Perhaps taking its lead from a city centre café in Bristol (posts passim), multinational junk food chain McDonalds has now introduced sexism onto its menu.
The advertisement below was spotted on Easton Way, Bristol this morning.
Once again bacon and sausage are apparently foods exclusively for men. If any woman is ‘man enough’ to ask for them, what would that make her – a tomboy or a butch lesbian? Or simply unfeminine?
Answers in the comments below, please McDonalds.
Everywhere one travels in the United Kingdom, the common perception of residents is that their council is useless and costs too much.
Bristol is no exception to this commonly accepted opinion of local authorities.
In the past your correspondent has been no stranger to criticising Bristol City Council. However, there is one aspect of its operations where praise is due; and that’s its online presence. Compared with some local authority websites I have visited, Bristol City Council’s ranks amongst the best in my opinion. Indeed this blog has in the past praised Know Your Place, where one can get an intimate knowledge of the city and its long, proud history (posts passim). The open data section is worth a browse too.
This amazingly useful online presence is also apparent if one is concerned with street care and cleaning in Bristol. This is where one can report and obtain information on all kinds of problems encountered in urban steets.
The following can all be reported online:
Reporting road and cleaning problems online is by far the most convenient way of letting the council know of any problems encountered and as such can help to expedite their remedying, so get reporting. Most problems seem to be resolved within the promised 2 working days, although I must point out to any passing councillors and/or BCC officers that the system does occasionally break down.
I’m very proud to be Chair of St Werburgh’s Community Association and in that capacity am pleased to announce the return of our very popular Raking & Baking sessions, made possible by the kind support of the Big Lottery Fund.
All the details are on the poster below.
The Bristol Post, no stranger to the pages of this blog, has a sister paper, the Western Daily Press.
Both used to be produced in Bristol and were printed at the – now vanished – print hall of the Temple Way Ministry of Truth.
There used to be an old Bristol joke about the local press. It ran as follows: there are 2 newspapers in Bristol; there’s the Western Daily Press, which carries stories about far-flung corners of the West Country such as London, Manchester and Edinburgh (or any other 3 major UK cities of your choice. Ed.), and the Bristol Evening Post (as it was then called. Ed.), which carries stories about far-flung corners of the West Country such as London, Manchester and Edinburgh and 50 pages of classified advertising.
However, both the Post and the Press have more in common than their heritage and ownership. They are both badly written.
Thursday’s Press carried a piece which puts it firmly in homophone corner with a dunce’s hat on its head, as shown by the following screenshot.
For the benefit of passing Press “journalists”, here’s where your anonymous colleague went wrong.
You confused the heterographic verbs to break and to brake.
The former, which you used, is a strong verb, also called an irregular verb; these verbs form the past tense or the past participle (or both) in various ways but most often by changing the vowel of the present tense form. In this instance, break (present tense), broke (past tense), broken (past participle).
The latter, which you should have used in this case, is a weak verb. These (also called regular verbs) form the past tense by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the base form (or present tense form) of the verb (e.g. call, called).
Got it now?
Good! 🙂
Walking down Stapleton Road this morning, I stopped to take the picture below in readiness for reporting the fly-tipping to Bristol City Council.
The gentleman passing on the right of the picture and half caught by the camera saw what I was doing, thanked me effusively and shook my hand when I told him I was reporting it to the council.
We then had a brief conversation about how such anti-social behaviour detracted from the pleasantness of Bristol, which he described as a “beautiful city”, the health implications of fly-tipping and the way they encouraged the spread of vermin such as rats (posts passim).
As we parted with waves, he asked me whether I was a member of the Green Party. Unfortunately I have no affiliation, but that’s no barrier to being an active and caring citizen.
An unnamed café in Bristol is apparently serving his and hers breakfasts.
Yes, that’s right! Men get to scoff tortilla, bacon, sausages, 2 token items of fruit/vegetables (tomato and mushroom), Cheddar cheese, ham roll and butter, whilst women are supposed to pick their way daintily through muffin, poached egg, smoked salmon, salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, avocado, red onion, blueberries, yoghurt and pumpkin seeds.
