Jack Monroe #575 The only poverty she's interested in alleviating is her own

[Droosie123]

I see the whole “ I moved the blue screen so I could forensically watch the caesarean section” comment was revisited in the last thread. For the newer canal members I can say as an ex-midwife this would not be possible..

Shock horror…..she lied about this.

 

[MavisBeacon]

Frauen - I have just been to a delightful garden in the south of England, where the catering hut reminded me of someone... I was concerned this might be a new job for her but can report that the food was delicious, so I think it's unlikely to be the slop pixie.

 

[houseofhoop]

Jack's nonsense about her university studies really infuriates me. Britain is such a brilliant country for lifelong learning, with a wealth of adult education colleges, a proud history of working class educational institutions and so many ways to enter higher education at any point in a person's life.

Yes, we know high fees and student debt are crippling, we know this government has attacked and undermined the universities, that there's a huge need for more funding to keep arts and humanities programmes, and that academic careers have become casualised due to the neoliberal model.

But... higher education is entirely achievable to anyone who really wants it. Jack's had 20 years since she left school to get her shit together and earn a degree. Or do an apprenticeship to learn a trade. All her blether is just that, hot air.

Just two examples:
1. My friend went to medical school in her late forties. She had to go back to GCSE science and maths, do the very difficult exam to get into a course, commute back and forth for 4 years to uni in another town while co-parenting young kids in her home town. She's bright and hard-working and determined. And she's now a junior doctor in the NHS, having served her hospital internship during Covid.
2. I live opposite a refugee hotel in London. There's an Afghan family living there, mum, dad and young toddler. Dad is an obstetrician but his qualifications are not recognised in the UK. So he's training and studying again, even after having done 12+ years training in his home country. While living in one room in a grim hotel, with no money and all their meals delivered in styrofoam boxes. He'll be an asset to the NHS when he's done.

Jack can sod off.

Amazing!
I am 45 and I’m currently studying for a degree. Growing up in a cult where women were not allowed to be educated, meant I don’t have the opportunity or the grades to allow further education, so I had to start again.
I Fucking love learning and expanding my mind

 

[Veronicaaa]

Guys .....

 

[Geetbo]

Interesting that everyone who runs into guest seems to type in the same GCSE creative writing style. Really makes you think.

 

[CabalofBolorneaise]

I've been mithering (pronounced "mithering") over the bath salts.

None of the recipes I've found include bog standard table salt, and nor do they use crushed up orange peel or eucalyptus leaves, they all use epsom salts, some use sea salt or the pink Himalayan salt as well, and essential oils. Anything like flower petals or leaves are strictly for decoration, to make it look pretty as a gift.

So, it looks like she's taken a perfectly functional recipe that is the recipe because it works, swapped out the ingredients for cheapo pov versions because she doesn't understand what she's doing, and created something that will block your drains. Much like her slops, really.

What Jack (and tbh others in her “niche”) consistently fail to understand is that not every recipe can be made accessible to everyone and that is perfectly fine.

It’s not discriminatory to have a recipe containing expensive ingredients that someone in poverty cannot afford. Not everything can be for everyone, sometimes “it’s an aubergine recipe Susan” and that’s that.

What is discriminatory is making a shite version of it you’ve never tried yourself and that won’t work so you can claim you’ve made it accessible to the povs and collect all the headpats. See the salts and her fucking weird jubilee trifle.

 

[Geetbo]

I promise to always find a way to lower the tone tenderstems x

 

[rage naan]

I don't think I'm misremembering - didn't the woman who edited it post on Twittex about how proud she was to have worked on Grifty Kitchen? Crimson for you, hun. It was dogshit.
---

Nobody noticed that these were apparently crumpets either... still cannot believe this was published in a professional cookbook, let alone one the author thought was her "best ever". Talentless grifting chancer.
View attachment 2962379

Scarlet indeed. this may be the most embarrassing tweet anyone has ever tweeted

there's a lot more where that came from too

etc etc.

My favourite is this one tho

 

[Nonah]

I always think she looks like Sid Owen in that bottom pic

 

[lilykestrel]

I don't understand the response, squig isn't even having a go?

