Get Thee Behind Me, Mr Kipling
In dangers-of-the-workplace news:
The grown adult quoted above is Professor Susan Jebb, employed by the University of Oxford to think deeply on matters of diet, and current chair of the Food Standards Agency. For our disapproving academic, the workplace is akin to a “smoky pub,” due to the occasional presence of cake, and therefore conjures – in her mind, at least – notions of “passive smoking.” Being offered a slice of cake during one’s coffee break is, it turns out, grounds for invoking victimhood. And because struggling with even the most routine self-possession has to be blamed on something:
Cauliflower enthusiasts will no doubt be gutted.
Professor Jebb insists that her desire to make workplace cake-bringing taboo – and seen as something harmful and antisocial – is “not about the nanny state,” or, dare I suggest, some personal inadequacy. You see, the advertising of cakes and other confections – and the fact that they may be accessible in the workplace – is “undermining people’s free will.” Free will being demonstrated only by compliance with Professor Jebb’s New Rules Of Cake-Eating. And which is why, one assumes, this grown woman, a professional intellectual, can’t say no to a bit of sponge.
Cakes in the workplace – and their allegedly unhinging effects on women – have, of course, been mentioned here before.
Via Christopher Snowdon, who, as you might imagine, has some thoughts.
I’m fairly sure that if these “academic” institutions were to be held financially responsible for the loans offered to their students, instead of having them underwritten by the rest of us, much of this idiocy would quickly resolve itself.
Oh wait, dammit. She doesn’t even have any students. Bugger. We’ll never get rid of her.
That.
Well, it’s, shall we say, an interesting definition of free will, in which one denies one has any, at all – because deciding whether or not to have a piece of cake is some overwhelming ordeal and beyond human fathoming – and so one defers instead to the fever dreams of our prodnose professor.
If you work from home are you not supposed to offer yourself cake? Or would that be a lack of self control to not only not eat the cake, but also to not stop yourself offering yourself the cake. This can get a bit esoteric quickly can’t it.
It’s certainly some lowest-denominator shit when the fact that some fat bint can’t resist cake means we have to ban cake.
Oy, have you got a license for that piece of cake?
What most workplaces need is not cake but a well stocked wet bar. That is definitely one of the perks of working from home.
There is, as so often, a self-ratcheting dynamic. As Christopher Snowdon notes,
And those budgets, perks and pensions have to be justified somehow, regardless of intrusion and with ever greater contrivance.
[ Sips cranberry juice. ]
Avert your eyes.
Avert your eyes.
MUST. EAT. CAKE.
Professor Jebb insists that her desire to make workplace cake-bringing taboo – and seen as something harmful and antisocial – is “not about the nanny state,”
Liberals and leftists say that a lot. But tyranny is never far from their minds.
Remember eco-doom monger Paul Ehrlich, author of the infamous book The Population Bomb? In this excerpt from a 1970 TV interview he says he is “against government interference in our lives” and then goes on to list the ways that government should coerce us into doing what he wants.
[ Fetches restraints. ]
Avert your eyes.
Battenburg pattern? Needs a siren to warn Jebb.
MUST. EAT. CAKE.
The cake is a lie.
On a side note, earlier this morning I was getting a server error – the first since moving the blog away from Typepad – with pages and the dashboard being slow to load. Reported it to the new hosting company, which, unlike Typepad, monitors customer complaints round the clock. Problem sorted in roughly the time it takes to make a cup of coffee.
Oh happy day.
Woman with no self-control wants to control others.
Shocker!
Oh, fuck off, Susan. What a joyless, miserable bint you are.
Speaking in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the FSA, she said: “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people…
She can think that, but facts are not in evidence, besides, isn’t this just systemic fatphobia?
Clicking on the link to Christopher Snowden’s comment, I was surprised to see that Jebb does not appear to be the kind of person who finds it hard to resist a slice of red velvet.
A Google image search shows her to be slender and, if anything, perhaps someone who might positively benefit from an exceedingly good cake now and again.
So not only do I suspect a lie of sorts, but also that she is likely a highly judgmental sort.
The kind who tuts every time she walks past a Greggs.
I do not care about his psychological problems: An immediate beating would teach him to behave.
We’ve ended up with a complete market failure because what you get advertised is chocolate and not cauliflower.
I don’t think she understands what a market failure is.
I’m with her !!! Far to much cake floating about.
Not near enough pie…
This goes along with the nonsense of referring to excess weight in the passive voice, as if the extra mass just snuck up on you and jumped up onto your belly. As if you couldn’t stop it.
