So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Edward]

^^^^ Yes, Edward, I assume that is the case here too. No one wants to be first to complain about a church, for fear of being called an anti-religious devil worshipping communist who hates America. Come to think of it, I’ll just put up with the noise.

In other edgy news (and staying clear of politics)…. BoJo has resigned! Love him or hate him, he was a colorful character. (I have a photo of my best friend’s wife shaking hands with him.) But why on earth did he decide that uncombed hair was going to be his signature trademark???

Probably best we stay clear of politicians entirely, past experience being that politics inevitably leaks into discussions of politicians.

 

[Ticklishchap]

… Going back to the ‘ticked off’ theme:

Heatwave headlines crying out: ‘London to be hotter than Ouagadougou’ or something. …

WTF .

 

[Edward]

… Going back to the ‘ticked off’ theme:

Heatwave headlines crying out: ‘London to be hotter than Ouagadougou’ or something. …

WTF .

We haven't had this year's "You wouldn't be allowed to transport animals in the temperatures we're currently suffering on the tube!" yet...

It is hellish out there today, though. I'm on leave from Monday til the end of the month, and dreading it. If only the leave year would go back to the old way of the calendar year, I much prefer taking time off later on when the temperature has reduced. :-/

 

[Ticklishchap]

We haven't had this year's "You wouldn't be allowed to transport animals in the temperatures we're currently suffering on the tube!" yet...

It is hellish out there today, though. I'm on leave from Monday til the end of the month, and dreading it. If only the leave year would go back to the old way of the calendar year, I much prefer taking time off later on when the temperature has reduced. :-/

I very much agree. We are talking Seventh Circle of Hell. Fortunately I am working from home for the next week and don't have to venture into central London from the SW suburbs. I am not designed for this type of weather, being fair skinned with dark red hair, etc. My ancestors came from North of the Border and it shows. Another irritate at this time of year are journalists and weather forecasters telling us that we are going to be 'enjoying' temperatures of 30C (that's bordering 90F in the old money). Enjoy what? Sweating? Feeling as if you brain is being scrambled? I just don't get it. Roll on autumn and Woolly Pully weather.

 

[Edward]

I very much agree. We are talking Seventh Circle of Hell. Fortunately I am working from home for the next week and don't have to venture into central London from the SW suburbs. I am not designed for this type of weather, being fair skinned with dark red hair, etc. My ancestors came from North of the Border and it shows. Another irritate at this time of year are journalists and weather forecasters telling us that we are going to be 'enjoying' temperatures of 30C (that's bordering 90F in the old money). Enjoy what? Sweating? Feeling as if you brain is being scrambled? I just don't get it. Roll on autumn and Woolly Pully weather.

Oh, yes, don't get me started on the subjective value judgements made by weather forecasters!!!

 

[Turnip]

… Going back to the ‘ticked off’ theme:

Heatwave headlines crying out: ‘London to be hotter than Ouagadougou’ or something. …

WTF .

One of the few reasons to really enjoy work, even overtime, sitting in my air conditioned office then.

 

[Turnip]

A common comment you’ll hear from Americans is that Germans tend to “over engineer” things. Meaning, I guess, that things are designed and built too well or too sturdily for their anticipated use/lifespan, and are therefore too expensive. This quickly bleeds into a discussion of America’s throw away culture vs Germany’s obsession with precision. I used to sense (based on no exact information) that both cultures were lazily drifting towards each other… meaning that Americans are not quite as “disposable “ as they used to be, and Germans are relaxing their standards a bit. Not sure if this is true. Just an idea that I sometimes played with.

Around Ingolstadt, more and more craftsmen are refusing orders from Audi employees. Tilers, heating engineers, bricklayers... are fed up with complaints when joints or the like are measured with calipers and tears flow at two tenths of a millimeter deviation.

 

[Ticklishchap]

The latest media thing, after being told we’re going to ‘enjoy’ the heatwave, is to have endless warning to stay out of the sun at all costs or - to use the immortal words of Private Fraser in ‘Dad’s Army’ - ‘we’re all doooomed’ … As usual in modern Britain, there’s no middle way.

That brings me to another thing: the health warnings. The latest was ‘if you can’t stand on one leg while shaving you’re more likely to die (“we’re all doomed”, again) of a stroke, heart disease, etc. But these threats seem to come all the time: more than four squares of chocolate and it’s death by cholesterol; how many glasses of wine should you have a week if you don’t want to die early?; 6 telltale signs of impending deadly disease to look out for on the little toe of your left foot when there’s a full moon.

OK. I’m exaggerating and the last one was completely fictitious. But you get the general picture. There’s probably a health warning about getting philosophical on a hot Sunday afternoon, but could all this be that as a society we are becoming paralysed by fear of death? So much so, it seems, that long life has become more important than quality of life. We’re being conditioned to be afraid all the time when we’re well, and to believe that it is better to live until we are senile or incontinent than be in some other place -or no place.

Just a thought.

 

[Who?]

