
I used to eat fish at work, salmon if you will. In fact one of favourite pass times is giving people a cheeky wink while eating a scotch egg on the tram. Let the down vote festival begin for I am unrepentant.
Eating on the train is no yolk. One woman felt so strongly about it, she's now nursing a £1,500 fine after eggsploding with rage at a fellow commuter for gobbling a hard-boiled pre-chicken on the service from Chelmsford to London Liverpool Street. Some prefer a modest oat bar washed down with a Costa coffee when breaking fast …
Surströmming cans should be opened in a ventilated are (outdoors) or at least fill a sink and open the can underwater. The cans have a high pressure and will easily spray inredibly foul smelling, sewer-grade putrid liquids.
The taste - it's just a sour and quite salty herring. Requires bread, potatoes or something else to go with it.
They make great gifts for the unwary!
So like Marmite in one respect.
I guess.. But I also love Marmite, so maybe some connection. Can't stand lutefisk though, but I think that was more the texture.
Surreal. Maybe you need to be Swedish.
Or open minded. Or nasally challenged. It does reek to high heaven, but served on flatbread with sliced spuds and some chopped green stuff (tarragon?) it was nice. But I kinda like salt fish, fish sauce and possibly even garum. I also think there's a fair bit of truth in some smells affecting people more strongly than others, or at certain times.. Like a fully-loaded kebab smells wonderful while drunk, but less so after you find half of it down the back of the sofa a month later. I think some Asians have the right idea wearing face shields on public transport to mask the scent of peopel, or their various potions & lotions.
Train passengers eating stinky food can be a blessing in disguise. Years back I was getting the train from the Highlands back home to Glasgow after a week of hillwalking. I'd misjudged the timings and hadn't yet had a chance to get cleaned up and changed into fresh clothes. Sitting there acutely aware of my mankyness, I was saved by a pair of women who sat at the table opposite and pulled out their train snack: a range of pungent cheeses. Thanks for taking the heat off me ladies.
I know that well. After a week's sailing around the West Coast, we dropped into Tobermory, went on land and straight to the Mishnish pub and booked an hour in their baths. We felt almost human again, afterwards. A nice single malt rounded off the recouperation process.
I was once having trouble being served at a nightclub bar which was about 3 lines of people deep. I inadvertently farted which had the effect of clearing said queue.
Foul smells have a very direct and fast acting effect on people.
On a more serious note - good. There's a difference between pointing this out in a reasonable manner, and being abusive. The line of "I was on medication" is absolutely ludicrous. There is no medical condition for being a moron.
Go to work on the train an egg
The Washington, DC, Metro has rules against eating in its stations or on its trains and buses. These rules no longer seem to be enforced, but years ago I saw a kid of about 10 being led out in handcuffs with the evidence--a bag of potato chips and a bag of cookies in his cuffed hands.
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"The "NO EATING" rule is a bit absurd, though, considering there's a food stand in the station."
Food is allowed in the station. However, BART does NOT allow food on the platforms, nor in the trains. It is plainly marked "no eating past this point" at the ticket gates. Everyone who rides BART on a regular basis (like the dude in question) knows this.
"Hurting a cop's feelings has never been ruled a crime in the US."
Verbal assault is just as much a crime as physical assault. Note that the charge of assault was never written up, nor was the charge of resisting arrest, nor the charge of not cooperating with the officer in the performance of his duties (all of which are crimes); he has just been cited for eating on the platform. Instead of jail time, he's facing a $250 fine. The belligerent scoff-law got off easy.
I'm a pragmatic farmer. Sadly, tractors and well pumps can't replicate. However, the birds produce their own replacements, leaving me with extra money for tractor and pump parts.
Better yet, the birds will over replicate with little or no encouragement. The excess can be harvested and sold for extra money, which sometimes allows me to buy new tractors and pumps, obviating the need for replacement parts for a few years.
A lot of people on the tube arent locals and they're the more likely to read them being visitors and all, and also the more likely to do stuff that are not acceptable so it's not a terrible idea.
