Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I was talking about facial hair...

We probably call it a whisk really, but I talk like a child sometimes. At any rate, after half an hour of fruitless whisking (with my beard, moustache, eyelashes etc) I threw the whole thing down the loo and flushed it away.

I don't actually like soft meringue, so it's just as well.

I do not appreciate my boss calling me on Saturday morning. For any reason, ever.

I can verify that it would be incredibly offensive! Not once in my near 29years I have heard us referred to as part of the British Isles. Only time I've heard us being part of Britain is from someone from the USA or when an Irish person wins something at the Olympics.

Our breaking away from the UK only happened less than 100 years ago so everyone in our generation would have met someone who lived through those times and the horrendous conditions that went with it so we can get quite pissy when the topic comes up. My great-grandmother lived through it and some of her earliest memories were pretty hairy.

Violence part aside...... short story of the potato famine...... all the Catholics had to eat at the time was potatoes because all the land was being used to grow crops that were taken to UK. Then the potato blight came along and pretty much wiped out the only food source our country had. A book I read as a young child portrayed the hardship really well, Under the Hawthorn Tree. It is probably a bit young but well worth a read.

And there were laws, punishable by death, and or burning out of your homes, against fishing. Food was shipped out of Ireland back to England under armed guard, while the Irish starved.

Irish voices are routinely still silenced. Nobody wants to hear it. Political correctness rarely, if ever, extends to us. Even groups like Amnesty International kept very, very silent.

Case in point, Irish people complained about the Ben & Jerry's flavor Black and Tan. The response was to stop selling it in Ireland only. No rename anywhere else, nothing. Would a company do that to many other groups? Can you imagine celebrating an Iraqi national holiday with suicide bomb cupcakes? So why is it ok to do that for St. Patrick's day? If you object, you just don't have a sense of humor or you take things too seriously.

I think this issue is such a hot button for me partly because so many are so quick to claim Irishness, yet nobody actually knows or understands much of the very complex, very tragic history. But, there is also a lot of beauty, brilliance, and resiliency there.

Well said LW. Got to love Irish pride <3

Definitely. I mean, I'm not huge on rah rah displays of nationalism or anything, but it's really hard to separate out people from history in Ireland because it still permeates everything.

Another thing to point out is that many Irish have all sorts of reasons to dislike or,distrust the British, but usually don't just because the culture has always tended towards openness and forgiveness. Hell, every single one of my uncles married British women. Even my gram, who lived through so much, only gets worked up if one is unwise enough to mention the pope and/or treatment of women in Ireland (mostly due to the Catholic Church).

At any rate, my ties are strong because that's where my real (other than my parents, of course) family is, so my Irish passport is a tangible symbol of that to me.

i'm having a hard time getting myself motivated to clean... it's not too much-- i just don't want to start. maybe tea and ppk will help.

Found out that my husband's best friend (who is in a long-term, live-in monogamous relationship) is being aggressively pursued by my ARCH NEMESIS.

Ha. Yes. Except for me it's my employees at work calling me at home with questions. My boss and I are actually good friends and text each other all the time, but I always stop myself from asking any annoying work questions when she's not on the clock.

Love watching my gorgeous dog sleeping. She is just so precious.

My husband and I went out for a drive to pick something up to eat and grab some groceries and we drove on some country roads. We had our dogs in the car with us. As we are driving, we see a dog (a hound type) running in the street on the side of the street. This was a country road so no sidewalks/no shoulder, etc. We stop our car and get out of the car, the dog comes towards us, into the yard of a nearby house but not close enough for us to grab and then the dog starts baying. My beagle starts baying in our car. Anyway, we try to get the dog near us as it has a collar on it that looks like it might have a name/number. The dog keeps baying and then I hear a lady yelling so I call to her, she asks us if we were part of 'the hunt'. I tell her no, she said that some of the dogs had got lost on a hunt (?) and they were trying to round them up and she already had a couple dogs with her. She said she had called the number on the tag and someone was coming to get the dogs. She was able to grab the dog and then apparently the owner showed up as we were leaving. Anyway, overall scary thing to see.

