25 things you need to watch out if you don’t want to be a buffet boor!

This is scheduled to appear on Valentines Day and eating out is a favoured way of celebrating this day. Maybe, despite the current nasal plague, you will find yourself at a Valentine’s Day Buffet and be very glad that you read this today, by way of a timely reminder. If you are reading this on some other day, be sure that this will change your life, or maybe even your wife, therefore study it diligently through to the end.

Kid with buffet hit at a christening party

Buffets are a modern and popular way of doing “HoReCa”, which is a sigle for the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering industry. They enable larger numbers of people to obtain food from a larger selection for a single per head fee. You will often see these at business mixers, conferences, training events, even weddings, bar-mitzvahs and funerals.

Done well, they can be a very elegant, efficient and even economic way of sharing food, however, as with any social event involving human beings, you’ll always find a minority spoiling things for the majority. And, here’s the thing, they don’t always know they are doing it! They wonder why people are not speaking to them, or not inviting them back for other events, or even calling the police to have them removed.

I have therefore compiled a handy list of twenty does and don’ts, I have to say mainly don’ts, which will help you attend a buffet without getting “buffeted for your faults”, as the Apostle Peter puts it.

 

Do’s and don’ts

 

  1. If there’s a queue, don’t jump it. There is a place for jumping, but queues are not that place. “Queue” means “line”, if you are American.  Americans also don’t do line jumping but they do do line dancing, so be prepared for that.
  2. Once you have charged your plate with a reasonable amount of food, do move away from the area in order not to cause congestion.  This is common in venues which are really too small for the event they are hosting, but it also happens at spacious venues if the people concerned are unawared that they are supposed to be sharing planet Earth with their peers. Some people’s mothers did not tell them this, but we can be a mother to them and tell them that it’s a good idea to budge along a bit.

  3. If there are platters for vegans, or food allergy people, do only take from them if you are in that group, unless it is close to the end and you’re sure they won’t need them. It’s a dirty trick by greedy pigs to analyse what some other people can’t eat in the company and come to that last, but go first to the only stuff those people can eat. Don’t be like that. Do as I say, not as I do.

  4. Don’t hog all the best things because you were lucky enough to be near the front of the queue.

  5. Don’t pile your plate high, even if you can eat it, it’s not a competition to see who can demonstrate the largest appetite.

  6. Don’t take more than you can eat – the best known and, if you like, cardinal buffet sins. We call this the cardinal buffet sin because I hear they do it quite a bit.

  7. Do take the cutlery at the right point in the queueing process (see point 1. above) and handle it appropriately. If you are not sure you can handle the food in mod air without dropping it on the floor, take it to one of those tables (in mixer situations). Then ask the people who are already round that table if you can join them. Then use the cutlery with the proper hands and don’t wave the cutlery in the air. Do be aware of the special rules regarding hashi or chopsticks and in particular don’t stab the food, or your fellow diners, with the sticks.

  8. Don’t handle the food with your fingers. The expression “finger food buffet” doesn’t refer to fingering everyone else’s food, for your information. So if you have already taken something, don’t put it back.

  9. Don’t maul the collective food even with the tongs.

  10. If you have to cut cheese, do know how to cut it in a civilised way, with a “nez” and not straight on like some kind of Philistine. And even if it is Gorgonzola, it’s no excuse for behaving like Medusa.

  11. Don’t “cut the cheese” in the informal sense of that expression either. It rarely enhances the ambiance around the buffet. If it does enhance it, you’re at the wrong buffet and should probably leave the zoo while you can still do so under your own agency.

  12. If you are no good at cutting bread, don’t do it. If you do want to cut bread, handle the loaf through the cloth provided. That’s what it is there for, in case you were wondering.

  13. Likewise don’t sneeze, cough, spit, share your Covid-19 droplets, or leave your dirty plates and cups around the food. Don’t share cutlery with someone you don’t know: they may have paradontosis.

