Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

On a  More lighthearted aside, tik tok has a new trend on how uk Chinese food is weird. From a NA perspective it looks like a weird fusion of Indian and Chinese with a healthy side of fries ( ) and slathered in curry. It seems every time I see  a UK take on foreign food there are fries.

Another point in international hilarity that is often highlighted is that apparent Brit's don't "go get some Chinese food" they "go buy a Chinese" which just sounds odd

And yes, I know Chinese food adapts to places and is rarely "authentic" for the masses. NA is oddly sweet, Portugal was super salty. Macau had a lot of Portuguese inspired stuff. Thankfully in Toronto you can get some more traditional stuff (menu with no English that you hope pictures are accurate ).

[Sheilbh]

Shame and guilt are splitting a pretty fine hair.

I thought I was being overly broad on that and at risk of making some sort of guilt culture v shame culture distinction which isn't my intention. Basically I think you can feel shame at others' behaviour while guilt is personal.

Or as my Old English professor put it when describing guilt, "have you ever blushed in the bath?"

Break the rest down another level for me.  Why should the head of an institution apologize but a descendant should not?

It's more Valmy's point. Descendants can if they want - personally I'm just not particularly persuaded by it, but I also don't really think individuals are that interesting in the history.

I'm not really sure what more I can say about institutions - I don't know what your query is/what's missing?

How did the courts arrive at convictions for the Post Office cases? Note for messerschmitts: I assume that not everyone prosecuted was convicted, and I know that even with zero convictions it would have been a horrible scandal.

The documentary evidence was that individuals were stealing. The Post Office had this really fancy new IT system that they made everyone use that reported discrepancies - normally short-falls. The computer was reporting the wrong figures. But I think that type of evidence is quite hard to argue against.

Also there were large reported thefts that would have had a full trial with a jury, but if it didn't meet a threshold it was probably a summary offence in front of a magistrate or district judge rather than a jury.

It is a nightmare scenario - I feel like you see it in films - where all the computers are saying you did a crime and all you can say is either that they're all wrong or that there's a massive conspiracy. As it turned out, ultimately, they were and there was.

On a  More lighthearted aside, tik tok has a new trend on how uk Chinese food is weird. From a NA perspective it looks like a weird fusion of Indian and Chinese with a healthy side of fries ( ) and slathered in curry. It seems every time I see  a UK take on foreign food there are fries.

I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of curry or Indian food.

There are Chinese take aways, there are Indian take aways - obviously tailored to British tastes.  There are also Chinese chip shops (or a Chinese chippy) which this might be about. But Chinese take away or Chinese chippy are very different things Yeah it is normally "get" or "have" a Chinese/Indian/Thai etc short for takeaway or meal. "Go get some Chinese food" to me sounds weirdly abstract.

All chip shops have curry sauce. But for example in Liverpool there's salt and pepper chips which is originally a Chinese chippy thing but now done by all chip shops which is basically that you wok fry onions, peppers, chilli and other seasoning with chips - and it's incredible (I think the "spice bag" in Ireland is similar) You could definitely get that with some battered cod and curry sauce too and get all the takeaways at once

But it is always incredible the difference - General Tso's chicken basically doesn't exist in the UK. It's a very specifically Nnorth American Chinese dish (there's an amazing documentary on it somewhere). I've read a lot about and really want to try Chinese-Indian food because it sounds really interesting.

[Josquius]

On a  More lighthearted aside, tik tok has a new trend on how uk Chinese food is weird. From a NA perspective it looks like a weird fusion of Indian and Chinese with a healthy side of fries ( ) and slathered in curry. It seems every time I see  a UK take on foreign food there are fries.

Another point in international hilarity that is often highlighted is that apparent Brit's don't "go get some Chinese food" they "go buy a Chinese" which just sounds odd

And yes, I know Chinese food adapts to places and is rarely "authentic" for the masses. NA is oddly sweet, Portugal was super salty. Macau had a lot of Portuguese inspired stuff. Thankfully in Toronto you can get some more traditional stuff (menu with no English that you hope pictures are accurate ).

Now I'm curious what American Chinese food is like.
I have been told by American friends that the Indian food in Japan is like American Indian food and thats certainly quite weird. Quite an artificial taste to it.
Japanese Chinese food is of course awesome. No matter whether its actual Chinese food or dishes Japan has stolen.

I was just thinking the other week about the best non-native food interpretations. Like French tacos. Or Swedish pizza.

Worth noting too, Brits also often go for a Chinkies. A word which only recently seems to be falling out of use for Chinese takeaways though long unacceptable for a person.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I'd not use that word and think it's pretty unacceptable now (never been used around me).

