It's slightly unexpected that the cause of beex's final descent into internecine warfare is my inclusion of celery in dinner.

Gah. You haven't tried a buttermilk dressing Waldorf salad with a Pimms, in the garden with friends, on a perfect, warm, late May afternoon, lovely crunchy celery and all? Then you haven't lived. Everything in its place etc.

Put it this way, it sure as hell beats the crap out of oven chips and microwave rice pouches in front of the TV (or indeed faux McMuffins for that matter), that's for sure.

Gah. You haven't tried a buttermilk dressing Waldorf salad with a Pimms, in the garden with friends, on a perfect, warm, late May afternoon, lovely crunchy celery and all? Then you haven't lived. Everything in its place etc.

Put it this way, it sure as hell beats the crap out of oven chips and microwave rice pouches in front of the TV (or indeed faux McMuffins for that matter), that's for sure.

Gah. You haven't tried a buttermilk dressing Waldorf salad with a Pimms, in the garden with friends, on a perfect, warm, late May afternoon, lovely crunchy celery and all? Then you haven't lived. Everything in its place etc.

Put it this way, it sure as hell beats the crap out of oven chips and microwave rice pouches in front of the TV (or indeed faux McMuffins for that matter), that's for sure.

Wow, way to yuck other people's yums.

Not yummy.

Next he'll be slagging off everyones Porscheon sizes.

Well to be fair, FWIW, I can barely post anything at all, ever, without someone leaping in with some shite or other, but that's fair enough I'm a big boy etc. - I just give it right back, in spades. As for Hearthly, he and I have known each other for 15-odd years and have had some right old jousts; I seriously, seriously doubt he's remotely bothered by this micro-storm in a thimble but if he is, I'm sure he'll let me know himself.

The issue, for me at least, is that people are leaping in making wide, sweeping statements about what is, and is not shit, with all sorts of "well, I've got my Asda crisps" type posts in what's supposed to be a food and cooking thread. For me, the analogy is me repeatedly going into the PC thread saying "all custom PCs are total shit, my 5-year old laptop is all you need", or perhaps "all console games are utter shit" in the PS4 thread, or "I don't do any exercise at all and am fucking loving it" in the middle aged spread thread. No-one is saying I CAN'T do this/I don't have freedom of speech, but equally, I'm sure it would be considered unhelpful at best and annoying spamming at worst, no doubt attracting criticism of some sort or other.

As for the money card, the irony for me is that, as I've said, Kashmiri chillies and other similarly directly sourced spices cost mere pence - much cheaper, in fact, than shop-bought, if bought in reasonable quantities. I wouldn't mind if I'd come on here and said "eat caviar or you're a pleb" or somesuch, but I very much haven't; Waldorf salad is far from expensive to make either - far, far less per portion than a McMuffin breakfast meal from Maccies.

Bad diet and obesity (so often going hand in hand) kills millions of people years before their time every year, and causes untold, largely avoidable misery. I make no apology whatsoever for "looking down on" rice chips fried onion and curry as some supposed crab linguine or similar busting meal, or "all celery in all forms is utter shit" type comments, and nor do I make any apology for coming down hard on what I consider to be inverted snobbery and/or peer pressure type comments, like somehow I'm a "snob" or "posh" because hey, I like to prepare and eat good food. I wish far more people did it, because they'd likely live a lot longer, happier lives.

I'm reminded of when I was a 16 year old sheet metal worker apprentice, sat in smoke-filled factory cabins during break time, being surrounded by 30 adult men - all well senior to me - every single one of them Sun newspaper in one hand, B&H gold in the other, being "expected" to be "one of them" and buy my own Sun and fags. I decided even at that tender age, and despite having the most precarious existence possible, suffering real hunger and poverty that I very much fucking doubt very few here knows the first thing about (but could be wrong), I wasn't going to read that rag; I wasn't going to do stuff that I thought was shit, just because it made others comfortable for me to do so, to conform with the herd. I do things because *I* want to do them, whether others like it, or not, because it's *my* life and how I wish to lead it.

