Too shy to ask for a hot Vimto, perhaps.
they didnāt get their own tea bag out of their pocket did they?
My parents, when they visit, always bring teabags and milk. Because my Typhoo and organic whole milk isnāt good enough, they like Asda tea and long life skimmed milk. Fucking chavs.
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my grandmother - used to bring her own cutlery, plate, and tea cup to a certain family members house (not my parents I hasten to add)
My old boss went with his wife on a work trip to China around 1990. He was enough of a VIP that his hosts provided a guide to look after him. He said whenever they went into a restaurant the guide would immediately order green tea and, when it arrived, use it to wash all their crockery and cutlery before walking over to the window and pouring the used tea out.
VB
Mine used to bring buttered Hovis wrapped in tin foil.
If Sunday lunch wasnāt on the table at 12.01 sheād fish it out of her handbag and have a wee snack.
The scope for passive aggression is huge with parents versus food.
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Perhaps they donāt like the taste of your creme? 
I went on a work trip to Beijing in about '91 to do some work for the British Council. I was accompanied by a lovely academic colleague from the Chemistry department. He really was your typical academic at the end of his career, not quite with itā¦
At our arrival banquet, one of the dishes we were presented with. was a beautifully cooked whole duck, that had clearly been cut up into bite size morsels and then reconstructed with the head, beak and everything to resemble a fully formed duck. I was warned by my Chinese minder, that contrary to popular belief the locals would not eat the whole thing, some he said might eat the feet, and no one would eat the headā¦my colleague over the other side of the table was meant to be given a similar warning on etiquette.
Butā¦as the oldest (therefore most senior) person present and as the guestā¦my colleague was given the privilege of helping himself first, with the notion he would take the most succulent fatty parts of the thighā¦but no, he grabbed the whole head (beak included)ā¦stuffed the thing in his mouth and proceeded to crunch downā¦
I have seen such a look of bewilderment on our hosts faces, or on the faces of the British Council staff who looked like they didnāt know whether to laugh or cryā¦
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Fixt for accuracy 
vaguely true - I have to manage 60 of themā¦like herding cats some timeā¦
I donāt envy you that particular task.
Rant on/
As a retired academic I have to say that the bane of life for myself and my colleagues was the imposition of a new top-down managerial style from the late-90s on. Tick-box mentality, cheapest way of doing anything, decimation of career pathsā¦ place filled up with little grey managers doing non-jobs pushing emails around. I got out 4 years ago, having had enough. From what I can see it hasnāt got any better, to the detriment of education. I did a lot of external examining and itās a theme everywhere, but particularly so in my old sector, the post-92s.
Not disagreeing with the difficulties of management, or the āindividualityā of many academics - I had enough problems trying to keep a relatively small group heading in roughly the right direction, but the consumer-culture and managerialism that has taken over has stifled so much good practice.
/Rant off
My eldest is heading towards being an academic after finishing her PhD in March 2017, I have pointed her towards the USA as they seem to appreciate them more. She asked at her Uni and the management are fucking useless and pissed her off.
So they will have lost one of their high profile students who could have dragged the shitebags up the rankings in her area, but fuck no.
How many PhD students do you know have been on national and international TV, radio and other media like national newspapers, science journals giving interviews etcā¦ in their area? Not many, and we just let the good ones walk away.
IMHO most post 92 HEIs would foster and nurture someone with that kind of profile. I have an American boss, and a number of colleagues who came from the USā¦iām not convinced that I agree with US HEIs appreciating academics more. Iād say choose your first position very very carefully and it can be āhealthierā moving from your PhD institution/departmentā¦
Iām at a post 92 (which were you at?), and although I have barely known any better (I had my first post in 1991), I do know where you are coming fromā¦
Claire, who is an FE Business Studies lecturer, has had enough of the micro-management inherent in her college and the constant drip, drip, drip of new admin tasks being integrated into her role. So despite getting a stellar review of her teaching ability in a recent OFSTED inspection, she wants out. Today she had an interview and did a presentation for a new marketing role at her college.
If she gets it, itāll be a slight pay cut, at least initially, but her real life hourly rate will rocket, due to the lack of marking and report writing and lesson planning until stupid oāclock.
I really hope she gets it. 
Red, white and blue Brexit.
Get to fuck with your empty rhetoric youā¦you ā¦Fuckers.
Sick to death of bollocks like Northern Powerhouse etc.
Oh ā¦and Worcester Bosch can have one for designing a boiler where you either have to remove the bastid thing from the wall or remove everything wet inside to change a Ā£10 part.
Today has been bobbins.
Andā¦Iāve left my good socket set somewhere.
The North, and the Midlands, were the fucking industrial Powerhouse until that bitch Margaret Hilda emasculated them because of her twisted ideology and hate of any kind of work that might get your hands dirty, despite the fact that it provided livelihoods and self respect for millions of people.
And B&Q can have one too. I bought some Christmas lights off them and now we are diving deep into the festive spirit, trying to keep my sense of humour, I find a few bulbs are gone.
They donāt sell replacement bulbs, only complete sets. Tossers.
I feel for anyone in FE they have it worse than us. And when the government insists they deliver HE in FEā¦I feel for them even more
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