[Tamas]

In my ten years in the UK I have never heard "Chinkies" used for anything, person or place.

[garbon]

On a  More lighthearted aside, tik tok has a new trend on how uk Chinese food is weird. From a NA perspective it looks like a weird fusion of Indian and Chinese with a healthy side of fries ( ) and slathered in curry. It seems every time I see  a UK take on foreign food there are fries.

Another point in international hilarity that is often highlighted is that apparent Brit's don't "go get some Chinese food" they "go buy a Chinese" which just sounds odd

And yes, I know Chinese food adapts to places and is rarely "authentic" for the masses. NA is oddly sweet, Portugal was super salty. Macau had a lot of Portuguese inspired stuff. Thankfully in Toronto you can get some more traditional stuff (menu with no English that you hope pictures are accurate ).

Really? Asking about tik tok knowledge?

[frunk]

Now I'm curious what American Chinese food is like.
I have been told by American friends that the Indian food in Japan is like American Indian food and thats certainly quite weird. Quite an artificial taste to it.
Japanese Chinese food is of course awesome. No matter whether its actual Chinese food or dishes Japan has stolen.

Indian food in America varies quite a bit, but you can find places that are quite close to what you get in India.  Unlike American Chinese food which is nothing like actual Chinese food.

[Sheilbh]

Really? Asking about tik tok knowledge?

Chinese food TikTok is the only thing that keeps making me think I should join

Not so much Chinese American TikTok, but the mad lads in Sichuan making massive hotpot with a three metre wide pan etc. Also really enjoy Chinese recipe TikTok. It all looks great and normally has an amazing soundtrack.

But I won't (yet) because I'm too old

[The Brain]

The documentary evidence was that individuals were stealing. The Post Office had this really fancy new IT system that they made everyone use that reported discrepancies - normally short-falls. The computer was reporting the wrong figures. But I think that type of evidence is quite hard to argue against.

Also there were large reported thefts that would have had a full trial with a jury, but if it didn't meet a threshold it was probably a summary offence in front of a magistrate or district judge rather than a jury.

It is a nightmare scenario - I feel like you see it in films - where all the computers are saying you did a crime and all you can say is either that they're all wrong or that there's a massive conspiracy. As it turned out, ultimately, they were and there was.

There appears to be definite room for improvement in the court system. Computer systems being wrong is a very common occurrence, and even twenty years ago computers weren't unknown entities that people had no experience with.

[Richard Hakluyt]

What I find curious is that the Post Office never seemed to wonder why so many of their subpostmasters had suddenly turned criminal after the introduction of a new system. The sudden increase would surely lead to investigating the new system as the first measure?

BTW Private Eye has been very good at keeping the subpostmasters cause alive over the years.

[garbon]

Really? Asking about tik tok knowledge?

Chinese food TikTok is the only thing that keeps making me think I should join

Not so much Chinese American TikTok, but the mad lads in Sichuan making massive hotpot with a three metre wide pan etc. Also really enjoy Chinese recipe TikTok. It all looks great and normally has an amazing soundtrack.

But I won't (yet) because I'm too old

I'm less of a video learner unless it is something specific like a demonstration (how do I do that in Excel, how do I tie a tie ).

[Sheilbh]

Generally with you - but I quite like recipe/cooking videos because it gives me an idea of roughly how something should look.

[garbon]

Generally with you - but I quite like recipe/cooking videos because it gives me an idea of roughly how something should look.

Oh sure, I think that fits in demos though yeah I tend to watch those less / am so happy to jump to recipe buttons on website recipes.

[Sheilbh]

There appears to be definite room for improvement in the court system. Computer systems being wrong is a very common occurrence, and even twenty years ago computers weren't unknown entities that people had no experience with.

Yeah - computer system is maybe overselling it. It was basically a till/transaction system.

So when people were tallying up at the end of the day there was a discrepancy (which they might make up from the corner shop part of their business) but it could be quite common and over time become quite a large amount.

As RH says it should have set alarm bells ringing that these people who were basically like franchisees and had for years been incredibly reliable, honest people were suddenly engaged in mass criminality. There's loads of details in the court cases but it is absolutely incredible - I think the system was launched in the 2000s and the Post Office started hearing about glitches more or less immediately and I think did some investigating with Fujitsu.

In the 2010s it got so bad they launched an investigation instructing I think an IT consultancy firm to look into the system. The senior management then pulled the plug and said they weren't interested in receiving the report from that investigation - the day before the report was to be delivered.

[HVC]

Really? Asking about tik tok knowledge?

Thats a random thing to be cranky about

It's making the rounds of the easily digestible media sites (buzzfeed and the like)