Talk:Bishop of Norwich
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I have merged the article Bishop of Norwich, England (Catholic) into this one. I don't claim that my merge was perfect, however, and the article could probably now do with some reorganisation. aliceinlampyland 14:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC).
[edit] Splendid fellow, but..
I do like this anecdote..
"In traditional dining circles, when the port is being circulated after dinner it is traditionally considered poor etiquette to ask for the bottle to be passed round should someone be seen to be hogging the decanter. Instead certain groups hold that one should ask if the offending gentleman "knows the Bishop of Norwich" to prompt him to pass it round. (In the unlikely event that the question is taken literally and answered with a "no," the proper next step is to say of the hypothetical bishop: "damn' fine fellow — but he never passes the port!")"
..but I have been trying to find a citation from a reliable source for it. I can find a number of web sites which claim it is "old tradition" but most of these don't give much information and several contradict each other. (hamper.com, infoportwine wineorigins.) In addition, I am not sure they pass WP:RS. I can't find it on the site of a maker of port (even on Sandeman who have an entire page devoted to where the right-to-left thing might have come from) and I can't find in a cursory rummage in the library through the "traditions" and "food and drink" and geography sections. I particularly can't find it in Brewer's Britain & Ireland, which rounds up phrase, fable, tradition, sayings and so on associated with place names. For Norwich, it a ton of things, from Norwich FC's association with Delia Smith to NORWICH ("nickers off ready when..") to the spurious "marytered saint" William of Norwich. The bishop isn't there, though.
I can't prove this is not a tradition, and I find it quite cute myself. But I can't find a cite, so I am moving it to this talk page pending someone finding a reference (or deciding on of the web sites above qualifies).
