Acid Reflux

[poliphilo]

I woke up choking. I don't think I was close to dying but for a moment it felt like I was. Acid reflux. And the moral of the story is don't eat curry.

Ailz and I had lunch yesterday at the Cafe Lahore, which is probably the best curry house this side of Manchester. Very nice. But the lesson needs to be learned- curries do me harm and if I want to live to be 80 I must LEAVE THEM ALONE.

I'm not going to pretend this is any great hardship. Curry is possibly my favourite food, but the truth of the matter is I don't like any food all that much. In spite of tuition by experts I find the whole business of eating a bore- and the restaurant experience is particularly boring because it takes a huge chunk out of the day which could be spent doing- oh, almost anything else. Restaurants make me edgy and anxious. I hate the waiting, I hate the fact that someone is suffering the indignity of serving me. I want to read a newspaper, I want to listen to the radio, I want to watch TV, I want to shovel the stuff in as quickly as possible and get on with my life.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, self-service for me too!

[archyena.livejournal.com]

You probably recall the article on tipping and democracy, I think the main thrust really is that it is not tipping, but the idea of serving someone like a butler (as opposed to service like a plumber) that is antithetical to egalitarian ideas.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly. Anything that smacks of the master-servant relationship makes me very uneasy.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

The worst is when people call me "sir," I hate that title. Once at a restaurant in San Diego (I was having a bad day, to be fair) I snapped at an overdressed waiter "do I look like royalty to you?" He just sort of stammered trying to find a way to say nicely that I didn't, obviously afraid that any answer would be bad. So he, in a bout of bravery he asked what I would prefer to be called. I scrambled for an answer and came up with "dude." My bouts of radical republicanism are best kept to myself and the internet, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No-one should have to call someone else "sir". Nor should they have to call them by a title. I was listening to an interview with the film and stage director Richard Eyre and the interviewer was saying "Sir Richard, this" and Sir Richard, that". It makes me cross. If plain Mr was enough for Orson Welles it ought to be good enough for bloody Eyre.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

The only titles I don't have a problem with are ones that are earned, Professor, Doctor, Counselor, etc. Anything that shows a hint of heredity, the idea that the title is not truly conferred but rather is just an affirmation of what was present in the person's blood, as though they had been recently beatified, makes me cringe. It smacks of kings and crowns and other trappings of the glorified warlords who have held the West in their grip since the fall of the Roman Republic and the sweeping away of the incremental reforms that had been occuring. It's to the point that I actively mock all Commonwealth nations for their deference to the crown, any country that cannot muster it's own head(s) of state is sickly thing. The beheading of Charles should have been the final word on the entire matter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree. I'm fiercely Republican (in a British not American sense) and think it's time we grew up and got rid of the culture of deference.