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Messages - Athersgeo

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1
Family / Re: Dear Polly and the mushroom allergy.
« on: August 14, 2019, 03:56:57 am »
Why would someone do this? They have deliberately alienated their son AND their grandchildren. I've never understood people who do that.

It's not a huge leap to think that there's something about the girlfriend/wife that the family don't like and what they were hoping was that by alienating her, their son (the boyfriend/husband) would drop her like a hot rock.

What they didn't count on was boyfriend/husband sticking up for girlfriend/wife and taking her side.

My personal suspicion is that whatever it is they don't like, it's something relatively minor (tattooes or piercings, perhaps - or maybe just the fact that she has an allergy?) as opposed to major (race, religion) because the latter is likely something the husband would have had an idea about ahead of time.

I get that some people do that, specifically try to alienate their offspring's romantic choice in hopes that they will cling to their parents instead of their spouse/partner/whatever.  What I can't connect with is the philosophy of that. I mean, it might work sometimes, but mostly not. It's awful risky and usually just ends up alienating the offspring as well.

But even then, even if someone tries this and it backfires, why wouldn't they immediately back off and apologize? Is it really better to lose all contact with your child than to go ahead and grin and bear it and accept the mate?

The problem with apologies in this sort of situation is that they mean admitting you were doing something deliberate in the first place. The sort of person who thinks this is an appropriate course of action is really going to struggle to admit that they were flat out trying to murder someone to get them to go away!

And, of course, there is the strong possibility (as "Polly" speculates) that this isn't a unilateral thing but it's all coming from one source and that when that source goes away/is removed from the dynamic things might very well improve. Though in this case, I don't think that's a chance I'd be taking.

2
Family / Re: Dear Polly and the mushroom allergy.
« on: August 09, 2019, 08:08:29 am »
Why would someone do this? They have deliberately alienated their son AND their grandchildren. I've never understood people who do that.

It's not a huge leap to think that there's something about the girlfriend/wife that the family don't like and what they were hoping was that by alienating her, their son (the boyfriend/husband) would drop her like a hot rock.

What they didn't count on was boyfriend/husband sticking up for girlfriend/wife and taking her side.

My personal suspicion is that whatever it is they don't like, it's something relatively minor (tattooes or piercings, perhaps - or maybe just the fact that she has an allergy?) as opposed to major (race, religion) because the latter is likely something the husband would have had an idea about ahead of time.

3
Politics / Re: How the UK government works?
« on: May 24, 2019, 08:05:40 am »
Just as a follow up (and I realise I'm slightly necro-posting but, as they say, events dear boy, events!):

I had the timing wrong back when I did my explainer, but we are now going to see a leadership contest and a change of Prime Minister, so if you're at all interested in this stuff (and I freely admit that were I a neutral I'd be out stocking up on the popcorn), follow someone like the BBC or Sky News and you'll get some good, coherent explanations of just what the heck is going on. (Caveat Reader: Both sources have more or less political bias in their editorial content so you may want to take opinions with a grain of salt, but for explanations of process that shouldn't matter.)

4
General Discussion / Re: The "Unpopular Opinions" Thread
« on: April 24, 2019, 06:58:12 am »
If there's too much hype I begin to wonder what's wrong with the film/tv show that they have to do a hard sell.

In the case of Game of Thrones, there is the issue that they've delayed the final season by a year (the last ep of s7 aired in April/May 2017) so they want to make sure that the casual fans don't miss it. (Granted, now it's actually airing they really could tone it down a bit!)

Marvel have slightly less excuse (Infinity War was only a year ago and Captain Marvel was less than six months ago) but I suspect the basic reasoning is the same.

And if you think the hype is bad for GoT or Marvel, just wait until things start ramping up for Star Wars at the end of the year........!

5
Work Issues / Re: The etiquette- and ethics- of reporting online posts
« on: February 22, 2019, 06:48:03 am »
For an interesting take on the whole Liam Neeson thing, try this:
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/02/22/john-barnes-liam-neeson-may-best-question-time-answer-ever/

(Hopefully the video will work for people not in the UK!)


6
General Discussion / Re: I Accomplished Something Today! Or Plan to...
« on: November 21, 2018, 03:46:23 am »
Today I plan to get on top of my work to do list instead of it getting on top of me. I *WILL* beat this wretched thing into submission...

7
Politics / Re: How the UK government works?
« on: November 16, 2018, 10:52:23 am »
*wades in, rolls up sleeves*

Hi. We sadly do not have anything near as fun as School House Rocks for this one so you'll have to settle for me (and anyone else from the UK who wants to chime in!)

Dealing with the vote of no confidence thing first (because that's the easiest one): members of a political party can decide that they have no confidence in their current leader for whatever reason. If enough of them have no confidence in their leader (and the exact threshold for that will vary party to party) they can force a vote to see if everyone* else in the party agrees with the no confidence thing and, if it turns out not enough people have no confidence, you then get a leadership contest to see who should now lead the party. Clear?  ;D It becomes a bit more of a complication if the party concerned happens to be in power at the time (because the leader is the Prime Minister of Her Majesty's Government) but if you want to see how THAT plays out look up the end of Margaret Thatcher's time in office. (Or, y'know, keep an eye on a suitable British news source and watch current events unfold!)