More on the subject my nose still remembers east Asian student colleagues in the lecture theater having their hot fish soup for lunch between lectures..
I’m not so concerned about foods that emit foul smell before eating, but the ones that do afterwards. Considering that it’ll take some time after digesting for the gas pressure to build up, it is preferable that the passengers digest food just before entering a bus/tram/train, generate gas while traveling and let it out only after their ride. Logically, the signs should oblige the passengers to eat at platform, not home.
On the other hand, passing gas (preferably with a fanfaire) gives you a good laugh, especially in confined and poorly ventilated places, with lots of people around you. Perhaps the ones who hung the signs were after that, who knows.
(Could I have my coat, please, and I’ll see me out. Yes, the one with a sandwitch in each pocket,)
If you over cook the eggs and/or hold them at too high a temperature for too long, you'll be rewarded with the smell. When the temperature gets much above 140F, the egg whites start releasing sulpher, When the temperature goes above 180F, hydrogen sulfide starts to form (incidentally, this is what reacts with the iron in the yolk to form that green ring). The hotter the temperature and the longer you hold it, the worse the smell.
For boiled eggs, place them in a pan of cold water, bring to a boil, remove from heat and allow to stand for about 13 minutes. Immediately cool with either running cold tap water, or in a bath of ice and water. No more smell, and no more green ring.
Amateur hour on the stink front. To really ramp up the odours, I'd point you in the direction of the far east (with eyes watering whilst holding my nose) and to the 'King of Fruits' (allegedly), the Durian.
They're banned from public transport and even from hold luggage on flights, such is the maloderous stench this fruit is blessed with. It's pretty much what you'd expect a 7 day old corpse to smell like, left in the jungles of Malaysia.
They should (and do) come with fines for eating near other unwilling and unwitting passengers.
I enjoyed it, or something very similar. Shark, flensed, buried for 6 months, dug up, cubed. No mention of air drying. Our 12-strong tourist group were served tasty little white cubes and alcohol, then told of how it was made, finishing with "...and then served to unsuspecting tourists like you."
I enjoyed it, or something very similar. Shark, flensed, buried for 6 months, dug up, cubed.
The Vietnamese have a similar dish involving a chicken (whole), a clay pot, various spices, and a hole in the ground where it's buried for some period of time. The time varies depending on who you talk to. Then there's baluts..
I'll go get my coat and stand outside in the fresh hair and try to forget those dishes from a long time ago....
But Durian tastes divine if you hold your nose! Fish I have a problem with - just the smell can make me projectile vomit due to poisoning as a child. Its taken me 50 years to be able to walk past the fish counter in a supermarket but dont invite me to a non-country paella party!
I don't believe you've ever smelled a durian.
There was an instance, just a few months ago here, where a whole six-storey office block had to be evacuated because someone left an inadequately-airtight durian, in a backpack, outside the building. I believe it was initially suspected to be a gas leak.
Durian is something I enjoy when in Vietnam (sầu riêng there).
Yes, it has an odour.
Yes, you can smell it some distance off.
Yes, it reminds me of a gas leak.
Yes, it is delicious!
Can even be bought in various Chinatown areas here in the UK, and, for a while in North London, there was the Durian Centre.
OK but what do you have to do to an egg to make it genuinely stinky, rather than just an egg?
When on holiday in Egypt we took multiple trips that meant the Hotel packed us a breakfast to eat on the delightful heavily guarded convoys such trips involve, they always included a hard boiled egg, and smelt perfectly fine. In the UK I wouldn't hesitate to break out a scotch egg on a train, down the hatch what what! (In no circumstance one of those travesties you can buy in a supermarket)
There are far more irritating things than food odours you can encounter on public transport, pissed up tramps that decide you want to talk to or fight them, arseholes in your reserved seat, that twat who's keeping a seat for his bag, football fans, football fans on the phone ...
Virgin would have to sell Virgin Boy's Eggs beloved by Our Chinese friends ? *
[ influenced by the useless Boris, Fat Owl of the Remove, who pitifully ingratiates himself to those people he's trying to diddle by calling them Our European Friends --- Post-brexit he may with Raab and other master-negotiators be able to import enough such Chinese foods to make up from the losses from Europe. ]
.