  14. Do leave the dirty plates, glasses and cutlery in the place provided or give them to the waiter. Especially don’t leave glasses in places where someone could accidentally break them and cut themselves. Even if it is a Jewish wedding, which does break them on purpose, the glasses which are to be broken are all under control. If you are unsure whether you are at a Jewish wedding, ask “is there a tent and a big piece of parchment with decorative writing on it?” if not, then it’s probably not a Jewish wedding, but even if it is, then the advice in this point still applies.

  15. If the idea of the buffet is a social event, then bear that in mind and do use it as a means to the end of getting to know people and don’t live for food like some modern Epicurian.

  16. If you have a buffet arrangement as part of a job interview then do bear in mind you are still on parade during this time and someone is likely watching your savoir-vivre and true character which tends to come out when the trough opens before certain people’s snouts.

  17. Do use the cloakroom (by which I mean the place you leave you coat and bags, not a posh word for toilet) especially if it is a standing buffet. Don’t have people tripping over your briefcase, and don’t knock someone’s plate or glass out of their hand with your stupid backpack. And yes, they are very stupid in the context of buffets.

  18. If you are the host, or an employee of the hosting company, do stand back and give the best of it to the guests. This procedure is known as FHB, or “family hold back”.

  19. Don’t juggle with too many containers or items of cutlery, and don’t take risks with other people’s carpets.

  20. If it’s a restaurant, don’t take the food out unless it was all paid for by the event organisers and would just go to waste, in which case you should indeed take some to go but always check with the restaurant’s manager. If it’s an in-house do, do make sure any decent left-overs are saved for those colleagues who couldn’t attend the event.

  21. Don’t gatecrash if you are not supposed to be there or try to weedle other unexpected guests in at the last minute. Likewise if you are expected but know you cannot attend, try to give the organisers some notice, the more the better.

  22. Do be polite to the wait staff and the cloakroom attendant, including being aware of and adhering to the tip culture of the place you are, remembering that thou also wast a cupbearer in the years of thy study.

  23. Don’t hog one person if it is a networking buffet, cramping their style, but rather circulate.  Do “work the room”, and develop some elegant ways of rounding off conversations. If you tell someone you have to go home and they see you chatting away to someone else ten minutes later, you can well imagine what conclusion they will come to and what they will think. Better is to say “I promised such and such to catch up with him/her this evening, please excuse me”.

  24. Don’t forget your business cards for social buffets and don’t forget the follow-up in mail or phone afterwards. Don’t worry if you don’t meet everyone. I usually leave when I have ten cards even if I could get more. Good follow up on ten cards is better than thirty cards with poor follow up.

  25. Do have some regard for your health. If you are on a diet, the abundance of quality free food is not reason enough to abandon it. I like to walk home afterwards, weather and safety permitting.  Should you have abandoned your planned eating regime for social reasons, that is understandable, but do get back with the programme as soon as you walk out of the door.

Bonus point – That was all 25 points but there is one special one. Remember the maxim, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” so if your conference happens to actually be held in Rome, don’t forget to eat lying on one side but despite what you might think, don’t make regular trips to the vomitoriumThis article will show you why not.

Question as answered: What are some buffet “etiquette tips” you wish more people would use?

Views at the time added to HTV: 7,100
Upvotes at the time added to HTV: 18
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My Credential for this answer: “I have eaten a lot of food”.

What should you not buy on your vacation?

What should you not buy on your vacation?

Original YT playout date: 28 August 2010
Duration: 3:30

This is a showcase of what Czech customs seized from holidaymakers returning from travels in exotic places with parts of engangered species breaching the CITES convention.

In order not to cause species to be depleted on this planet it is essential to stop the demand in these things. At least until they can be farmed in a sustainable way. Even certificates given by the person selling it may turn out to be bogus, and the cruelty involved in getting some of these products needs to be considered by souvenir hunters before they buy something gruesome which will hasten the demise of natural ecosystems.”
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Statistics and Credits
Views at the time added to HTV: 367
Likes at the time added to HTV: 5
Dislikes at time added to HTV: 0
Comments at time added: 4
Music used: None
Languages used: English
Animals/plants featured: None

It’s the Catholics I feel sorry for.