*Note: with Votes of No Confidence I'm not sure if it's purely the parliamentary members who get a say or if it gets thrown open to the national membership - I suspect it's another thing that actually varies by party.

Okay. General Elections. The first thing to remember is that a UK General Election campaign lasts three weeks and then we vote. That's it. That's all you get. So a snap election is not a problem from that regard.

Also: we do *NOT* vote for the Prime Minister. No, I don't care WHAT the press say, we really, REALLY don't. The only people who vote for the Prime Minister are the people whom he or she represents as MP. So in the case of our current Prime Minister, the people of Maidenhead are the ones who vote for Theresa May. Before her it was the people in Whitney in Oxfordshire. Or Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Or Sedgefield. Or Huntingdon. Or Finchley. Or...well feel free to Google the Prime Ministers prior to Margaret Thatcher! It's a very, VERY different concept to the American model where you vote for your president direct (sort of, ignoring that whole electoral college thing which just perplexes the heck out of everyone!).

General Election timing: this used to be something that was variable. The maximum term length for a parliament was (I think) five years, but it could be much less. So there was an election in 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997...and then the law was changed during Tony Blair's time in office so that it was set to be a regular cycle (like the American system) of a General Election every five years so that everyone knew where they stood. (In theory.) Given the snap election last year, there's clearly some provision for holding an election sooner than five years still, but exactly how the law works in that regard I'm not sure.

And yes, it can mean very little gets done but, on that score, I would point out that we've not actually had our entire government shut down because no-one could agree a budget as happened not that long ago in the US, so no system's perfect!

Oh, and you have to get the Queen's permission to hold an election. But that's mainly a formality. You also have to ask her permission to form a government once the election's been held and all the votes have been counted. Again, though: mainly a formality.

There are no term limits on how long you can be an MP (and by extension, how long you can be Prime Minister). RH Kenneth Clarke MP is the current Father of the House - he's been a serving MP since 1970 (although I think he may be stepping down at the next general election).

The way the UK government maps to the US is as follows (very roughly at least!)

US President = The sitting monarch (currently Queen Elizabeth II)
US Senate = UK House of Lords
US House of Representatives = UK House of Commons

Nancy Pelosi and whoever the House of Representatives Republican Leader is are in the equivalent positions to Jeremy Corbin and Theresa May. (Though I rather think that being Majority Leader of the House Of Representatives has less power attached to the role than being Majority Leader in the House of Commons!)

The Queen has no constitutional powers so can't overrule parliament (even when I'm sure she'd really, REALLY like to) - unlike the US President who, I believe, CAN overrule the Senate/House if needed.

Our upper house (House of Lords) is unelected (unlike the Senate) although gone are the days when it was entirely populated by the landed gentry. Most of the current serving Lords are former MPs and Business People who've been nominated by their respective political parties.

Finally, we also have elections at more local level. These happen every three years, in May. Quite often a general election will be timed to fit in with that cycle - but not always.

PHEW. Hopefully that answers a few questions at least!

8
Books / Re: What are you reading?
« on: November 14, 2018, 05:12:01 pm »
Current Fiction: Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri - it's a book I've been dying to get my hands on (it was published yesterday but a number of the authors I follow on twitter have been hyping it!) and it is precisely as awesome as I was expecting. Mughal-inspired fantasy.

Current Non-Fiction: A History of Ancient Britain - Neil Oliver. It's slightly dated*, it has the *MOTHER* of all misprints in** and the prose is decidedly lavender in shade, but it's quite an easy read and isn't rigidly chronological - instead it's written more around themes (which allows for things like a three page digression about Irish pirates!)

I think I have about a half a dozen or so other books that I've got started on my Kindle which I'll flip back to

*I think it was published in 2012 or so but there've been some very recent discoveries that have meant the history books need a bit of tweaking
**This came in the context of a discussion about towns and settlements in general. His point was that towns were a broadly alien concept to the Britons of 1500BC. Unfortunately due to the typo the sentence actually suggested towns were an alien concept to the people of post-Roman Britain, which would have been news to Londoners. Still it could have been worse. It could have been mangled into the 1500s which would have meant towns were an alien concept to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I which really WOULD have been news to Londoners!

9
Books / Re: Authors or Books?
« on: November 14, 2018, 04:24:10 pm »
I liked Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival, and have read his other books which branch off that, but also his book on Flight 232 which crashed in Sioux City, IA, in 1989. However, I tried his novel and didn't get into it.

This is me with Tom Holland (the historian, not to be confused with the much younger actor). I've enjoyed his books on Greco-Roman history, so when I discovered he had a novel (or two) to his name I was down for trying one. It was...not good.