* Nothing odd ---- not an egg from a boy, but an egg steeped in boys who are virgins' prepubescent urine, and then boiled in the same.
And sometimes people are either sensitive to certain smells or just more aware of odours in the environment
Certain things can also make people more sensitive to some or all odours, either temporarily, or rarely, permanently, including, but not limited to, hangovers, migraines, pregnancy and effects of medication.
The best description I heard was rancid custard flavoured with cat vomit...
Icon: the only way to get rid of the smell from discarded durian husks in the car park/bin storage yard just down from Jalan Alor in KL, which was opposite our apartment building and hence was the quickest way to the pub for the football on a Saturday night
Once upon a time offices often had a canteen, which had relatively professionally cooked food, and professional equipment and ventilation. Now, the fashion is for a staff kitchen with a self-service microwave and maybe a dishwasher, but usually no ventilation/extraction.
The smells that come out of those microwaves...... Enough to turn my stomach.... especially fish and some pre-packed currys.... And people put that stuff in their mouth?
I have a serious problem with certain airports now you are forced to walk through the endless chicane of duty free that occupies the once 10 yard walk to the gates. I think it was Gatwick where my lungs were burning and my eyes watering profusely by the time I'd cleared the perfume area. I can see why smoking was banned!
They've done this to Basel Airport too; but the one in Gatwick North is far, far worse.
That and the removal of the quiet area makes me want to fly with the expensive wannabe budget airline BA instead as Heathrow T5 is slightly less uncivilised </rant>
The thing is it wouldnt go up in flames. Morgan 3 wheelers run on alcohol because its got a bigger bang than petrol. These things would explode and then the floors above would come crashing down. It would all be blamed on terrorists though and the 'security' would be stepped up even further.
Not sure I understand your point. Alcohol's actually got fewer BTU's per unit volume than gasoline. It also needs a higher concentration in air to burn. It's less susceptible to detonation in engines, though, which means the engine can have higher compression and make more power for its size.
The main hazard with alcohol is it burns with a clear, invisible flame. On the other hand, since it's water-soluble, it's easier to put out a puddle of alcohol than a puddle of gasoline; you can just dilute it with water until it won't burn anymore.
Alcohol, like gasoline, doesn't explode unless it is at or very near the stociometric ratio, which will never happen at a perfume counter regardless of how thick and nasty the fumes are.
Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline, and has a lower energy density (Gas 32 MJ/L, Ethanol 19 MJ/L, Methanol 16 MJ/L).
Alcohol is used in engines because it has a higher octane rating than gasoline (Gas up to about 99, Ethanol about 107, Methanol about 106). This allows a higher compression engine before detonation sets in. It also allows the use of higher pressures in supercharged applications. The fact that it burns cooler also helps in boosted situations. It also provides better cooling under evaporation, further making for a denser charge in the cylinder(s).
Nice to hear I'm not the only one. Never mind airports, I've long avoided going into Debenhams 'cos their layout makes you run the gauntlet of a stinks department before you can reach anything I might want. Though it's not as nauseous as an egg, let alone stinkier trad-greasy foods.
I've long said we should have stinky-food-free (or even all-food-free) railway carriages just as we had non-smoking ones back in the bad old days of a more pervasive problem.
Nice to hear I'm not the only one. Never mind airports, I've long avoided going into Debenhams 'cos their layout makes you run the gauntlet of a stinks department before you can reach anything I might want.
Indeed. John Lewis in Oxford Street has the same problem -- for that matter so does the Boots in our High Street. I've taken to calling it the "Chemical Warfare Department", because of the noxious stench emerging therefrom.
What? No gas-mask icon?
"In a closed space, any of the above are an offense."
As a child, I hated being dragged in Binns department store, (later House of Fraser) because to get into the shop meant walking through the Perfume sections. 100's of different perfumes all competing at once to prove they are the best and ending up just making me gag. Or, for modern times and younger readers, just walking past a branch of Lush! Or even just those certain people who must stink horribly under the gallons of perfume or deodorant they drench themselves with every day.
