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Am I getting old and intolerant?


Georgina
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[quote user="Georgina"]
For the record, I cannot tolerate bad manners LOL
[/quote]Yet you would go up to a stranger in a restaurant and criticise their behviour. What gives you the right to be downright rude. I detect a slight scent of hypocrisy here
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Wel, chaps, i have to confess my fault; I f art in public, particularly restaurants. Am I so reprehensible, so beyond the pale?

Will you all come and tell me off, shout at me over the steak, complain about the stink over the champignons?

Hahahahahaha, but then I am old enoiugh to get away with it, by staring at an old person or even better a child, so that you will all blame them and this I will remain and English gentleman!.
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None of us are perfect and most of us have foibles that will irritate other people so IMO tolerance is required. It's just simple good manners to ignore these and not cause a scene in a public place. Of course how you react in your own home is entirely your own business
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[quote user="Chancer"]I very rarely have the money to eat out and dont want the rare experience spoiled, lets hope that I am lucky enough to have the lad and his family at the next table and not Georgina who it would appear has answered her own question quite explicitly.[/quote]#

Sigh, always one has to be horrid

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[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="Georgina"]

For the record, I cannot tolerate bad manners LOL

[/quote]Yet you would go up to a stranger in a restaurant and criticise their behviour. What gives you the right to be downright rude. I detect a slight scent of hypocrisy here[/quote]

No I didn't.... she just ruined my meal

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[quote user="Georgina"][quote user="Chancer"]I very rarely have the money to eat out and dont want the rare experience spoiled, lets hope that I am lucky enough to have the lad and his family at the next table and not Georgina who it would appear has answered her own question quite explicitly.[/quote]#


Sigh, always one has to be horrid
[/quote]

Not always, I hope you and your family have a good trip back at Christmas and enjoy your time there.

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[quote user="Georgina"][quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="Georgina"]
For the record, I cannot tolerate bad manners LOL
[/quote]Yet you would go up to a stranger in a restaurant and criticise their behviour. What gives you the right to be downright rude. I detect a slight scent of hypocrisy here[/quote]

No I didn't.... she just ruined my meal
[/quote]I am genuinely sorry that your meal was ruined. You clearly stated in your original post that if you had been in England you would have gone up and remonstrated with the offender. Sorry if I took this remark at face value but I find it rude to criticise a stranger in a public place. I think the best procedure in these circumstances is to concentrate on your companions and ignore the obnoxious behaviour of some strangers

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Well it was a good conversation, got a lot of replies, i wasn't looking for an answer to people being rude, just a light hearted conversation with my fellow countrymen about how we deal with it here as opposed to in Britain. I guess I will just ask the French now.

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[:P]But Wooly, as a confessed farter at the dinner table, would it matter which way she sat, that is the thing about fart's, even if you miss the noise, the smell 'll still be there............................[Www]

 

I wouldn't put up with nappy changing at a dinner table, I'd go and ask for the manager and tell them that I would take photos and report them to the DDASS, as excretia on the dinner table was not permitted........and they'd end up being fined or closed down.  I would be convincing too as I would feel on pretty safe ground here, I have already reported a boulangerie to the DDASS and not for something as degueulas as poo....... who were fined and had to spend a lot of money to get their place up to scratch!!!!!

 Anyone else's foibles, well, and there was me thinking I was really intolerant these days, but apparently not as much as I thought I was!

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Obsessive nailbiting is a habit and very hard to stop, I know because until I was a teenager I chewed mine to the extent that my mother had to buy a special liquid to paint on my fingers that burned my mouth when I tried to bite but it cured me and I have had lovely nails since I was married.  I don't think seeing someone bite their nails at the table would upset me, the baby changing would and in my opinion is far more horrendous. The diner in question may have been stressed out or even hungry if the meal hadn't appeared but to be honest, life is too dam short to worry about such things. What about all the restos where disgruntled staff pee in and do other nasties to the food that we don't know about, thats more of a worry I would have thought!
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Val, I have heard about, and indeed know from people I know in the catering trade, the sort of things they do to your meal, ESPECIALLY if you send it back and complain!

We seldom eat out mostly because OH doesn't eat meat and that makes eating out not difficult but certainly expensive as he's only got the à la carte option offered at better and more expensive restaurants.

 I enjoy cooking so it's not a problem for me and I do eat out with friends if I feel like it!

We have Brit neighbours who eat out regularly and she is overweight and unhealthy looking and they could both have stomach "upsets" (no, I won't use their graphic descriptions) for months on end.

Don't know if any of it is merely circumstantial evidence but, for myself, I enjoy nothing more than cooking a delicious meal and taking aperos and coffee on our veranda before and after it![:D]

 

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Well I worked as a pub chef when my youngest was a baby, a few evenings per week and although I never did or would do anything to a meal, I do know from the head chef that he had witnessed people spitting or poking returned meals with their fingers before and we are talking over 20 odd years ago so it has gone on since Adam was a wee lad.

