The Bluestocking Women's Pub, where brains can exist in a single state

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all. The booze here is minimally intoxicating, the food is calorie free and the staff are warm and cuddly. And if the thread title sounds nonsensical, blame the guy Myrtle was listening to this evening!

Bloody annoying. I hate those kind of "interviews" where they have a preferred candidate.

Onwards, Magpie! You are not simply a pawn in their game - you're a consummate professional. Many commiserations, there was nothing more you could have done.

The Cheerbils need to learn a commiseratory routine.
Or Rosy could.
X

@ErrolTheDragon I have never been tempted to bake but am now!

@FuzzyPuffling it definitely benefits from the addition of vinegar, imho.

Bad luck, Maggers. It is so bloody frustrating when you give ityour all and thrn find it was all stitched up from the start. I applied for a job once where I ticked every single obscure sodding box except having been on a course for how to lift boxes, and had plenty of relevant experience. I didn't even get an interview. They claimed the whole process was blinded (but obviously if you didn't know the buzz words to use your application would be straight in the bin). I was very pissed off, but it did mean we could get a puppy - which turned out to be Brains.

As for cake, I've never had one I didn't like except for red velvet, but I'd be willing to take one for the team and try variants.

I make a very nice plum cake of my own devising, which came from 'WTAF am I to do with this bag of plums I stoned and froze 18 months ago?'

Commiserations, Magpie. It does sound like the job had the bloke’s name on it - I really don’t know why they bother with that sort of process for internal promotions/role changes.

Sigh.

Gladys, Gaynor you're in the wrong place. Take your T and H and swap places with Gloria and Gertrude's C and K.

Commiserations Magpie. They probably have to go through the motions because legal but what a waste of everyone's time.

I had a chocolate beetroot cake at Fountains Abbey. It was lovely.

I'm trying to grow beetroot this year. I tried for the first time last year, they got infested with leaf miners. I think that's why the biggest one I grew was about the size of a ballbearing. I've got them under a cloche this time.

Red velvet cake isn't, in my experience, at all velvety. Should just be called red cake.

That recipe with the raspberries sound amazing though.

So sorry about that Magpie. It always hurts, doesn't it? and especially if you've put your all into the interview process but now that you see who got the job ...hmmm🤔

Because this thread moves at such lightning speed at times, I missed an opportunity to comment on something you wrote ..oh yonks ago by now!
You said something about how much you like your students, and I thought that was great.
I was struck - and horrified - by the attitude of some of my colleagues at uni who referred to students with a mixture of impatience, dismissal and sometimes even disdain.
I used to feel like grabbing them by the lapels and shaking them and saying 'They're why you have a job! they're what this institution is all about!'
but needless to say I didn't, I just channelled my energies into treating students with the same affection and respect that you said you have
So whatever role you have now, you are doing it with heart and soul, and your students are lucky.

Sorry to hear that, @Magpiecomplex .

I love the Commiseration Squad. Good work, gerbils.

Returning to the topic of garden parties and impromptu events - which was actually spread over two threads, maybe I should post this on both.

I note with concern that no thought has been given to the absolute sine qua non of all gatherings of women: the participation of 6' butch lesbians and bearded transmen.

I might be able to help with the first requirement, I'll have a haircut the day before, wear my sharpest suit, look as tall as possible say 'All right, babes?' a lot. However, I can't manage the beard...

Wait a minute - you know all those merkins that are going missing from washing lines - what? you haven't heard about it?

That's mainstream media all over, they don't WANT you to make the link between a spate of merkin thefts and the sudden and unexplained appearance of thousands of bearded transmen in women's toilets ....

They're called the 'Comizbils'

Bizarrely I brought all my washing in last night, wouldn't want it to get darked on, and awoke this morning to a full washing line and rather dirty bare feet (on me not the washing line). I wonder if I've been sleep walking?

Sorry to hear about the internal candidate, @Magpiecomplex

I had a piece of brownie last week: the main ingredient was sweet potato. It was delicious.

@MarieDeGournay I have PCOS, give me a chance to hide the tweezers and I could produce something approximating a beard. I'll wear high heels too, I can probably manage 5'11" in heels.

Apologies. I probably should have posted from Pedant's or Pedantry Corner (there's been a schism and I'm a little afraid to be seen to be taking sides).

Eta 'pendant' ffs! Autocorrupt! 😠

It's cosy here in Pendantry Corner

I used to work for a food company. They used cochineal for the colour of the pink sausages. £174 a tin (1991). It came in a tin very like paint. It was not paint.

"Cochineal" sounds so harmless and innocuous doesn't it? Until you know what it is made of

Shhhhhh...that's Boily's relatives!

😮How big was the tin?
(Sorry, Boily, need to know.)

Apparently nitrites and nitrates are also involved in making sausages pink ...

"The additives that make processed meats so much worse are the synthetic compound sodium nitrite (E250), along with sodium nitrate (E251) and potassium nitrate (E252). The latter two are both naturally occurring minerals – although they can be industrially synthesised – and have been used in meat curing for centuries, to give it colour and protect it from deadly bacteria. Other bacteria, during the curing process or in our mouths when we chew the meat, convert the nitrates into nitrites – which is why, collectively, these additives are often referred to simply as nitrates or nitrites." (From Grauniad in 2023)

So No more relative-eating! Cancer-causing nitrites win out!

By the way I'm a vegetarian moose, so haven't eaten sausages for several decades.

How did they discover fish swim bladders can be used to clarify beer!? Talking of things that you would think were vegetarian but aren't.

Which got me thinking that fish are used for clarity in booze and to obfusticate in sex. Also, drinking booze does not generally give clarity, although it might lead to sex.

I might need a flow chart.

😶