I think city dwellers are becoming a little oversensitive to smells.
A few years back some green welly ex yuppies bought a house next door to a farm in a village not too far from me.
A few months in they began to complain about the cowshed, something that had been there in various forms for literally centuries, eventually they took it to court where the case was found against the farmer.
He had to take down the shed, move it and change his farming practices, after that no local for miles around would speak to them, even in the snottier one of the two local pubs.
A few more months and their place was up for sale after damaging a man and his family's income and pissing off the locals.
What's that variant of frozen water?
"I think city dwellers are becoming a little oversensitive to smells." Are you kidding - these idiot pay fortunes to go to restaurants where everything tastes of diesel fumes. Last time I went to the GBBF if took 5 pints before I could taste the beer and not the tube and by then it was too late.
Most motor racing circuits and airfields get complaints about the noise, despite the fact that they have mostly been operating there long before any of the residents were in the surrounding properties (or there were surrounding properties).
We keep having to ensure the local planning department put caveats in the permissions for new properties being built around a local music and entertainment venue, so anyone buying those properties is informed up front that they have no grounds to complain about sound from the venue which has been there for more than 20 years. The developers keep trying various tricks to get the clause removed, unsurprisingly!
As a born'n'bred Eastend born Londoner there nothing more gorgeous than the smell of cowshite! No, I'm deadly serious! My Missus can't stand the smell of cow doings when we head out to the country on trips, I'm always the first wind down the car windows and fill the car up the countryside atmosphere. Getting a lung full of natural smells does you the power of good and it's better for you than the cack I breathe in all week long.
( "ESC"ape covered in shite, perfect icon! )
There is a largish strawberry field just south-west of the little farming town of Sonoma, California. It's on the north-east corner of Arnold Drive and Watmaugh Road. Every year about this time, the fields get their fall feeding, so the fruit gets off to a good start in the spring. The prevailing winds off the Bay every afternoon drive the lovely scent of fermenting liquid steer shit directly into Sonoma Plaza, home of many high-end wine tasting establishments. Needless to say, the (mostly) city-folk tourists are often heard to exclaim "What IS that SMELL?" ... to which most of us locals take great delight in asking "Remember those strawberries you had for breakfast?" ...
Unfortunately, in England and everywhere that's inherited english laws there's a 19th century precedent which states that you're not allowed to be a nuisance to your neighbours in a way that's a problem for the neighbourhood as it is now, regardless of who was there first.It all goes back to someone whinging about a dairy's iron-tyred carts making noise on the stone street after they moved in.
Some places in the US have taken to passing ordinances to protect agricultural operations from that kind of attack.
More recently some of these laws have been used by legal marijuana grow-ops to shut down people complaining about the smell of weed, which I suspect was not the intent. ;)
I spend some of my time in the woods partaking of various outdoor pursuits. One of these involves turning animal skins into leather, buckskin, etc. This is as stinky as you can imagine. Before I could drive I often had to return from the woods by train. After one particular hard working week there was on offer on upgrading the train ticket to first class.
The looks you will get after a week of producing and smoking hides then taking them home in first class on a train are brilliant.
My dad was a Zoology Prof and had a penchant for animal skeletons, On a trip round the Farn Islands we located a dead seal. The return boat journey involved our family at the stern of the boat and everyone else up the bow making the boat plough through the water. The several hour car journey home with the dead seal in the boot and all the car windows open was hell. As was driving in the car for weeks afterwards.
My brain somehow forgot about this until on the local beach the dog found a well rotten seal pup and managed to roll in it for a good 10 minutes before we found the little shit. Was sorely tempted to pressure wash him after 4 bottles of doggy shampoo and you would still gag close to him.
The skeleton came out lovely mind.
"The several hour car journey home with the dead seal in the boot and all the car windows open was hell. As was driving in the car for weeks afterwards."
Been there! - I have a freezer full of animal parts separate from the food one. Various hides and feet in different stages of preservation.