I'll let others be the judge as to whether I'm a nice guy or not. IRL, dare I say, people seem to think so - but this is a strange virtual place that, IMO, brings out the very worst in people, me included perhaps.

It's like the constant mentions of 70/95k porsches that are shorthand mockery of someone's public declaration of wealth/jealousy (I skimmed it a few weeks back but cars aren't really an interest of mine unless they are pink or mint green, so wasn't quite sure what was going on).

Cooked celery is a disgusting, slimy mess. Raw is a delicious crunch.

That's not mocking wealth, that's mocking pomposity.

You have a point Mark - but the emotive use of the term "crusade" totally undermines it. (I'm not saying I'm any better btw; this is kinda the point; it's difficult for any genuine, civil debate to take place at all, here, unless it's the Kleeeeeeeeek(tm) whereupon people largely agree anyway).

For the record I am not on a "healthy eating crusade" as such, I eat too much generally, and too much fatty foods specifically. However, I still think there's *some* truth in the quality of food being important; organic veg > normal > GM for instance, or freedom food meat > hormone and antibiotic pumped factory reared meat etc. But that's another debate.

No, I'm simply suggesting that bothering to cook and create meals from scratch is a pleasurable and worthwhile thing to do, and as a byproduct is often a healthier overall option, and therefore likely to have some health benefits? I really don't see that as contentious but then, this is Beex we're talking about, right?

Call it arrogance, conceit whatever, but I feel entirely comfortable that if I have done anything it's no worse than anyone else

I hardly think I'm acting innocent, I've said repeatedly I'm no better (but no worse) than anyone else.
I'd by lying if I said I wasn't hurt at times by this shit, but hey, I'll get over it.

You can broccoli my ear at bbq if you want.

That's an image I didn't need.

presumably because you were pissed that I'd proved that mean, cost-of-living adjusted incomes among the working - including the early 20s - hadn't just increased from the mid 70s and early 80s as I'd originally claimed - but actually rocketed in fact, as according to the ONS

Got a phone full, darlin'.

Mate, you're just embarrassing yourself now. You said that in response to his initial claim that millennials had less *disposable income* than your generation, but that wasn't ever in question. It was totally irrelevant as a statistic on its own and proving it had no point.

You offered nothing that disproved that initial statement.

Well now I just want a McMuffin.

In your mind, I don't doubt you believe that. Sadly the reality, though, is that I was specifically talking about people in their early 20s (say, 21-25) and for them, it is inarguably the case, as according to the ONS info that I posted, that average incomes among the working, fully adjusted for cost of living, have increased, and not even by just a few % either. So this means that people in those age groups will likely have more money in their pocket e.g. to spend on luxury items like cars, than ever their forebears in the mid 70s or early 80s did. That's simply a fact, and no amount of "yeah but house prices" is going to change that. (People in their early 20s were hardly buying houses in their droves in the mid 70s or early 80s, not least because credit was *unbelievably* much harder to get than it is now, especially mortgages, but it's an irrelevance to my argument about buying cars. Have you seen the year-on-year *record* new car UK registrations? I mean apart from the compelling ONS data, how do you suppose that happens FFS?)

I really don't have the time to trot through the same old crap yet again (In another thread), I got things to do. As I said at the time, either believe, or don't believe - if it's the latter, I really can't help you.

But, coming back with counter-arguments, however irrelevant or bad is one thing, which I can deal with. Just trolling saying how crap I am without offering any actual counterargument at all is quite another, and as I've said, I feel entirely comfortable in responding accordingly.

Why thanks. I like to think so.

Why thanks. I like to think so.

Just desserts matey.

Never change.

Waste of good broccoli. Very much my favourite vegetable. I have it with everything.

Just seen a tweet about lemon meringue pie and now I really want puddings. All the puddings.

Just desserts matey.