This week’s ruling in the UK House of Lords ruling that informal Muslim marriages which don’t get registered with the state won’t be treated as marriages on a par with those which are so registered, provoked the usual knee-jerk squealing by those who think that Muslims are being systematically victimised by horrible right-wing Christians, namely the Muslim pressure groups themselves in dischordant chorus with their Haw-Havian leftist enablers.

This post sets out to explain how they are in fact being treated exactly the same as everyone else, in fact many right-wing Christians have it worse than they do in countries they themselves run.

If a person has a marriage in their Church, Mosque, Temple or Synangogue and doesn’t register it with a nation state, then nation states won’t recognise them. Nation it is written, shall speak peace unto nation, and thus it is, as the Propesy says. The world has been divided as a result of the Napoleonic era and the emergence of the modern times rather than the middle ages, (the “last times” in which we currently see more and more preparations for the emergence of the Antichrist as described in Scripture) into relatively secular states in which both royal families and also religious institutions are free to exist and may be incorporated into the paraphenalia of states, but in fact we have these things called countries and these are boxes based largely around land and borders, with economies and governments and thei systems of taxing, spending, legilating and defending themselves which they devise.

Each one has a legal system, a flag, a system of government more or less democratic (although the best are defective) a national anthem, a dialling code, an internet country suffix, an ISO abbreviation. New countries get these by sending off to the UN for a “new countries kit” which contains a constitution, a dialling code, a flag, a national anthem, and an internet .tld and this costs $3999.99 plus postage and packing, although I can probably arrange a discount for you, if you have a new country and need to watch your budget.

And each country deals on a peer-to-peer basis with other countries. They are not dealing with churches or mosques or temples or synagogues, any more than they are dealing with tropical fish clubs or local restaurant karaoke clubs. If you want to get married in a Church, or a Mosque or a Karaoke club, you can. You are free to do that. You can get married in a Jehovahs’ so-called Witnesses so-called Kingdom Hall, in a Masonic Lodge (which is more or less the same thing but more public) or in a Spearmint Rhino if you like. You are free to do all these things. But if you want the recognition of a State for your marriage then you have to do it in a way that either the State you live in recognises, or from another State which mutually recognises the marriages.

Now if someone gets married in Saudi Arabia and has plural wives because that is all fine there, then actually the UK will recognise this as a foreign state did it even though you wouldn’t be able to enter multiple marriages in the UK. So it is not like we are not recognising Muslim marriages, but if you want to get amrried in this country then for it to be official it has to be done officially. And it is the same for all of us nobody is victeemising Muslims, sorry to tell you, because I know that will cost you tears of bewilderment and disappointment to find out to don’t have a valid basis for your usual whinging. In fact in most European counries the model looks like Poland, where you have to have a church and also a civil wedding even though the country is 93% Roman Catholic. Just getting married by the priest is not enough to be accepted by the State, just as Catholics would say that just marriage by the state doesn’t make it a sacrament. The reasons why treating marriage or the alternative in the catholic system of Ordination as a sacrament is bad theology in the first place is material for a whole ‘nother blogpost.

I’m a Calvinist, so for me marriage is not a sacrament, but a creation ordinance and “an holy estate of life” and the last time I looked, nikah was not a pillar of Islam either, and therefore you Muslims just like we Calvinists are married in the sight of God even if all we do is a civil ceremony.  It’s not like we can put tinfoil around the Registry Office so that God cannot look in.  So spare a thought for the poor Roman Catholics in Poland, they are the ones if anyone with a right to feel hard done by here.

Twenty Lots of Twenty Rules for the 2020s – 1. Behaviour at Buffet style events

First produced by me as an answer to a Quora question, this became relatively popular over there, so I thought I would bring it home here and share it with you. It is a few unwritten rules (now written) for how you can avoid comment or offence of general faux pas in these eating situations known as buffets, and they include rules that apply in varying contexts, including conference or party buffets where people know each other or who are supposed to be getting to know each other, as well as restaurants having buffets like the “Swedish table” at breakfast where you are not expected to be using the food as an adjunct to another social purpose. Some are in public places, others inside comanies or even people’s houses. Some of these buffets are culinary occasions intended to enable the tasting of different types of food and some are mere convenience, with containers piled with cheaply made and poor-quality food. Some of these rules don’t apply therefore to every occasion, whereas some probably would. Unless you know that a rule wouldn’t apply, assume it would.

