Stuck On The M 20!

[SteveO]

10 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

Scampi in a basket, or skate off a slate. From planks of wood to miniature deep fry baskets. It would seem there is no end to the ingenious ways the catering industry will try to avoid the use of "plates".

Can anybody tell me why this is?  

I suspect that this is done to confuse. When you take away the "standard" reference point of a plate, a small portion of food can be made to look quite adequate when served in a basket, a bowl or on a slate. Those little wire baskets of chips that were so beloved of the catering industry a couple of years ago are a case in point. An overflowing basket, when tipped out onto a plate makes a very small pile of chips. Just what the accountants say we need in the war against obesity.

[JennyMorgan]

14 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

Scampi in a basket, or skate off a slate. From planks of wood to miniature deep fry baskets. It would seem there is no end to the ingenious ways the catering industry will try to avoid the use of "plates".

Can anybody tell me why this is?  

Rightly or wrongly I've always regarded the use of non standard tableware as pretentious nonsense, in line with boutique hotels and restaurants in particular. Wouldn't mind so much if the waiter gave me a choice, "warped, weathered plank, reclaimed roof tile or civilised dinner plate, sir?

[addicted]

Couldn't agree more I Always ask for a plate. Eating off roofing materials has never appealed.   As far as I'm concerned the use of roof tiles/slates  should be confined to keeping  the rain out of my loft and  for no other purpose. As has been said  it is pretentious nonsense.

 

 

Carole

[BroadAmbition]

While I agree with the likes of warped timber and roofing slates and the like being pretentious nonsense,  I quite like steak on a hot cast iron platter

Griff

[CambridgeCabby]

1 hour ago, BroadAmbition said:

While I agree with the likes of warped timber and roofing slates and the like being pretentious nonsense,  I quite like steak on a hot cast iron platter

Griff

The fashion of serving steaks on hot platters and hot stones started gaining popularity when I was still in the licensed trade , and we were known for our range of chargrilled steaks , ranging from 8oz up to a mighty 48oz , and I was asked at the time if I would also consider offering the hot stone at the table experience .

My reply then and I still feel the same , is that when I go to a restaurant I don’t expect to have to cook my own dinner and wouldn’t expect my customers to do so either , plus having red hot cast iron platters or stones on the table is IMHO a recipe for disaster .

[Vaughan]

So this is the first real week of work for truckers after the holidays and I see that the petty nonsense has started already.  Truckers coming into Holland are having their sandwich lunches confiscated, as they are bringing cooked meat into the EU.

I was once held up by a customs officer in Ramsgate, as I had brought back a packet of 5 Dutch Schimmelpenick cigarillos, for a friend of mine in Norfolk.  The officer claimed they were cigars and not cigarillos.  He actually drove away in his car and came back with a little set of balance weights, with which he weighed them and then wanted to charge me 3 times what I had paid, in duty.  And all this at one o'clock in the morning.

I suggested that either he could smoke them himself or he could always just throw them in the harbour, and drove off.  As I had declared them, there was nothing he could do to me.

I am afraid it looks like we are going have to put up with all this sort of stupid nonsense, all over again.

[Chelsea14Ian]

Summer before  last coming  back from Berlin.Check in and passport control there. They wouldn't allow us to bring  back Mustard and some cooked meats.No doubt  they enjoyed  it  that evening!

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Food such as meat  (in many cases uncooked) I can understand.

In December I an bought an item from a person in Holland on fleabay for the boat and yesterday I received a message saying Sorry, it was an old listing that I forgot to remove. Yeah right, as if!

[Vaughan]

2 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Food such as meat  (in many cases uncooked) I can understand.

But not in the driver's own sandwich lunch, Surely??

It was dairy products as well, it seems, as the driver had spread some butter on his bread.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

1 minute ago, Vaughan said:

But not in the driver's own sandwich lunch, Surely??

It was dairy products as well, it seems, as the driver had spread some butter on his bread.

Of course not Vaughan, I was talking more about suitcases of "traditional food" being brought in to a country from elsewhere.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

2 hours ago, Vaughan said:

So this is the first real week of work for truckers after the holidays and I see that the petty nonsense has started already.  Truckers coming into Holland are having their sandwich lunches confiscated, as they are bringing cooked meat into the EU.

 

Just seen the story on BBC news. 

[Chelsea14Ian]

As of 2019 we were in the EU,and some items were allowed. Did we have a lot?No one jar of mustard and a small packet  of meat.In fact we had several  bars of Chocolate. 

[Hylander]

21 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Food such as meat  (in many cases uncooked) I can understand.