Was sorely tempted to pressure wash him
What stopped you? Boy the Wonder Dog found a dead rotting sheep in the marsh one day and had to tell us about it by the usual canine process of rolling in the mushy corpse for a good few minutes to embed the smell in his thick Lab-cross coat. We held him off with some long poles to prevent him climbing up on us and licking our faces before we got the pressure washer hooked up and sprayed him down with the wide nozzle and a litre of concentrated degreaser in the dispenser gun.
He was very disappointed in us.
I find it hard to work out why rolling in rotting animals or shit is so enticing for them. I cant imagine creeping up on a flock of sheep smelling like hades is a good hunting technique. And given the little bastard can track a deer for about a mile* at full pelt when its just their hooves on the ground why do they want to swamp their sense of smell?
* the little bugger seems to follow them until he cant hear us screaming and whistling for him to come back at which point he realises he's on his own and shits himself and comes back as quickly as possible until he comes across a stock fence he cleared by 3 foot while chasing the deer scent and then stops and barks like fuck so we have to go and fetch him asap before Farmer Palmer blasts him to bits.
Can you not move carriage anymore?
Try a bus down the length of Ireland on a Bus (not an express) in the wet with the smell of Vomit and salt and Vineger crisps.
Some people like them, they give me heartburn something rotten*, so I'm inclined to believe the crisps are as responsible as the motion for the vomit.
* Except Monster Munch.
Still not as bad as a short Swilly Bus journey in the 1980's where it smelt like exhaust fumes were coming in through the floor.
In Colombia. Some of the passengers were carrying chickens. Live chickens. If you've ever been around a chicken farm on a warm sunny day and not felt the need to be Quite Somewhere Else Right Now, you must have had your sense of smell surgically excised some time earlier However, temperatures were such that all windows were open, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Also, the goats and the pigs, as well as one or two passengers, were on the roof rack; that must have helped too
Icon: breathing protection
Except of course that Speed isn't a "Boomer", making the witty repartee wrong. "OK Boomer" used on someone that's Gen X merely makes the person uttering it look stupid.
As opposed to when it's used towards someone of the Baby Boomer generation, at which times it makes the person uttering it look..
It's not funny in this situation because it's just a wrong use of the phrase. As a Gen Xer myself I have no problem with it being applied to people of my age or even younger, if it is used correctly. If someone is trivialising the genuine concerns of millennials or Gen Z, then it's fine to say "OK Boomer". Baby boomers are now famous for being blasé about messing up the world for future generations, sucking up all the money because of macro-economic trends, rather than any efforts they put in and ruining the environment. If someone calls a younger person a snowflake because they are complaining that they belong to the first generation to be worse off than their parents since forever, then that young person is within their rights to respond "OK Boomer". If a forty year old tells a thirty year old to stop whinging about paying 70% of their income out as rent, then "OK Boomer" is a fair response. Here it has been used as a synonym for "OK Granddad", insinuating that a person is older than their years because of a tendency to complain excessively, which is just wrong.
Chaps. It isn't used "correctly". I wouldn't dare say it to my last-surviving grandparent. However, does it matter? No, yet you still wrote 200 words on the matter. And don't worry, myself and Mr Speed are firm friends with a stellar working relationship. It's just bants and it wasn't written without his approval. I'd say "don't make me say it", but someone already has.
Millennials are, of course, the generation which think they have the right to own a house at 21, buy throwaway fashion/tech and take regular long haul holidays (as travellers, not tourists, natch) - and then have the nerve to tell the generation which saved till their 30's to buy a house and invented the green movement that they don't care about the world.
Yes, well. They're also the generation that gets told they should work their way through college instead of taking out loans (by people who did so when tuition was lower, or even zero, and the minimum wage had kept up with inflation), should buy a house (when house prices have shot up massively compared to income), should get a job by reading the classifieds and then work their way up (by people who did that when it was still possible), should shut up about wanting health care (by people who get free Medicare), etc.