  1. If there’s a queue, don’t jump it.
  2. Once you have charged your plate with a reasonable amount of food, move away from the area in order not to cause congestion.
  3. If there are platters for vegans, or food allergy people, only take from them if you are in that group, unless it is close to the end and you’re sure they won’t need them. It’s a dirty trick by greedy pigs to analyse what some other people can’t eat in the company and come to that last, but go first to the only stuff those people can eat. Don’t be like that.

    Don’t just hog all the best things
  4. Don’t hog all the best things because you were lucky enough to be near the front of the queue.
  5. Don’t pile your plate high.
  6. Don’t take more than you can eat. I know you cannot send the food from this buffet to the starving children, but that is not a reason to be wasteful.
  7. Take the cutlery and handle it appropriately. If you are not sure you can handle the food in mod air without dropping it on the floor, take it to one of those tables (in mixer situations). Then ask the people who are already round that table if you can join them.
  8. Don’t handle the food with your fingers, and if you have taken something, don’t put it back. Don’t maul the collective food even with the tongs. If you have to cut cheese, know how to cut it in a civilised way, with a “nez” and not straight on like some kind of philistine. If you are no good at cutting bread, don’t do it. If you do want to cut bread, handle the loaf via the cloth. try and show a certain culture in a discrete way, because people may be observing you even without especially meaning to.
  9. Likewise don’t sneeze, cough, fart, spit, or leave your dirty plates and cups around the food. Leave the dirty plates, glasses and cutlery in the place provided or give them to the waiter. Especially don’t leave glasses in places where someone could accidentally break them and cut themselves.
  10. If the idea of the buffet is a social event then bear that in mind and use it as a means to the end of getting to know people and don’t live for food like some modern Epicurian.
  11. If you have a buffet arrangement as part of a job interview then bear in mind you are still on parade during this time and someone is likely watching your savoir-vivre and true character which tends to come out when the trough opens before certain people’s snouts.
  12. Use the cloakroom especially if it is a standing buffet. Don’t have people tripping over your briefcase, and don’t knock someone’s plate or glass out of their hand with your stupid backpack. Don’t come inappropriately dressed if there was a dress code stated on the invitation, and don’t wear outdoor clothing to an indoor event.
  13. If you are the host, or an employee of the hosting company or organisation, you must stand back and give the best of it to the guests.
  14. Don’t juggle with too many containers or items of cutlery, and don’t take risks with other people’s carpets.
  15. If it’s a restaurant don’t take the food out unless it was all paid for by the event organisers and would just go to waste, in which case you should indeed take some to go but always check with the manager. If it’s an in house do make sure any decent left overs are saved for those colleagues who couldn’t attend the event.
  16. Don’t gatecrash if you are not supposed to be there or try to weedle other unexpected guests in at the last minute. Likewise if you are expected but know you cannot attend, try to give the organisers some notice, the more the better.
  17. Be polite to the wait staff and the cloakroom attendant, including being aware of and adhering to the tip culture of the place you are.
  18. Don’t hog one person if it is a networking buffet, cramping their style, but circulate. Work the room, and develop some elegant ways of rounding off conversations. If you tell someone you have to go home and they see you chatting away to someone else ten minutes later, you can well imagine what conclusion they will come to and what they will think. Better is to say “I promised such and such to catch up with him this evening, please excuse me”.
  19. Don’t forget you business cards for social buffets and don’t forget the follow-up in mail or phone afterwards. Don’t worry if you don’t meet everyone. I usually leave when I have ten cards even if I could get more. Good follow up on ten cards is better than thirty cards with poor follow up.
    and finally…
  20. Have some regard for your health. If you are on a diet, the abundance of quality free food is not reason enough to abandon it. I like to walk home afterwards, weather and safety permitting.

Letter of Introduction

Playout date: 9 May 2007
Duration: 9:00

This was done still in the early days with still less than 200 films and under 300 subbers, asking for more, but being utterly perplexed by a letter addressing me as “my gentleman”.
Continue reading “Letter of Introduction”