In NYC the mayor at the time, bloomberg, did the usual nanny thing and banned giant sodas because of course the rabble have no self-control. In LA, they banned or tried to ban the construction of any new fast food restaurants in the poor parts of town because the proles were eating too many burgers and tacos (never mind they were happy doing so and can’t afford a meal that would be approved). The solution to every problem (or every imagined problem) is always force.
The typical sex of the more prodigious office cake-eaters is not, I think, irrelevant.
Again, Mr Snowdon:
But then, Professor Jebb also appears to struggle with the concepts of free will, personal responsibility, and self-indulgent overreach.
“Speaking in a personal capacity on behalf of the FSA, she said: “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people …”.
No Susan, we need to practice being rational, intelligent, educated people.
I’m with her !!! Far to much cake floating about.
Not near enough pie…
No! What’s needed is roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.
Economists would predict that such an advertising blitz would, at best, lead to vegetable eaters consuming slightly less swede and slightly more cauliflower
I resent that.
(Because I’m a Swede.)
[ Fetches Ingrid’s coat, rummages under bar for detonators. ]
Wi not trei a holiday in Sweeden this yer ?
See the loveli lakes
The wonderful telephone system
And mani interesting furry animals
Including the majestic moose
Given the recent Scandinavian turn of this comments section, I submit for your pleasure this Swedish lesson with a difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc3M1nppd3c
We can ascribe status/honor to ourselves by being virtuous, by overcoming difficulties, by doing good deeds. The first is hard to prove and the third is a lot of work. Thus overcoming difficulties is the path of least resistance, at least when imaginary difficulties are overcome. Thus we endure and moan about cake being offered (normally a sign of generosity), microaggressions like holding doors open, tall people, being on time, wood paneling, thin people, pretty people, household chores, “field” work, “master” cylinders, “chief” operating officers. We do this because we cannot brag about surviving a drought that killed all our cattle or a marauding army that burned our fields. Lack of self-awareness prevents them from seeing how trivial these problems are.
By the way, american indian warriors were called “braves” because whites universally considered them brave. Not clear how that could be racist.
[ Fetches Ingrid’s coat, rummages under bar for detonators. ]
[ Returns to bar, wearing chain mail outfit. ]
Fireproof.
More Swedish culture.
I confess! Many years ago there was a Friday AM tradition at work for doughnuts. After a while I got tired of them, and dropped some cash in the donation box with a note pleading for different snacks. I denounce myself!
Again, this is the problem. Trying to address leftist BS with logic and reason. Logic and reason should tell you that trying to treat emotional diarrhea with L&R has failed time and time again and for decades. As alluded to in “I do not care about his psychological problems: An immediate beating would teach him to behave.” If I were to encounter such behavior where I shop I would be hard pressed to restrain myself from dragging his fat ass out the door. Though unlikely as I quit shopping at Target (looks like a Target anyway) when they conformed to the tranny bathroom thing.
Again, this is the problem. Trying to address leftist BS with logic and reason. Logic and reason should tell you that trying to treat emotional diarrhea with L&R has failed time and time again and for decades.
Sadly, you cannot reason leftists out of their madness. You can only use reason to persuade others that the leftists are wrong. So evidence and logic are still useful, but for the leftists one must use other methods.
And then proceed to demonstrate they aren’t.
Conducted energy devices seem efficacious.
News Flash … Half the people in the western world have all gone mad and the simply stupid one have gotten stupider. That’s what’s wrong. The dumbing down has taken effect. Weak leftist fools are in charge of almost everything … so don’t expect that one election might change things much. Meanwhile it’s rule through ignorance and FEAR.
Generally speaking, yes. But this is a case of shooting fish in a barrel. Anything short of dropping in a stick of dynamite is not going to get the point across.
This feminist will fight for your rights by advertising tampons.
I tells ya, this is all because of computers and the internet. These tools make a small minority much more competent but the majority get stupider.
So, C.S. Lewis was correct…
Also, when did cauliflower become the latest thing? Was there some nutritional breakthrough that determined mass consumption to be a great thing?
Or did the Cauliflower Growers just start advertising?
Frankly, I blame Big Cauliflower…
PUT DOWN THAT PAINT CAN!!
Mistaken or malevolent? Answers on a postcard, please.
Speaking as a fat person who is trying to become less fat (and was doing quite well until a close family bereavement last year somewhat undermined my willpower), cauliflower is not food. It’s nature’s polystyrene packaging. The diet books hope that if you eat enough cauliflower, you won’t have room for anything with any actual food value. But the salivary glands are not fooled. Just get used to eating less.
It’s hard to muster much enthusiasm for it. At least swede can be used in a stew without it seeming entirely pointless.