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Comedic "things you would ban": minor things that irritate you

birchesgreen

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I eat spaghetti with a spoon, to be honest i eat everything with a spoon except steak. I am such a cutlery rebel.
 
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dgl

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In theory using spaghetti with bolognaise is not the correct thing to do, you should be using tagliatelle, different pastas are designed for different sauces.
 

dangie

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In theory using spaghetti with bolognaise is not the correct thing to do, you should be using tagliatelle, different pastas are designed for different sauces.
I did say other sauces are available.
However that’s by the by, it’s the shear stupidly of making pasta a foot long that gets my goat.
 

Gloster

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Isn’t there some theory that because the pasta is so thin it doesn’t dominate a sauce in the way that bulkier types can and do? Having it in foot long pieces allows you to break it in half, but I suspect the reason for the length is really something to do with storage.

I must admit to having no problems eating spaghetti as I was taught by my father how to do so properly. He learnt how to in various industrial canteens during Papal Year 1950 when he and a friend toured Italy. They weren’t Catholics, but there were cheap travel arrangements available so long as you attended one of the events (an open-air mass, I think), which they did.
 

Calthrop

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I eat spaghetti with a spoon, to be honest i eat everything with a spoon except steak. I am such a cutlery rebel.
I incline that way. Feel a lot of sympathy with the people in England centuries ago, who when forks were introduced from the Continent, and started to be used by fashionable types; were hostile to the things, considering them unnecessary / affected / effeminate / generally ridiculous. To a large extent, I find the fork tends to make the process of conveying food to the mouth, needlessly complicated and difficult -- most of such, accomplished more easily and straightforwardly with a spoon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

I did say other sauces are available.
However that’s by the by, it’s the shear stupidly of making pasta a foot long that gets my goat.
Isn’t there some theory that because the pasta is so thin it doesn’t dominate a sauce in the way that bulkier types can and do? Having it in foot long pieces allows you to break it in half, but I suspect the reason for the length is really something to do with storage.

I must admit to having no problems eating spaghetti as I was taught by my father how to do so properly. He learnt how to in various industrial canteens during Papal Year 1950 when he and a friend toured Italy. They weren’t Catholics, but there were cheap travel arrangements available so long as you attended one of the events (an open-air mass, I think), which they did.
I was about to continue rather on the theme -- as in my post just above -- of distant-past English chauvinists and their low opinion (such stuff considered nowadays, extremely naughty) of clueless foreigners with their idiotic ways of doing things; when, @Gloster, your post appeared -- indicating some practical sense in Italian ways with spaghetti, and the existence of a recognised method to make eating the stuff in long lengths, "handle-able". (The Catholic connection in your post, tends to arouse evil thoughts of staunch English folk centuries ago, muttering about damned Papist ways of eating; with which they would, as a matter of principle, have no truck :E ...)
 
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yorksrob

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USB-C.

Turns out it's just as much a flimsy piece of rubbish as micro-USB.

And before someone comes along with "Oh it's designed so that the plug breaks rather than the socket" it's never the plug that breaks, it's always the phone socket.
 

nlogax

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And before someone comes along with "Oh it's designed so that the plug breaks rather than the socket" it's never the plug that breaks, it's always the phone socket.

Indeed. My last two phones (Nokia 7 plus and Samsung A90) both died because of the usb-c port. This A73 is ok right now but I'm just waiting for it to succumb to the same fate.
 

yorksrob

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Indeed. My last two phones (Nokia 7 plus and Samsung A90) both died because of the usb-c port. This A73 is ok right now but I'm just waiting for it to succumb to the same fate.

Why they don't just have a separate, sturdy power input, I will never know.
 

yorksrob

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People buying cups of tea and coffee at the Sheffield Tap when the throng for the bar is three deep.

Go to the Pumpkin.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Can we ban LNER's stupid ticket machines that insist on me making a reservation before selling me a ticket for a short, local journey? I'm only doing Wakefield to Batley, why would I bother with a reservation?
At the very least they should have a few machines marked as being for local journeys only at places like Westgate, with a more simplified UI without the reservation bit. These could even be provided by Northern if it's beyond the wit of LNER to do it- they do provide half the services after all.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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Oh god, where do I start?

As someone with a rail interest - I would ban people on this forum asking a question and ending that with a full stop. It happens all the time and it looks so unintellectual.

I would ban when you ask a member of railway staff a question and a nearby trainspotter butts in and tries to answer for you. That's cringeworthy, socially inappropriate and just simply annoying. Similarly, I hate when myself or another member of the public makes a comment about the railway on a train (perhaps "Oh, this new train is nice," or "This train is different to usual) and a trainspotter enters your private conversation to tell you more about the train.

I would ban sporting fans who chant songs and the like (think Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur - much as I'm a Spurs fan) on-board a train. I also hate whistlers on public transport, famously.

I would ban parents who sit their children in front of a loud tablet on public transport without headphones and willingly disrupt the peace for everyone else, or let them misbehave and say nothing. And at the same time, those parents that scream "KAYYYDENNNN GET HERE NAAAAAAAH" at the top of their lungs while having absolutely no awareness of the setting they are in.

I could go on for hours.

