in Newport.

I paid up and left, still starving, in search of a chippie, unsure if they had them in Wales. Thankfully they do, and what’s more, they serve doner kebabs. I ordered one, dripping in lamb fat and chilli sauce and squatted down to messily eat it in a shop doorway out of the perpetually pissing rain. It was like a taste of home. You can travel the world, but there’s simply no beating proper English food like this.

Would I eat Welsh ‘food’ again? Only to feel grateful I live in a country with world-class indigenous cuisine. Where we don’t get some pond weeds and pretend it’s Warburtons, or serve up fake sausages without a hint of delicious eyelids or tendons.