things you once thought socially acceptable which now horrify you to remember

i worked as a researcher for a tabloid reporter for exactly one day, and that day included a three-pint pub lunch with sausage and mash. it defeated me. i was not asked back. (thank god! speaking of looking back in horror..)

Back when I smoked I actually once found myself surrounded by armed police in Romania for daring to make a (tabacco) rollie in public. It took them an excruciating ten minutes to establish there were no drugs involved.

There's a pretty good film from 2009, Police, Adjective, that points out the absurdity of Romanian laws (and attitudes) towards weed. Sadly, not much has changed since.

As a side note, why is there no ILX en français?

I remember going to a restaurant in Manhattan with my father once where the smoking section was the first floor, and the non-smoking section was upstairs. It was one of the most passive-aggressively dickish things I've ever experienced.

I've always thought it was because French people prefer hating things tbh

xpost

lol, touché.

Let's just assume the 'L' stands for 'loathe'.

Speaking of France my French uncle (age 90) told me at the school cantine in the 1930s the kids would be served a carafe of wine - vive La France!

I also remember seeing an old street photo of 1930s Paris that featured a bus sporting a public health announcement that said:"Doctors recommend no more than two bottles of wine a day!" Autres temps, autres moeurs!

Dipsomania begins at five bottles.

I went to Bordeaux on a French Exchange trip for 3 weeks when I was 13. the family I was staying with used to give me watered-down wine with meals, at one point I mentioned that I'd never had watered-down wine before, because whenever I'd had wine at home it was just straight wine - but this was only really at weddings or occasionally at my dad's house he would give us a small glass of wine (or Babycham more often). they took it to mean I was a hardened wine drinker and from then on I got non-watered wine and more of it. that trip was my real introduction to boozing, first time I ever got properly drunk

(Of absinthe.)

xp

I also remember seeing an old street photo of 1930s Paris that featured a bus sporting a public health announcement that said:"Doctors recommend no more than two bottles of wine a day!" Autres temps, autres moeurs!

― Zelda Zonk

did the doctors also say wine was good for your "t-zone"?

Yeah, wine consumption in France has reduced a lot, even in my lifetime : when I was born, in the mid 70s, it was over 100litre/year/person. Now it's around 40litre/year/person.
And people still think a little glass of wine everyday is good for your health.
Even the government says so !

Je lirais un babillard d'ilx en français.

France still boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world, so I'd say it's worth it.

And regarding smoking, when I was a teenager, it was still possible to smoke in the metro/trains !

Mods, can we get our own 'I Loathe Everything (en français)' board?

my dad still talks of a time when you could get a beer in a drive-thru, but only one per person

obviously makes sense why that's no longer allowed but I definitely had a "you should be allowed to drink while driving if you're not over the limit" phase lmao

J'ai posé la question aux modérateurs: French Board?

Merci !

Shit, frogs. You can go through a drive-thru here, order a pint of Evan Williams and a can of coke, and they'll throw in the plastic cup filled with ice for free.

But not on Sundays!

Growing up evangelical in a rural, isolated geography means I have 100 things for this thread--all of them pretty boring.

It's more interesting to me to contemplate how many years after leaving that environment it took me to "deconstruct," as they say--to un-internalize the hateful norms and be able to feel surprised by them, or to realize that the basic injustice of them. They were just air and water to me for so long.

French soldiers during WWII (and maybe I) got a ration of wine a day (like a bottle). It was very nice even though it may have been watered down.

"Meet Me at the Flagpole"

a pint of Evan Williams and a can of coke

now that's a ratio

Watching hours and hours of sitcoms with the family, or comedy panel shows, repeats of Simpsons etc

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, July 13, 2019 12:11 PM (two days ago)

isn't this just rebranded as "binge watching"?

just plopping down and watching whatever is on tv, or making plans to watch a block of sitcom shows on a specific night is kind of dead

Yeah during WWI, wine was necessary to get the poilus going... basically the equivalent of speed for the germans during WWII !

i remember sitting down for that Thursday night NBC block as a kid, Cosby and A Different World and Family Ties and Wings and Dear John(!) and Cheers and Night Court and Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, I think those were the shows that ran during that period of time.

i don't have the patience for watching more than one episode of TV per night now, usually once per week. it's not even a "i don't even watch TV thing", it's just overwhelming. everyone's saying "you have to watch this show!!!" and everyone saying this is talking about a different show.

I was very much an asshole to my mom when she kept trying to guilt me into visiting home and I would say "why, so we can sit around at night watching shitty tv while not speaking to each other?"

Hey don't knock sitting around watching shitty tv while not speaking to each other, it can be good times.

I won't travel 8 hours to do that.

Meatloaf b-side

Heh.

LOL I wish my parents did that, mums idea of a visit is "sit around with the TV on and promptly talk over the top of it all very loudly non stop and complain when I dont listen/reply".

that is one acceptable way to watch tv

Early retirement (on a voluntary and non-health reasons basis) is another area where attitudes might move towards being 'socially unacceptable' here in the UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/17/renting-millennials-homelessness-crisis-retire

On a minor thread diversion, the article shows that quality of housing is a major issue for older people now:

“Our research has shown that the lives of too many older renters are blighted by insecure tenancies, woeful living conditions, dealing with unscrupulous landlords and constant financial stress.”

“On top of being notoriously expensive and unstable, too many privately rented homes simply aren’t up to scratch either – condemning older people to live out their retirement in places which are cold, damp or infested with mice.”

but the Guardian loves its millennial headlines.

I just thought of one:

- leaving school at year 10 instead of finishing thru to year 12.

This could possibly be an australian-specific thing but in the 80s and earlier, it wa sperfectly acceptable to finish school in year 10 (age 15) and go on to a trade or apprenticeship.

Course now theres no fucking trade colleges or apprenticeships and they want you to have a bachelors just to work at fricking McDonalds, so.

ha - you should visit Tasmania where the recent (2015) push to modernise the school system includes having high schools go to year 12! Imagine that! In the last 5 years there has even been a push for schools not to call the year 10 dinner the "leavers' dinner".
I wonder why 50% of adult Tasmanians have literacy difficulties.

A week or two ago in the LA Times there was a story about the woman who inspired the Gidget movies, and when explaining the name Gidget they said it was a combination of "girl" and "a word for a short person."

(PC gone mad, etc)

Matthew: but is that because they have yr 11-12 colleges? Thats how they do it in the ACT and I dearly wanted to go to a College, and not a shitty NSW 7-12 high school.

Yeah there are 11-12 colleges (my daughter is at one!) but a too-large fraction of students are finishing at year 10, so there is a push to have years 11 and 12 in the same schools as 7-10 so that students feel it's natural to go on. The minor downside is that 11-12 colleges are like "university light" with a young-adult vibe which my daughter really enjoys.

Yeah that why I wanted to go to one.

The talk of ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ upthread made me think of this which came to the same view of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNa5DUIzjiM&list=PL1eX22N4mg0xQyyHOpephOZdRvawuWOtE&index=9&t=0s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GNa5DUIzjiM&list=PL1eX22N4mg0xQyyHOpephOZdRvawuWOtE&index=9&t=0s

One day we will be able to add “standing on the walking side of the escalator” and that day will be joyous and glorious

Although that varies from country to country which complicates things