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As everybody and their blog is reporting, Google has launched the UK Map service. Seems to be a little less than spot on when hunting for that sadly famed “delicacy” the deep fried mars bar (Sadly, it’s not an urban myth). Search for Deep-Fried Mars Bars in Glasgow and it’ll show places I can assure you don’t sell it. One look at the website for The Willow Tea Rooms should dispell any notion that I’m getting overly protective of my new home towns culinary habits: The Tea Rooms are rather nice places to retreat too after a few minutes hard shopping in the centre of Glasgow. The idea of them selling a deep-fried anything is a bit abhorrent.

I suppose the reason is that it is such an over-hyped aspect of Scotland by the media. It’s on the menu of many chippies precisely because it’s famous, and that occasionally people do jokingly ask for one (I wonder how many actually eat them). The “200 per week” chippie is probably right next to Edinburgh railway station, and peak time is probably just before the trains head out towards London… In my nine months living in Glasgow, it is very easy to see why the Scottish have lost a lot of their patience with the English just because of the constant jibing over what is a self-perpetuating “culinary” item (and a rather recent addition to the chippie menu, if the BBC article is correct).

The sad, geeky, reason for why it picks them up incorrectly is that Google is just looking for websites that mention the phrase being searched for, that are a business. The reason it’s included is that many of them are saying that there is plenty of good food beyond the deep-fried Mars Bar… Certainly something to be refined in the Google service I think… But no matter.

On a more relevant note, it’s interesting to confirm that there are indeed a healthy number of cricket clubs in Glasgow… Which I’m sure will come as a genuine revelation to any Glasgow readers…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2005 at 11:57 am and is filed under Food, Glasgow, Scotland, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.