Men can obviously let their figures go to pot (and blood cholesterol levels too. Ed.), whilst women are automatically assumed to be on a diet; women have “gotta stay slim for our men obvz” in the scathing words of one on social media.
This isn’t the first time that sexism has emerged at breakfast time (posts passim).
Update 30/04/15: The his and hers labels are being removed from the menu according to the Western Daily Press, which also revealed the name of the establishment as Caffe Be On. In addition, this post was quoted in yesterday’s Daily Mirror.
Hat tip: MarinaS.
There’s a hidden exclusive in today’s online edition of the Bristol Post. Unknown to the fans and probably the club itself, the Post reveals that Bristol Rovers now play in “blue and white stripes“, as shown by the following screenshot.
For the benefit of passing Post journalists, here are the three strips currently used by Bristol Rovers. Please note the only stripes are on the alternative away colours and have one thin blue stripe. The pattern used on the regular strip is commonly known as “quarters“.
The Post also mentions in the article that Catalonia’s CE Sabadell FC (who are in the Spanish Segunda División. Ed.) play in a strip “similar” to that of Rovers. FC Sabadell’s current strips are shown below and yes, the home strips do look very similar, even if the teams’ respective league positions do not; Rovers are chasing promotion from the Conference, whilst Sabadell are fighting relegation.
Let’s hope the players of both teams are more on target than Bristol’s alleged newspaper of record. 🙂
Banksy, probably Bristol’s most visible artist since the days when noted portraitist Sir Thomas Lawrence (13th April 1769 – 7th January 1830) became President of the Royal Academy of Arts, has now given allegedly given his opinion on Mr Farage’s party of right-wing xenophobes; and I don’t think Nigel will be enamoured with it.
This image will now be forever in my mind whenever the words ‘United Kingdom Independence Party‘ appear before me on a ballot paper.
On Friday 24th April 2015, the Open Rights Group is supporting the Wild Wild Bristol West Hustings, a chance for local voters to quiz the candidates for the Bristol West constituency – rated by commentators as either a 2-way or 3-way marginal constituency.
The event will be from 7.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. and its venue is Bristol University’s Wills Memorial Building, Park Street, Bristol BS8 1RJ (map).
In alphabetical order, the candidates attending as this post goes to press include:
More information about the prospective Bristol West MPs is available at http//meetyournextmp.com/event/646-wild-wild-bristol-west-your-future.
The event is free, but in order to allocate spaces fairly, you’ll have to register via EventBrite.
The event is being supported by ORG Bristol as part of the organisers, the Greater Bristol Alliance, a coalition of local campaign groups.
One transport project which is moving closer to realisation in the Bristol area – and is popular with locals too – is the reopening to passenger traffic of the railway line to Portishead (which is currently only used by freight trains to and from Portbury Dock. Ed.).
The project will entail building a new station at Portishead and reopening Pill station.
However, there’s also a petition to rally support for the building of a new station at Ashton Gate to replace the now-vanished original Ashton Gate station.
The petition reads as follows.
We are local residents and organisations (big and small) in BS3 campaigning for a new railway station in Ashton Gate on the Portishead branch line.
We want a new station opening in 2019 with two trains an hour in both directions – towards Portishead and Temple Meads.
In 2019 the Portishead rail line will be upgraded for new passenger services linking Bristol, Bath, Avonmouth and Portishead. New stations are being built at Pill and Portishead. Four trains an hour will pass through Ashton Gate.
A station linked into the local bus network would encourage visits to the area and promote the local economy. We believe trains must stop at Ashton Gate to allow residents, workers and visitors to come and go easily and comfortably whilst decreasing the strain on the heavily-used local road network.
A new station would bring substantial, long-term benefits to South West Bristol. Local people are increasingly turning to public transport and more rail services help to promote the city as a European Green Capital.