The totally off-topic thread

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Pushka said:
I am going to cross post here.

I posted this picture on the "View from my Office" thread of a boat in a lagoon near our beach shack on the River Murray mouth. It is a tiny town, doesn't even have grocery shop. No chemist. Post Office etc etc. Within an hour of me posting the photo another AFF'er (newbie?) said their brother and Fiancee were on the boat. Small world.

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Lovely photo, Pushka. :)
 
Well one of my work nightmares has been kind of resolved today. It's a light at the end of the tunnel for me, but there is no satisfaction because the train has just run over an excellent group of people.

As this also means a reversal in roles, I may, or may not, take great pleasure in making demands of the scum that have made my life hell for the last 18 months.
 
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Lol!! An interesting start to my second ever AA mileage run. Turned up for my flight to HNL scheduled departure 1845. After we were all onboard the plane was declared unserviceable and we were off-loaded and advised that we were re-scheduled for 2230. I wandered off to sample the delights of the QF TBIT F Lounge and wandered back to T4 at 2130 only to hear the announcement that the crew were out of hours and the flights delayed til tomorrow morning. After a brief spell in the Flagship Lounge I'm now safely tucked up in the LA Downtown Hotel courtesy of AA. Fingers crossed for some smooth flights tomorrow :)
 
Pushka said:
I am going to cross post here.

I posted this picture on the "View from my Office" thread of a boat in a lagoon near our beach shack on the River Murray mouth. It is a tiny town, doesn't even have grocery shop. No chemist. Post Office etc etc. Within an hour of me posting the photo another AFF'er (newbie?) said their brother and Fiancee were on the boat. Small world.

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Is there no general store at Clayton anymore!?
 
wooley said:
Is there no general store at Clayton anymore!?
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No. I found to my dismay Monday to get some tea bags. New owners and have concentrated on the restaurant and take away which we never use.
 
Princess Fiona said:
Lol!! An interesting start to my second ever AA mileage run. Turned up for my flight to HNL scheduled departure 1845. After we were all onboard the plane was declared unserviceable and we were off-loaded and advised that we were re-scheduled for 2230. I wandered off to sample the delights of the QF TBIT F Lounge and wandered back to T4 at 2130 only to hear the announcement that the crew were out of hours and the flights delayed til tomorrow morning. After a brief spell in the Flagship Lounge I'm now safely tucked up in the LA Downtown Hotel courtesy of AA. Fingers crossed for some smooth flights tomorrow :)
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Hope you hadn't already changed into the QF F jarmies that I'm sure you had in your HLO immediately after boarding PF! - but, that said, I'd have liked to have been there if you had :p.
 
A really interesting program on SBS tonight; Heston Blumenthal trying to improve the food on BA (please no bombarding me with bricks, I've only flown them once and can't remember the food). He firstly checked out the food and thought it was cough; didn't bear much resemblance to the photo of the dish (and I missed the start but think it was in Economy) He worked his way up the food chain and didn't get any more impressed with the offerings in F. His plan was to design a menu which would taste good. So rather than have the stuff prepared on the ground he'd do it on the plane. Train wreck. Then he thought he'd just do a cold version of a bento box for the first class passengers - that made meal service 1-1/2 hours late!

However he was intrigued with what happens to the food and wine when it's 30,000 feet up and in the very very dry conditions in a plane. Why couldn't it taste good? He got the exec chef of BA to do a blind testing of the five flavours and discovered that salt, for instance, tasted about five times less salty. Sugar had a similar result. He discovered that the one thing which was not altered by altitude or dryness was (not too sure exactly what it was called) umami which is a component in soy sauce, nori, worcestershire sauce, etc. Parmesan cheese was another. He reinvented Shepherd's Pie, putting the cheese in the mashed potato and the other stuff in the meat mix and both the passengers and the BA tasting panel raved about it.

I've never watched his shows but it was fascinating to see how his mind was shooting off in all directions to try and solve the puzzle.

Oh, one of his suggestions to improve one's sense of taste was to restore humidity in the nose by using a nasal douche. Truly disgusting! It'll never catch on. But an interesting insight which might explain why some airlines serve cough food. Maybe - some airlines just do serve cough food
 
Julesmac said:
... But an interesting insight which might explain why some airlines serve cough food. Maybe - some airlines just do serve cough food
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BA is one of those airlines that does indeed just serve cough food. They don't call them Bloody Awful for nothing!
 
And BA just sent mrsdrron a survey on their customer relations effort over our baggage.
Poor souls.
 
Julesmac said:
A really interesting program on SBS tonight; Heston Blumenthal trying to improve the food on BA (please no bombarding me with bricks, I've only flown them once and can't remember the food). He firstly checked out the food and thought it was cough; didn't bear much resemblance to the photo of the dish (and I missed the start but think it was in Economy) He worked his way up the food chain and didn't get any more impressed with the offerings in F. His plan was to design a menu which would taste good. So rather than have the stuff prepared on the ground he'd do it on the plane. Train wreck. Then he thought he'd just do a cold version of a bento box for the first class passengers - that made meal service 1-1/2 hours late!

However he was intrigued with what happens to the food and wine when it's 30,000 feet up and in the very very dry conditions in a plane. Why couldn't it taste good? He got the exec chef of BA to do a blind testing of the five flavours and discovered that salt, for instance, tasted about five times less salty. Sugar had a similar result. He discovered that the one thing which was not altered by altitude or dryness was (not too sure exactly what it was called) umami which is a component in soy sauce, nori, worcestershire sauce, etc. Parmesan cheese was another. He reinvented Shepherd's Pie, putting the cheese in the mashed potato and the other stuff in the meat mix and both the passengers and the BA tasting panel raved about it.

I've never watched his shows but it was fascinating to see how his mind was shooting off in all directions to try and solve the puzzle.

Oh, one of his suggestions to improve one's sense of taste was to restore humidity in the nose by using a nasal douche. Truly disgusting! It'll never catch on. But an interesting insight which might explain why some airlines serve cough food. Maybe - some airlines just do serve cough food
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I haven't seen that programme yet. I know that BA did get HS on board (pun intended) to try and spruce things up on their menu. I believe they did F, maybe J, and I don't think for the other classes.

Must have been a short lived affair as the recent menus on the airline are decidedly pedestrian. Which might be satisfactory but then if you're going to be boring, it had better taste good.

One thing that surprises me a lot is that a lot of taste testing and so on is done on the ground, no matter if its executives, food panellists or prospective travellers doing the testing. I realise that it is not entirely practical just to launch an aircraft into the air to do a round of taste testing, but surely someone must have entertained the possibility of springing on a tasting trial, or perhaps a pressurised chamber to simulate in-air conditions? Maybe the latter does exist and I don't know it.
 
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