In December I an bought an item from a person in Holland on fleabay for the boat and yesterday I received a message saying Sorry, it was an old listing that I forgot to remove. Yeah right, as if!

Well I hope you got your purchase money back.       

Mods can we have a symbol for "Just Plain Nuts" to add to the likes etc.    Sometimes what is posted is beyond belief but true and completely nuts.     ie  Truckers having their sarnies destroyed.   Whatever next.

 

[grendel]

why did they not eat the evidence

[annv]

Perhaps he had been there so long it had gone off. John

[Hylander]

4 hours ago, annv said:

Perhaps he had been there so long it had gone off. John

I hope so.   How miserable a person would you have be to take someone's sarnies from them.  

[Vaughan]

16 minutes ago, Hylander said:

 How miserable a person would you have be to take someone's sarnies from them. 

A customs officer, of any European country (especially Austria) and very much including customs in UK, is the answer to that!

[Hylander]

16 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

A customs officer, of any European country (especially Austria) and very much including customs in UK, is the answer to that!

All definitely drop outs from the Charm School then.

[ScrumpyCheddar]

It’s about time the UK enforced a visitor daily road tax to all these foreign trucks who come over here. 
who don’t pay for nothing..

No road tax .. No fuel.. No overnight parking charges. No fines... Etc etc..

 

When the shoe is on the other foot when we go over there.. We have to pay for everything... 

Just think of the extra millions of pounds what could be going in the UK pot for every vehicle over 3.5tonne arriving in the UK 🇬🇧 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

44 minutes ago, ScrumpyCheddar said:

It’s about time the UK enforced a visitor daily road tax to all these foreign trucks who come over here. 
who don’t pay for nothing..

No road tax .. No fuel.. No overnight parking charges. No fines... Etc etc..

 

When the shoe is on the other foot when we go over there.. We have to pay for everything... 

Just think of the extra millions of pounds what could be going in the UK pot for every vehicle over 3.5tonne arriving in the UK 🇬🇧 

And coming out of every purse to pay for it.

[Vaughan]

I was talking on another thread about the need for freight forwarding agencies, to do customs paperwork for exports (and imports) in the way that it was done pre - 1993.

I read in the paper this morning that there used to be 200 agencies in the port of Dover alone, to handle freight.  I can believe this, as they had whole office blocks to themselves, which have since been pulled down.  Now, it seems, there are only 15 agencies left in Dover.

It seems there are no queues in Dover this week and traffic is moving.  This is because all the trucks have not yet left their warehouses, as they don't know where to get the paperwork done.  It also seems a truck can't get a permit to enter Kent, by barcode, until the load has customs clearance.  That means inland clearance, which was very rare even in "my day".

Surely someone should have seen this fiasco coming, and planned for it? It has been on the cards for the last 4 years, after all!

[HEM]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

Surely someone should have seen this fiasco coming, and planned for it? It has been on the cards for the last 4 years, after all!

Certainly "someone" (some people) saw this coming but they were probably put down as being "Remoaners".

[Hylander]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

 

Surely someone should have seen this fiasco coming, and planned for it? It has been on the cards for the last 4 years, after all!

I think we are all agreed on that one.      

[grendel]

considering all of the motorway signs leading south into kent had been advising about the new paperwork that was going to be required, since before I stopped heading into the office daily, that must mean they have been given at least a year to prepare themselves for this transition.

this at least shows a degree of planning, of course if all of the transport companies have left things to the last possible moment, its not surprising that they are having problems.

with modern communications and the internet, the agencies required do not have to be at the point of embarkment any more, they can be located anywhere and still communicate and transmit paperwork where it is needed.

quite rightly, trucks should have all their paperwork in order before they start their journey, a bit pointless arriving at the port without, and I would have thought the same true from before this as well.

Once again I think we are seeing news outlets that were predicting doom and gloom for the channel crossings getting caught out and now clutching at any straw to explain why their predictions failed, just remember, reporting everything normal and no issues doesnt sell papers , it has to be more sensational or worse than yesterday to do that, so the news outlets have to make it so to stay in business, good news does not sell newspapers.

[MaceSwinger]

1 hour ago, HEM said:

Certainly "someone" (some people) saw this coming but they were probably put down as being "Remoaners".

Possibly because it was the same old faces who made an enormous drama out of everything instead of kicking off about the things that really did need addressing. The problem being that people eventually just started switching off and ignoring them as it was non-stop. Not to mention that at the same time some of the people they get lumped in with were trying to circumvent a democratic decision which would likely get backs up too.

To be clear I'm really not trying to play devil's advocate, we saw (and continue to see) disgraceful behaviour from both camps.