England's no more.

[Spacecadet]

What busts my balls is that you cannot eat out simply and quickly like the European Johnnie Foreigner can in his country.

Sometimes I just want to pop in a small cafe and get a small, good quality meal in 30 minutes with a small glass of wine.

I don't want to stay for 3 courses. I don't want a kebab, curry, chinese, mexican... yadda yadda

Not just that but at a decent price as well.
Go anywhere else in the world and you can get a decent meal in a street cafe for not a huge amount more than it would cost to buy the ingredients yourself and cook them at home. In fact in Singapore I swear it's cheaper than cooking for yourself.

Over here, it's either dodgy takeaway or a pub or a greasy spoon.

[MrMark]

General comment on the thread: cheer up you bunch of miserable b@5tards.

Likely top 10% of earners and you don't have the imagination or the inclination to find beauty or happiness in England today? This is a wonderful country - it has its problems, of course, but please spare us the rose tinted specs view on days of yore!

Nothing like a misplaced assumption. If you're on the bench you're in the bottom 10% of earners - besides which most of the population don't have the skills/opportunity to follow this path - which is partly why I fear for England. Most of the population realise the future's been taken away from them. Don't get me wrong, if I progress with a Saas Plan B project I'm looking into, I'll probably outsource a certain amount of coding for cost purposes. There may be no alternative, but it's making 50% of the UK working population unwanted, outside of non-jobs and clerical pen-pushers. I'm sure the 600-a-day brigade here will shout "Look at me, I'm doing ok" but the future's bleak, it seems to me, for many in England and the UK. Unless you can tell me where the jobs and opportunities are going to spring up for Mr/Ms Average?

[xoggoth]

Nations do go up and down. Interesting paper below that starts with descriptions of two peoples as lazy, stupid, easily satisfied, living only for today etc. Actually the Japanese and Germans circa 1905.

Quite what will take the UK back to that Renaissance moment I'm not sure.


http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/rese...ital/chang.pdf

[Sysman]

What busts my balls is that you cannot eat out simply and quickly like the European Johnnie Foreigner can in his country.

Sometimes I just want to pop in a small cafe and get a small, good quality meal in 30 minutes with a small glass of wine.

I don't want to stay for 3 courses. I don't want a kebab, curry, chinese, mexican... yadda yadda

Good point. I've got tons of places where I can have that decent meal with a glass of wine or beer, but no fuss. Works canteens tend to be open to everyone too; as an outsider you simply pay the non-subsidised price. In a couple of lunchtime places I use at the moment, you can go back for seconds at no extra charge

[Ignis Fatuus]

Not just that but at a decent price as well.
Go anywhere else in the world and you can get a decent meal in a street cafe for not a huge amount more than it would cost to buy the ingredients yourself and cook them at home.

Have you eaten out in Switzerland lately?

[Sysman]

Not just that but at a decent price as well.
Go anywhere else in the world and you can get a decent meal in a street cafe for not a huge amount more than it would cost to buy the ingredients yourself and cook them at home. In fact in Singapore I swear it's cheaper than cooking for yourself.

I found eating out in Paris* slightly cheaper than cooking at home though I must say I wasn't near any hypermarkets.

* in non-tourist spots, obviously

[doodab]

Have you eaten out in Switzerland lately?

In Switzerland you can often eat out in the supermarket and it's cheaper than buying the ingredients and cooking them yourself.