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Original poster

To be raging at shortbread instead of pastries?

208 replies

pinotnow · 12/06/2025 09:40

I am at a conference type event. As a teacher I rarely get to come on this type of thing. I've looked forward to the pastries on arrival throughout the two hour drive. I'm here and there are no pastries. It's biscuits of a shortbread type, which I don't like anyway and are not appropriate as a substitute for pastries. I haven't eaten so it's going to be a long morning until lunch, which I now have concerns about anyway.

Why is everything so relentlessly fucking shit now?

OP posts:
ButteredRadishes · 12/06/2025 10:40

SoScarletItWas · 12/06/2025 09:42

I’d storm the stage

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I'm writing a placard out right now. I'll be over to protest shortly

MiddleAgedDread · 12/06/2025 10:39

SillyMillie90 · 12/06/2025 09:43

That’s not how work conferences work. Work pays not you.

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your sense of humour is being returned in the post

ButteredRadishes · 12/06/2025 10:39

Mistyglade · 12/06/2025 10:36

I’d call the police.

it will be added to The Pastry Misdemeanour logs

Pinkyplat · 12/06/2025 10:39

Bjorkdidit · 12/06/2025 09:52

Neither are pastries. Considering how carb avoidant MN is and obssessed with 'protein and veg’, I’m surprised about the enthusiasm for ‘pastries’ aka sweet air on here.

Seems like a good way to eat a lot of calories that make you starving hungry an hour later rather than provide any actual sustenance to me.

Wouldn't you have breakfast before you arrived anyway?

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Yes, obviously neither pastries nor shortbread are nutritionally good. But eating pastries is a much better experience than eating shortbread. Even proper, all-butter shortbread (and something tells me that a conference might be serving some margerine-based abomination) is basically a big tasteless stodgy brick of empty calories.

ButteredRadishes · 12/06/2025 10:38

SillyMillie90 · 12/06/2025 09:43

That’s not how work conferences work. Work pays not you.

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.. she knows that... she was being silly

randoname · 12/06/2025 10:37

Thoughts and prayers OP 🥰
I’m reminded of a note in the church newsletter recently inviting parishioners to attend a sing along at a local care home, “we’ll likely be offered a cup of tea afterwards”

IHateWasps · 12/06/2025 10:36

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 12/06/2025 10:33

I can't eat chocolate so it's raisins all the way for me. I can't even eat chcoolate SHORTBREAD. The world is a cruel place.

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In that case you have my sincere sympathies and I hope that every event that you attend from now on is positively festooned with pain au raisins.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 12/06/2025 10:36

Shortbread is a nice biscuit for mid afternoon or even mid morning break, but it’s not a breakfast item.

Did the conference start later than last year maybe?

Mistyglade · 12/06/2025 10:36

I’d call the police.

Reallybadidea · 12/06/2025 10:35

You think that's bad, I got up at 5am last Monday to travel to a "breakfast" meeting and there was no fucking breakfast. At all. The person organising it forgot to order the breakfast 😭

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 12/06/2025 10:33

IHateWasps · 12/06/2025 10:31

I was with you until raisins. Pain au chocolat are far superior.

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I can't eat chocolate so it's raisins all the way for me. I can't even eat chcoolate SHORTBREAD. The world is a cruel place.

IHateWasps · 12/06/2025 10:31

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 12/06/2025 10:21

Now I like shortbread. But we all know that the only acceptable foods on arrival at such a gathering are mini croissants, pain au raisin and those weird things with custard in. The only way you can go wrong with those is by not having enough.

Shortbread is a biscuit item. It is not a 'gathering in of the flock' item. I'd sue.

I was with you until raisins. Pain au chocolat are far superior.

LoveSandbanks · 12/06/2025 10:28

I feel your pain. My pastries are an appropriate reward for a 2 hr drive. Biscuits (of whatever type) are not. I am gluten free and pastries is one of the things I miss most. Just the thought of a danish pastry makes my mouth water. Thinking of a shortbread biscuit does not.

janeandmarysmum · 12/06/2025 10:26

I'm coeliac. While all you non-coeliac people enjoy your pastries and shortbread, I have to make do with some wrapped grimness that generally tastes like cardboard.

Togetheragain45 · 12/06/2025 10:23

Have you arranged to have counselling? It may take some time for you to come to terms with the lack of pastries but you'll get there in the end.

BarnacleBeasley · 12/06/2025 10:23

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 12/06/2025 10:21

Now I like shortbread. But we all know that the only acceptable foods on arrival at such a gathering are mini croissants, pain au raisin and those weird things with custard in. The only way you can go wrong with those is by not having enough.

Shortbread is a biscuit item. It is not a 'gathering in of the flock' item. I'd sue.

Yes, and those ones with jam in the middle and some white icing weirdly drizzled over the top. They're not objectively nice pastries, but I still want to eat them.

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 12/06/2025 10:21

Now I like shortbread. But we all know that the only acceptable foods on arrival at such a gathering are mini croissants, pain au raisin and those weird things with custard in. The only way you can go wrong with those is by not having enough.

Shortbread is a biscuit item. It is not a 'gathering in of the flock' item. I'd sue.

IHateWasps · 12/06/2025 10:20

I love shortbread and it has its place but pastries are a must at events like these and shortbread is a poor substitute.

Pottedpalm · 12/06/2025 10:19

@pinotnow
those saying you are BU are clearly not teachers. Teachers so rarely get a day out of school at a course or conference that it is a big treat, and everything must be right, including the pastries.
In the heady days before my school cut down drastically on courses, saying that we could Learn From Each Other instead.. 😥.. I spent a happy day on a course in Birmingham ( Edexcel maths of some sort). Drinks and pastries on arrival, sweets on the tables all day, fresh cream cakes with morning coffee, huge lunch.. and as we all dozed happily mid afternoon more cakes and tea appeared. I don’t think many were able to do them justice but we reminisced for years!

spoonbillstretford · 12/06/2025 10:18

I love a good shortbread biscuit but it's not a breakfast pastry.

If the conference were in France the teachers would already be out on strike right now, so think on!

KimberleyClark · 12/06/2025 10:15

MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble · 12/06/2025 09:49

Also, all those people saying that shortbread is shit. It’s like those people who say sex is a bit dull: you’re either crazy or you’re not doing it right. Good shortbread is the stuff of dreams. Soft, sweet, crumbly. My grandmother used to make the absolute best.

Absolutely this. A tin of M & S shortbread is my favourite Christmas treat.

MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble · 12/06/2025 10:10

PondGhost · 12/06/2025 10:02

Well, I appreciate the intention!😀

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I mean, of course there is absolutely no way I can use any of the other responses for risk you think I agree with you and so I let my beloved shortbread and all my fellow shortbread fans down.
I’d suggest there’s money in writing a cake/biscuit/pudding Kama Sutra - ‘Champagne Room with a touch of lemon drizzle’ - but, as ‘disappointing missionary with an accompaniment of shortbread’ proves, clearly no one would agree on what would match what.

DrFoxtrot · 12/06/2025 10:04

I once went to an event where they served a rich chocolate tiffin type thing at registration. I was also expecting pastries!

PondGhost · 12/06/2025 10:02

MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble · 12/06/2025 09:54

And this is why they need to bring back the laughing reaction to MN.

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Well, I appreciate the intention!😀

StellaAndCrow · 12/06/2025 10:01

You are SO not being unreasonable that I have voted for the very first time!