Like you, I prefer to cook and eat at home, eating out always worries me and the visit we made to a local chinese buffet earlier this year was concerning because the food was not hot nor cold, but lukewarm and we all know that is the temperature that the bugs set in at best so I avoided a lot of it. I don't eat any meat other than poultry so quite often there is not a lot of choice and therefore I will not pay for something I can do better at home and as for the local speciality restaurants of the region - Crêperies, I feel they are dying out because people just cannot afford to pay a minimum now of €3 for a basic crêpe when you need at least four for a decent meal plus your drinks on top of that.

Talking about unhealthy eating out, my son went to a Pataterie near his home in Brest the other evening with friends and even along with the stuffed potatoes there were portions of frites on offer as well, a bit like eating mashed potato and boiled rice to me at the same meal!

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[quote user="woolybanana"]But, so many restos serve c rap, so what is the difference? Remember andouillettes, they smell worse than any ...[/quote]

 

I never find that andouillettes stink, it is the taste, they taste like crap smells and I could heave just now, even just thinking about them does that to me![+o(]

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If one is happy enough to eat oysters or see people eating them - after all its like eating the contents of your hankie when you have a bad cold - I can't see that a bit of public nail biting is objectionable, and if you can't avoid seeing something that you don't like you can always move seats.

A few years ago, not far from Val's neck of the woods, we stopped on the way to Roscoff at the restaurant on the main road in Pleyber-Christ. At a nearby table was a French couple, I guess in their thirties and neither much of a catch, who seemed to be on a date. At one point he absent mindedly picked his nose and popped the result into his mouth. Suddenly realising that his date was watching him he looked very sheepish, but, presumably to put him at ease, lo and behold she smiled and did the same! Fortunately it all stopped there as I couldn't take my eyes off them, but I've always wondered if when they got home they went a stage further and did a bit of bogey-sharing.

Personally I find loud British people objectionable in restaurants. I'm not talking yobish behaviour, but the grey bun, tweed skirt, poncho wearing sort, when everything is said so that everyone else in the restaurant can hear it so that before they leave everyone who understands English knows how well travelled they are, their favourite city, restaurant, dish, which Volvo they have, and so on.

Three slices of hot andouille de Guemene on my salad, mmmmmmmmm.

Steve

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[quote user="SC"]

Personally I find loud British people objectionable in restaurants. I'm not talking yobish behaviour, but the grey bun, tweed skirt, poncho wearing sort, when everything is said so that everyone else in the restaurant can hear it so that before they leave everyone who understands English knows how well travelled they are, their favourite city, restaurant, dish, which Volvo they have, and so on.

Steve

[/quote]

Well, Steve, wouldn't you know, I started a thread specifically about this matter you have mentioned:

http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/2689649/ShowPost.aspx

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To go back to your original question Georgina. You've only given one example of your intolerance, but I certainly believe that I have become more intolerant than I was:

I shout rude words at other drivers when I'm in my car on the grounds that they're in my way.

I complain loudly at the repetition, the bad jokes, the sheer mind-numbing ordinariness of presenters on TV, at the loud music that drowns out conversation, at the frequency of the ads, at yet another celebrity off on a jolly half-way round the world telling us how wonderful it all is.

At church yesterday with my daughter during a 40 minute sermon by the Vicar, I showed my displeasure by sighing loudly, yawning widely and asking her in stage whispers if he always went on for so long, and what time the service was likely to end.

I think I used to be more forgiving, but life's too short now!

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[quote user="Frecossais"]

At church yesterday with my daughter during a 40 minute sermon by the Vicar, I showed my displeasure by sighing loudly, yawning widely and asking her in stage whispers if he always went on for so long, and what time the service was likely to end.

[/quote]

Isn't that what five-year-olds do?[:D]

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[quote user="Frecossais"]To go back to your original question Georgina. You've only given one example of your intolerance, but I certainly believe that I have become more intolerant than I was:

I shout rude words at other drivers when I'm in my car on the grounds that they're in my way.

I complain loudly at the repetition, the bad jokes, the sheer mind-numbing ordinariness of presenters on TV, at the loud music that drowns out conversation, at the frequency of the ads, at yet another celebrity off on a jolly half-way round the world telling us how wonderful it all is.

At church yesterday with my daughter during a 40 minute sermon by the Vicar, I showed my displeasure by sighing loudly, yawning widely and asking her in stage whispers if he always went on for so long, and what time the service was likely to end.

I think I used to be more forgiving, but life's too short now!

[/quote]

LOL (:

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[quote user="dwmcn"]Georgina, There is a joke in St Albans Cathedral that there is a trap door that opens if the person preaching goes on for more than ten minutes.[/quote]

I would like to see that lol

As for me, I am not going to preach anymore, nail biting seems to be tolerated, so I guess I will just have to bite my tongue, or is that bad manners haha

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