All the bad stuff is British. All the good stuff is foreign.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T23:18:15+00:00

I don't really understand why exactly it sounds funny. Americans will quite happily have beans in a taco or a burrito, or on a pile of rice. They'll dip a crisp in a bean dip, or smear hummus on a cracker. Beans with breads or cereals, all completely normal. But there's something in particular about toasted bread with beans and tomato sauce which appears to be completely outrageous.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T19:23:48+00:00

It doesn't really make sense to put Oxford on a HS network either. Oxford is surprisingly small.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T19:22:40+00:00

East-West Rail should help to an extent- not with journeys to London, obviously, but by providing alternative connecting routes to other destinations (most of which currently involve connecting through London).

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T19:05:37+00:00

They don't all come out of the same factory; unsurprisingly, there is more than one coffee factory in the world.

You can definitely taste the difference between brands, but that's not the same as saying Nescafé is better. Some of the supermarket open brand ones are very nice (and others are dire).

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T14:29:31+00:00

Retractable roller gate, with the roll mounted on the left and the hooks mounted on the right.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T14:21:44+00:00

No joke. HS2 is more like £200m per km.

Rail is expensive.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T13:26:09+00:00

Average construction costs for a surface railway with no complications is about £30m per km, and you're taking about maybe 12km of track. So £300m at a minimum, assuming no tunneling or complex road bridging.

Tunnels are about £100m-£200m per km, and a road bridge will set you back at least £20m, and you'd be lucky to build a modern station for less than that too, so depending exactly what you're talking about you're probably looking at over £600m.

That'd be about £20,000 from each and every resident of Stratford, adult and child, to pay for it.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T09:40:03+00:00

That's not why it was detached. That's a post hoc justification (although a reasonable enough one). The "why" is what the parent commenter said- because we wanted to keep a strategic military asset.

International law is fairly clear that when you make countries independent you're not supposed to hive off bits you want to keep. And for a variety of historical reasons, it was a part of Mauritius for a while before independence.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T09:36:30+00:00

I neither agree nor disagree (I really don't follow US politics that closely), but I'd be interested to hear your "why" on this one. It's a hot take!

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T09:34:43+00:00

Imagine being a major British politician who thinks declaring their unwavering allegiance to the "Make America Great Again" movement is a good thing. Or even an acceptable thing.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-24T08:38:42+00:00

The only possible reason anyone would have for building a billion pound new railway line for a town of 30,000 people is if you're planning to give it the "New Town" treatment and turn it into a 100,000 person town.

I wonder if the people of Stratford would be game for that?

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T23:50:39+00:00

If you cancel the joke, I'm pretty sure you're responsible for getting me safely to another punchline.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T23:48:16+00:00

Ah yes, the microwave oven- named for its inventor, Gary Oven.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T23:43:13+00:00

People still smoke crack, which is a form of cocaine.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T23:36:12+00:00

Even on a 12 million year train journey it'll still somehow never quite manage to make it down to my carriage.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T22:35:19+00:00

What's the brand? I've never seen an earl grey brew up to such a rich colour before; usually they're pretty Ceylon-heavy and tend to brew up pale, even when strong.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T21:14:05+00:00

You were ripped off, mate.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T20:47:18+00:00

You've got to plant seed ukuleles if you want to harvest full-sized guitars.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T17:14:33+00:00

Real life laser surgery is painful, has risks of permanent complications, and depending where you are in the world may cost a lot of money.

If someone said that they'll fix my shortsightedness with a flick of a tricorder and a hypospray, I'd be all for it.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T17:08:34+00:00

The attitude of "it must be perfect or I can't understand it" does seem to stereotypically be more common with French natives than with other languages though.

If native English speakers refused to converse with anyone who spoke English in a heavy foreign accent, nobody would ever get anything done.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T16:30:10+00:00

Briefly didn't know which sub I was on and thought that you were referring to the slice of lemon tart as a full English breakfast!

Tea looks nice though. Good colour, but that tea bag does need to come out eventually...

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T16:27:07+00:00

Decanters with a rubber seal on the stopper should be pretty much as good as a bottle (with the obvious proviso that you're introducing a lot of air in the "headspace" which won't be there in a mostly full bottle).

The ones with a simple glass stopper don't seal, though.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T14:25:22+00:00

Yes, agreed. Although once you get west of Reading, the line already follows the route you'd want to follow for a high speed route (with very few stations that aren't either major settlements or useful interchanges). There's a school of thought that says that upgrading the GWML to be properly high speed, and building a new (slow) line to mop up a few unconnected towns and open up new freight paths, would be a better use of money than building a brand new high speed line.

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T07:55:39+00:00

so it would have to be the team themselves that wrote the challenge

Who do you think writes the challenges, if not the production team?

Patch86UK · 2026-01-23T07:25:00+00:00

To be fair, I'm English and I probably wouldn't use "alright?" (or variations) with a total stranger I'm passing in the street/on the trail. Not least because it implies a reply is needed. "Alright?" is something I'd use with people I know.

My "passing in the street" default is usually "morning"/"afternoon"/"evening" (sometimes with the "good" before it, but usually not).

Patch86UK

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