Spoiler: hidden cos mentions suicide

 

[rage naan]

I remember fondly the wounded tweets about her always being lovely on set when it came out that she had been a pain in the arse and had fucked her TV career up the arse.

I love those.
I'm so easy to work with! I only need a whole ass entourage to softly gently hold me and reassure me how special I am and someone to painstakingly make me special cue cards, and a special sink to do my own washing up, and I won't hear you cos I'm wearing earplugs

mate reading your tweets is hard work. I can't imagine what it's like to have to encounter you in person. "Hold me! No, now give me space! No, hold me again!"

 

[Nonah]

I tried to write this earlier but couldn’t word it right and I want to be nice to the person it’s about because she’s a friend.
She joined my team as a shiny young new person and I was mentoring her. She was autistic and also had some protected characteristics but I am not really comparing her to Jack because she was (and is) ace.
BUT she loved to find busy-work to do which was completely outside of her job description and it took a bit of work to get her to focus on her actual job rather than, say, re-writing the whiteboard with useful numbers which had got a bit messy, or sorting the stationery cupboard. And it was all under the guise of being bright and helpful and having ideas, but was really to do with lacking confidence and feeling out of her depth. Once we ironed that out she was absolutely great.
Thing is though, a lot of people just saw a bolshy gobshite who thought she knew better than everyone else and it made her really unpopular with some of the older members of the team, so she then had to work that much harder to win them over and shake that initial reputation of being annoying. And she did so it was all fine and everyone lived happily ever after.
The End.

 

[Geetbo]

I wonder why she is sharing a wig with Michael Fabricant.

 

[Flivver]

Bringing this excellent thread title back from the past to where it belongs.
No festival bookings, no facetuned hammock thirst shots. No per rialto. At least in public, all is quiet on the guestern front

There’s another fab thread title here dear Mave - All quiet on the guestern front!

 

[Five hundred dogs]

These pics-

remind me of this-

 

[Witchfinder Sargeant]

Guys .....

I note that they've locked replies...

 

[houseofhoop]

Was she lifting those boxes?? What happened to ‘mostly use a spoon these days’

 

[Lucky Escape]

I think most people already know the latter to be honest. Poverty for most people is and always has been balancing scrimping on one thing with spending more on something else be it branded beans, ketchup or better welfare meat/eggs so it’s instinctive.

I think there’s something to be said for offering a cheaper alternative when it doesn’t affect the recipe that much especially if it’s something non-obvious but only if it’s tried and tested and sensible.

IDK though it just often seems to come across as super patronising to me when chefs are like “you can buy basic value pasta but it’s worth spending more on a decent cheese” or “this is quality mince, look you can make more than one meal with it and it will carry cheaper tinned tomatoes!” and the ever present “you can put your potato in the microwave for 5 mins and that’s cheaper than the oven for 90 mins”…. no shit Sherlock we’re poor, we’re not thick. I knew that stuff when I was 11, I don’t need some chef coming along acting like it’s a revelation or presenting a shite imitation of his lasagna “for the poors” and expecting headpats. Jack’s the most egregious example but she’s far from alone with it.

It's tricky, though, because there's always always going to be someone who doesn't know it already, and would benefit from hearing about it.

It's a bit like Delia teaching people to boil an egg, or maybe even sex education stuff at school - being taught the basics is inevitably going to seem a bit patronising for most of us... but for those who are hearing it for the first time, it's really, really important.

And that's the problem with Jack: she's taking on a great responsibility, and making such a crappy job of it. Her whole shtick is "you can eat fancy food even if you're poor!", but it's not actually necessary to sieve Paxo into three different components in order to eat well!

 

[Geetbo]

Gak is better than tattle, to be fair

I prefer tattle. Less chance of me waking up in a strangers bed looking like a Salvador Dali painting.

 

[hoopdedoo]

I just got a notification from Patreon. A musician that I support with a monthly subscription cancelled their tour and is taking some time off because of health issues. The notification says that the musician won't be collecting this month's Patreon payment, because they won't be posting the content they usually provide.

So Patreon users can temporarily suspend their accounts when they can't provide what they promised. Really makes you think, eh, guest?