I don't actually know any Millennials who thought they deserved a house at 21. Most I know are pushing 40 and assuming they'll be stuck renting forever.
Me, I'm GenX. We don't get insulted much because everyone forgets we exit.
"Baby boomers are now famous for being blasé about messing up the world for future generations, sucking up all the money because of macro-economic trends, rather than any efforts they put in and ruining the environment. "
Maybe it depends on which country you were born into. Boomers in the UK were born into the aftermath of rationing and brought up by parents who lived through the "make do and mend" era of WW2. We were taught to look after stuff so it would last longer, repair it when it broke and not to waste anything.
Eggs, they stink, makes farts seem fragrant, prefer the smells of a cow shed.
I don't get it. I have hardboiled many an egg and have never noticed any significant smell from them, or from egg sandwiches, or from Scotch eggs or from anything else hardboiled-egg derived. Is this like the asparagus smell in pee, which some people can't detect?
It should come as no surprise that popular opinion on Mumsnet (the continuing online version of The Jeremy Kyle Show) is wholly behind the woman fined, on the basis that she probably had an invisible disability, hardboiled eggs are "grim" and, doubtless, something to do with trans women in changing rooms.
From the linked BART case: "BART also issued a statement to NBC, saying: ‘He was cited for eating which is a violation of state law. It isn’t just a policy or ordinance, it is penal code.’"
I knew Californian culture had an obsession with being thin but making eating illegal is taking it too far.
It's where he was eating.
And even then, if he had chosen to listen to the cop (as do most transgressors in a similar situation), we wouldn't be having this conversation. But no, he chose to argue with, and then assault, the cop. For which he was immediately arrested. Handcuffed. Which was undoubtedly a possibility that he hadn't counted upon.
(WAT AG)
One of the rules that I was taught in my youth about dealing with the police in the US: the police are dangerous and you should never argue with them. Assert your rights, yes. Voice your objection to whatever they're doing, yes. But be scrupulously calm and polite and comply with their demands. Arguing is pointless and only increases the risk to you. Save arguments for court.
I've been known to nosh a Limburger and onion sarni at the old job from time to time.
Always made for a most enjoyable lunch, because nobody wanted to sit by me at the canteen and produce small-talk.
I did ask the powers that be if it was OK before I started, and they said it was less rank than most of the microwaved roadkill, so no prob, just keep it well sealed in the fridge thanks.
In the US, this would arguably qualify as "battery".
From https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/battery:
"The following elements must be proven to establish a case for battery: (1) an act by a defendant; (2) an intent to cause harmful or offensive contact on the part of the defendant; and (3) harmful or offensive contact to the plaintiff."
Actual physical harm or intent to physically harm to the victim is not required.
"The second type of contact that may constitute battery causes no actual physical harm but is, instead, offensive or insulting to the victim. Examples include spitting in someone's face or offensively touching someone against his or her will.
Touching the person of someone is defined as including not only contacts with the body, but also with anything closely connected with the body, such as clothing or an item carried in the person's hand.
It is not necessary for the defendant's wrongful act to result in direct contact with the victim. It is sufficient if the act sets in motion a force that results in the contact."
Opening smelly food on public transport is rude, I would agree, but how smelly is a freshly boiled egg?! It may accumulate some smell while sealed in a piece of Tupperware, but still. This part from the end has me further puzzled: "My commute to Vulture Central is frequently blighted by people opening up their stench boxes or unwrapping some greasy rancidity emblazoned with an 'M'." I would hardly consider the M food foul smelling. I would also hardly consider it great food, but here we are just talking odours and, while it, naturally, has a smell, I would definitely not classify it as an offensive one. As long as we haven't completely banned food from all public transport I think people are getting rather sensitive. Apparently, they'd like to use public transport and be alone on it.
I was sat waiting for a train to leave Kings Cross when somebody got on with a whole pizza.
I think if he'd offered to sell slices to people that were drooling over the smell he'd have come out with a good profit.
All this reminds me of the trains in Sri Lanka, where hawkers got on at every stop and went round with strange foods. You were never sure what you were eating, but it did taste good!