As a chef who is usually open minded but detests mucking with Italian traditions that work - I hate cream in carbonara, I hate mushrooms, garlic or any vegetable that isn't traditional Napoli suffrito (carrots, onions, celery) in a bolognese or lasagna ragu, I hate spaghetti being snapped, I hate carbonara being served with bacon or even (god forbid) HAM - pancetta is just about acceptable I GUESS but it should be guanciale, I hate jar pasta sauce, I hate frozen pizza, I hate how in this country people love to overcook pasta so it turns to mush, I hate the whole concept of well-done steak (why not just eat a leather shoe), etc. I would make illegal all of that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

In theory using spaghetti with bolognaise is not the correct thing to do, you should be using tagliatelle, different pastas are designed for different sauces.
If you're going to look down on someone for using the wrong pasta, make sure you use the right one yourself ;) Pappardelle with bolognese, not tagliatelle. Fettuccine is an acceptable substitute in the UK where pappardelle is less easy to find. Tagliatelle will not hold a thick meat ragu as well, although it is of course far better than the American-popularised combination of spaghetti (intended for majority liquidy sauces) and bolognese.
 
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Richard Scott

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I would ban parents who sit their children in front of a loud tablet on public transport without headphones and willingly disrupt the peace for everyone else, or let them misbehave and say nothing. And at the same time, those parents that scream "KAYYYDENNNN GET HERE NAAAAAAAH" at the top of their lungs while having absolutely no awareness of the setting they are in.
Totally agree but needs adding too; anyone using any device without headphones. Noticed adults do it with tablets and people who insist on having a conversation on loudspeaker in public or playing music in public. I don't want to hear their entire conversation or listen to their music. It's totally inconsiderate but some people think the world exists just for them/their family and no-one else matters
 

yorksrob

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Can we ban LNER's stupid ticket machines that insist on me making a reservation before selling me a ticket for a short, local journey? I'm only doing Wakefield to Batley, why would I bother with a reservation?
At the very least they should have a few machines marked as being for local journeys only at places like Westgate, with a more simplified UI without the reservation bit. These could even be provided by Northern if it's beyond the wit of LNER to do it- they do provide half the services after all.

Seconded.
 

oxfordray1

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Totally agree but needs adding too; anyone using any device without headphones. Noticed adults do it with tablets and people who insist on having a conversation on loudspeaker in public or playing music in public. I don't want to hear their entire conversation or listen to their music. It's totally inconsiderate but some people think the world exists just for them/their family and no-one else matters
Oh I do so agree. And ashamedly for me, I don't consistently challenge them. Sometime I don't just have the energy.
 

AM9

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Totally agree but needs adding too; anyone using any device without headphones. Noticed adults do it with tablets and people who insist on having a conversation on loudspeaker in public or playing music in public. I don't want to hear their entire conversation or listen to their music. It's totally inconsiderate but some people think the world exists just for them/their family and no-one else matters
So what's wrong with holding a mobile phone agauinst your ear, - no headphones involved there?
 

nlogax

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Clickbait headlines and phrases. Effectively the entirety of my Google News feed which thinks it knows me but really has no bloody clue;
  • Blah blah dull story; What you need to know. (hint.. I don't.)
  • You wouldn't believe what happened when... (yes I would. Shut up.)
  • Doctors don't want you to know about this weird trick will clean your taps / take twenty years off your life / cure leprosy (it won't)
 

Richard Scott

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So what's wrong with holding a mobile phone agauinst your ear, - no headphones involved there?
That's fine, I did say 'having a conversation on loudspeaker' so think that states my irritation. Said nothing about using the phone, although would rather people didn't, I accept it's part of our modern world.
 
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nlogax

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That's fine, I did say 'having a conversation on loudspeaker' so think that states my irritation. Said nothing about using the phone, although would rather people didn't, I accept it's part of our modern world.

The 'loudspeaker / talking into the mic at a weird angle' thing feels like it's come straight from The Apprentice. On tv there was at least a reason for it.. in real life there's none.
 

birchesgreen

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Clickbait headlines and phrases. Effectively the entirety of my Google News feed which thinks it knows me but really has no bloody clue;
  • Blah blah dull story; What you need to know. (hint.. I don't.)
  • You wouldn't believe what happened when... (yes I would. Shut up.)
  • Doctors don't want you to know about this weird trick will clean your taps / take twenty years off your life / cure leprosy (it won't)
Click bait videos on Youtube, though i just block the channel now so more fool them.
 

PeterY

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Totally agree but needs adding too; anyone using any device without headphones. Noticed adults do it with tablets and people who insist on having a conversation on loudspeaker in public or playing music in public. I don't want to hear their entire conversation or listen to their music. It's totally inconsiderate but some people think the world exists just for them/their family and no-one else matters
I totally agree Richard. I hate listening to other people tinny music and conversations. One reason I don't own a smart phone.
 

nlogax

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I totally agree Richard. I hate listening to other people tinny music and conversations. One reason I don't own a smart phone.

That's a confusing choice. There's nothing stopping you or anyone else using a smartphone correctly even if a select few can't seem to manage it in public.
 

yorksrob

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I would ban organisations and companies using Twitter as their main website to the outside world, particularly now that Musky half-wit has managed to completely balls it up.
 

py_megapixel

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I would ban organisations and companies using Twitter as their main website to the outside world, particularly now that Musky half-wit has managed to completely balls it up.
Same goes for Facebook to be honest. It seems dangerous and foolish to allow the playgrounds of childish multi-millionaires to become essential for the distribution of information.
 

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