To answer the wider question, I'm definitely a books person rather than an author person.Or, perhaps, a genre person rather than an author person. I read widely across fantasy, folklore, history and sporting biographies, so I'm far more likely to pick up something that falls into one of those four categories than if it doesn't. Which isn't to say I don't read other stuff from time to time, but I'm much, MUCH more discriminating. I will drag myself through the dullest of history essays (Edward Said's Orientalism*, I'm looking at you here!) or the most tedious of fantasy sex scene (why are so many fantasy novels thinly disguised **** with a side order of Stockholm Syndrome?!) but anything else, the second I stop enjoying it, across the room it goes. (Mostly in a figurative sense - I think I've only ever actually flung one book in my life and it was a Dan Brown so it was a decent missile...or indecent, depending on your opinion of Dan Brown!)



*I read it as a result of having followed a bibliography in someone's history of the near-east and was too darn stubborn to admit defeat. Unless you are a MASSIVE languages/linguistics geek I don't recommend it!

10
General Discussion / Re: TIL: Today I Learned...
« on: October 30, 2018, 11:51:50 am »
This is a completely different context, but my mind was blown. My husband is a drummer* in two bands (one acoustic, one "rock and roll") that play covers of popular songs. A couple nights ago he was showing me his set list and I saw the song "Panama." I said, "Panama? I don't think I've ever heard that?" He started to sing it (it is by Van Halen) and I instantly recognized the tune, but laughed at the lyrics he was signing. "Paaaaanamah…….Paaaaaanamah-ah-ah-ah....."

"Hahahahah! You mean 'Let it rock......let it roll-oll-oll-oll……!!!!" My husband looked at me, uncertain if I was trying to be funny. "You mean that's NOT the lyrics?" I asked.

He pulled up the lyrics, and sure enough, for DECADES I have been singing (loudly, by the way, and clearly) the wrong lyrics to that song. Mind. Blown.

*Not for his job. Just for fun and extra cash, but mostly for fun.

My mental jukebox is now attempting to merge Van Halen's Panama with Bon Jovi's Let It Rock (which DOES feature the line "Let it rock, let it roll"!) It's an interesting mental cacophony to say the least.

On the upside, it's a break from Motley Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls which was the last thing I heard on my radio before getting out of the car this morning...

11
General Discussion / Re: Little Things That Annoy You
« on: August 20, 2018, 10:43:54 am »
On the large order front: if you absolutely must order 50 (no, not a typo) breakfast muffins: come to an actual arrangement with the restaurant over pre-ordering. (Or actually order from somewhere that takes pre-orders.) Don't just rock up and demand 50 muffins on the spot.

The staff managed to keep the drivethru working while the great muffin cook was going on, but those of us who'd one into the restaurant were completely SOL because any member of staff not directly on drivethru were stuck assembling muffins like their lives depended on it.

I gave up after ten minutes of waiting to even place my order. (And it was a genuine ten minutes - we got through at least three songs on the corporate playlist!)


12
Books / Re: Bookstores
« on: August 14, 2018, 02:46:22 pm »
Actually having books is my main criteria (criterium?) - my local bookshop was a significant shelf space given over to Things That Aren’t Books. eReader accessories and bookmarks, I can see the logic. Pocket gardens, practical jokes and jigsaw puzzles, not so much! Beyond that, decent lighting so I can actually read book spines/fly leaves. Anything else (like sears and coffee bars) are entirely optional.

13
General Discussion / Re: The "Unpopular Opinions" Thread
« on: July 20, 2018, 06:09:44 am »
I love flying - even long hauls. I love going to and being in an airport, knowing I'm about to get on a plane. I love take-off and landing. I love guilt-free time to sit and read, knit or watch movies. Depending on the airline, I even like the inflight meal! (Singapore airlines, I'm looking at you).

I'm not WILDLY keen on the take off and landing, and airport security queues can go forth into a great fiery pit (which is probably NOT an unpopular opinion!) but I'm with you on the rest :)

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General Discussion / Re: The "Unpopular Opinions" Thread
« on: July 10, 2018, 07:55:53 am »
'When Harry Met Sally' is, in my opinion, high on the list of Most Boring Films Ever.

Forest Gump is up there, too.

None of the Star Wars films are high art or works of genius. (I enjoy all of them immensely, don't get me wrong, but the complaints that get levelled against the prequels and more recent films hold true for the original trilogy too - or as Harrison Ford put it "You can write it but you can't say it")

15
Books / Re: Your Most Used Cookbooks
« on: June 29, 2018, 04:41:56 am »
I have three:
1) Loraine Pascal's Home Cooking Made Easy - it is everything it says on the tin; I've literally never had one of her recipes fail me and the ingredients are all things you'd find in a reasonably sized supermarket
2) The Usborne Book of Desserts - I've had this book more than thirty years and it's got the best brownie recipe I've ever tried. It also has an awesome gingerbread recipe, a basic and easy to follow meringue recipe and a few other things that I've made over the years with slightly less regularity. (Granted the injunctions to "Ask a parent to help you with this bit" do make me giggle a bit these days!)
3) Stir Fry (ready to eat) by Caroline Hwang - the recipes I've tried are easy enough and quick to whip up and she does make suggestions for what you can use if you can't track down some of the more obscure ingredients. She's also included recipes for all the base sauces, so it's definitely a good grounding in East Asian cooking (she covers Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean recipes)

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