That brings me to another thing: the health warnings. The latest was ‘if you can’t stand on one leg while shaving you’re more likely to die (“we’re all doomed”, again) of a stroke, heart disease, etc. But these threats seem to come all the time: more than four squares of chocolate and it’s death by cholesterol; how many glasses of wine should you have a week if you don’t want to die early?; 6 telltale signs of impending deadly disease to look out for on the little toe of your left foot when there’s a full moon.

Just a thought.

In a similar vein, the seemingly endless stream of “Is it safe to ……. ?” usually followed by a question of breathtaking stupidity, the answer to which is frequently “Of course it is!”

 

[Ticklishchap]

In a similar vein, the seemingly endless stream of “Is it safe to ……. ?” usually followed by a question of breathtaking stupidity, the answer to which is frequently “Of course it is!”

Agreed. And it’s always applied to things that make life enjoyable.

 

[GHT]

Agreed. And it’s always applied to things that make life enjoyable.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nobody likes to hear it said, but we're all going to die. I'm going to die, you're going to die, they're going to die, and in a hundred and fifty years or so it'll be as if the overwhelming majority of us alive now had never lived at all.

And pretty much all of human civilization has been invented in an effort to deny that grim and inescapable reality.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Re: the health warnings.
Since returning to the U.S., I’ve been compiling a fairly long list of things that annoy me over here. I know, I know. I’m trying to tone it down, because I know what I sound like. Anyway, high on the list are commercials featuring happy, attractive people who got that way by taking drug X for ailment X… then at the end of the commercial, a fast talking voice comes on saying “warning! May make your head explode, may cause you to poop out your eyeballs or sneeze out your colon. May cause instant death or urges to strangle puppies…”. These ads seem to be on all the time and on every channel. Thank goodness for the mute button.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I’m torn on the entire matter of the advertising of prescription drugs.

Still, a failure to disclose the potential for adverse effects would be irresponsible at best.

 

[Turnip]

That’s why I almost solely watch public-law broadcasters meanwhile.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Re: the health warnings.
Since returning to the U.S., I’ve been compiling a fairly long list of things that annoy me over here. I know, I know. I’m trying to tone it down, because I know what I sound like. Anyway, high on the list are commercials featuring happy, attractive people who got that way by taking drug X for ailment X… then at the end of the commercial, a fast talking voice comes on saying “warning! May make your head explode, may cause you to poop out your eyeballs or sneeze out your colon. May cause instant death or urges to strangle puppies…”. These ads seem to be on all the time and on every channel. Thank goodness for the mute button.

Agreed. It is essentially a “self-help”, consumerist approach to health and “wellness”, with Big Pharma pulling the strings and promoting toxic products - rather like the poisonous ‘elixirs of life’ taken in some ancient civilisations.

I must qualify the above statement by making clear that I am in favour of Western medicine and pro-vaccine. But what you describe are commercialised products if dubious therapeutic value. I don’t want to get too close to politics, but there is surely some connection to the US model of corporate health care.

 

[Bushman]

… Going back to the ‘ticked off’ theme:

Heatwave headlines crying out: ‘London to be hotter than Ouagadougou’ or something. …

WTF .

I consider myself fairly well geographically versed, but I had to look up where that city is.

Then I had to look up where the country that city is in is.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I consider myself fairly well geographically versed, but I had to look up where that city is.

Then I had to look up where the country that city is in is.

Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta.
I deliberately chose a place that was obscure (from a European or North American standpoint) and hot.

Americans have an interesting relationship with geography. I can remember a UCLA graduate on my postgrad course back in the day asking: ‘Is India near England’. Also in the mid-80s I was travelling around the East Coast visiting friends and I was staying for a while with an artistic-bohemian couple living on NY’s Upper West Side. Both were educated people but they told me one evening that they had no ideas where their neighbours came from:

‘They’re Black but they speak a kind of French.’

I told them that they were from Haiti: first Black republic; second revolution in the New World.

‘Oh, really?’

It seemed comical at the time that I had to come from London to explain to them the ethnic and cultural origins of their neighbours.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Americans have an interesting relationship with geography...

If, by "relationship", you mean we Americans tend to ignore it almost completely, I couldn't agree more. Furthermore, our level of apathy is occasionally embarrassing, and might be somewhat comical if it weren't so pathetic. I wish I, as a native American, could say I was different, but I'm not. And now...well, I'm at the age when I'm trying to simplify my life rather than make it even more complicated, so unless a freak storm hits Saint Helena Island and somehow restricts their ability to sell fish I like in a local market, I just can't work up the energy to wonder about what happens there on an average day.

 

[Who?]

Nobody likes to hear it said, but we're all going to die. I'm going to die, you're going to die, they're going to die, and in a hundred and fifty years or so it'll be as if the overwhelming majority of us alive now had never lived at all.

And pretty much all of human civilization has been invented in an effort to deny that grim and inescapable reality.

I would presume to replace the words “human civilization” in that statement with the single word “religion”.