My stepsister and her boyfriend broke up last night, and she is over at my parents house at the moment. I feel bad for her because she hasn't had much luck in the dating department ever, and this guy seemed like a good match for her, but she is currently sitting in our living room bisqueing about him. I'm just now getting to a good place with my recent break up, and I really don't want to be around her negativity. She got here about half an hour ago, but I still haven't gone down to even say hi yet, because then I'll get stuck down there. If she wanted comforting, I could do that, but I don't want to sit around listening to how he is a jerk....

Vegetarian at work has an "animal liberation front" patch on her jacket. I like her, and that's great and all, but if you're that radical, stop eating their secretions? I don't get it.

Not ignorant at all, my sweet! The whole 'British' thing is...complicated. I, for one, do not consider myself British. To me that word is associated with a whole lot of negative feeling. A significant (tho minority) amount of Scottish people do not consider themselves British. A greater amount consider themselves Scottish first, British second.
Nat=Nationalist. But that too has complications! For example, the Scottish National Party are the primary party in Scotland and are in overall government just now. Their primary goal is independence and there will be a vote on that next year. Who knows what will happen with that though. I have never voted for them btw, though I agree with much of their policies. Scotland tends to the left, politically, because awesome.

Nat can also refer to Welsh Nationalists or the British National Party, I guess. The former are kinda vaguely similar to Scottish Nationalists (they're called Plaid Cymru), the latter are racist mustard loons and we pretty much universally hate them.

Further, when I say 'Nat' i don't even mean it politically, in terms of parties, overall. It's just... there are many people here who would be pissed to be referred to as 'British'. They just don't identify that way.

Personally, if someone from "the abroad" asked me if I were British I wouldn't be offended. But I'd find it unlikely that they would. People tend to 'get' a Scottish accent. Mostly because they can't understand what the fork we're saying ;)

Thanks Gulliver and Interrobang?! I don't feel so bad for being confused now , bang?! I was picturing it more like your description of the British National Party i think. Sometime I need to actually read up on the history of it. Even though I'm one of those people that's great great grandparents emigrated and never been, I feel like there's a lot that I identify with in the spirit. You see a lot of similarities in the Appalachian folk in general I think. You know, other than just talkin' funny.

I was in Walmart today to pick up some liquid anti-bacterial hand soap and they no longer have it labeled as "anti-bacterial" soap. It did say something on the bottle about killing germs. But the foaming soap did have the word anti-bacterial on it. Wonder if some FDA or whoever made them remove the words on the liquid stuff? Boring news, but if you're as paranoid as I am about getting the stomach flu that's going around, I want to see those words on the bottle. I got the foaming soap just for that very reason.

Hmm, do you know any grown up books about the potato faminine or the Irish-British relationship? My dad went to Ireland last year to visit his grandmother's old house, she fled to Canada during the Irish Civil War and he's been doing some online research, but I think that would be something he'd be interested in, but I don't think he'd go for a kid's book. (I need a belated Christmas gift, I had gotten him The Dispossessed and a thermos, but my brother also got him a thermos. Doh!)

I have not read this, so I'm only passing along a recommendation, but Tim Pat Coogan is certainly reputable. I read his book on the IRA years ago, and it was (probably still is) one of the most even handed accounts, thorough around. Anyway, this one has been on my Amazon list, but I'm rarely in the mood to read depressing crepe these days.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Famine-Plot-E ... y_b_text_y

Agree with shy mox--I'd love any recommendations especially on Irish and Scottish history. I might have to visit the google!

My BFF came home from work about 45 mins ago but hasn't come inside, I can hear her chatting out on the patio with our neighbor. I've been sick, basically bedridden all day, so, feeling gloomy and this is making me jealous. Ugh I hate jealousy in myself. Whenever I feel down I usually find something to trigger my jealousy. Also super bummed by this cold because there is a dance party happening tonight that I've been really excited about for like two months. Ugh someone hold me.

Since I've got this same cod crepe, I guess I can offer hugs without fear of contagion.

I haven't been on ppk months. Today i bought a big bag of tots for a recipe and then ppk was all I could think of. Needless to say I am having them as a bed time snack while catching up. Good night.

Most stomach flu is caused by viruses so anti-bacterial soap won't help any more than regular soap and water. Plus, overuse of anti-bacterial soap is thought to contribute to antibiotic resistance. That said, washing your hands frequently and well with regular soap and water is supposed to be one of the best things you can do to prevent any kind of flu.

soap is a government conspiracy, everybody knows that!

So is water!