Oi Mr DB. Called to book old chap. Wasnt it you castigating some poor poster about the ethics of eating with chopsticks, yes thats it, it was the soup spoon debate. Now you admit it???? Are you related to Rebecca Brooks?

Ahem, and I quote sir

"
For what it's worth, though, I think Europeans who use chopsticks where there are knives and forks available are pretentious knobheads. "

unveryquote.

and in true NewsCorp style, I will refrain from referring to aforementioned posts for the very princely sum of.............

I don't mind if some crazy Chinese restaurant wants to sell salads as starters. In fact, the entire idea of having starters is odd.

But in Asia people often cafe or restaurant hop. So they'll get a fruit drink from a stall, grab some snacks from a market, then go to dinner. There'd be nothing wrong in someone having a salad and coffee in a cafe and then going to another place to eat dinner almost immediately after. Not much different then to a Chinese restaurant offering starters on a menu to non-place-hopping European diners.

The most difficult time I had was when my parents came to visit me whilst I lived in Beijing. I and my Dad eat everything; my Mum doesn't. My reading abilities could work out which animal the meat came from, but not which particular part. I had to keep asking the waitress what it was and pointing to bits of my body hoping that the animal in question didn't have something edible that I didn't have in my own body!

In DB's defence, he did say 'Europeans who use chopsticks.'

Don't you have some dishes to do woman?

That ,madam, is moderately seeking a reprieve through a perceived technicality, but I refrain from being diverted into a debate about whether a Brit is considered a European.

OK, I'll admit, I've made a U-turn on the subject of chopsticks (not the only U-turn I've made over the last few months, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to own up to any of the others).

I was sitting there, outside Chopsticks in the Niederdorf, determined to eat my dinner with a fork as is my wont, when my wife presented me with the following reasons to use chopsticks:

• Nobody cares what you are eating with, apart from you;
• You can pick up the best bits with chopsticks;
• Everybody else is using them. You're not in Cannock now, you know;
• You English are obsessed with class, aren't you?
• Get over yourself, doggone it! Use them chopsticks!
• I promise I won't tell anyone.

So I picked up the chopsticks and began to eat with them. All would have been fine, had I not been spotted by a couple of EFers who happened to be passing by.

The cat being out of the bag, I resigned myself to the fact that I am now a pretentious tosser just like all the other non-Asiatic types who eat with chopsticks, and gave up on my principles.

I'll be eating stuffed olives next.

See? Don't you feel relieved?

I'm betraying my people.

Nahhhh, to do that you'd have to give up marmite for peanut butter and jelly

Too late...

Ah well the damage is done....
The metamorphosis is almost complete

You may now sing:

My country tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing

Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrims pride
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring

(to the tune of God Save the Queen)

The gates of Cannock have been closed to you forever, you... you... turncoat!

Oh Dear! At this stage even the best of us can't help you....

Where did I hear that....

Just watching my favorite "Friends" episode- best quote "joey doesn't share food!". I love to pick off my family's plates, them, not so much.