Paper Plates!
 

The dishwasher's broken and apparently fairy liquid combined with a good old bowl of hot water is not an option.

Waddington O's Mess - Bringing the detachment eating experience closer to home!

N.B. Please remember to take two plastic forks for when your oppo snaps your first one whilst your back is turned. :(

Will there be a Drive Through option ? :E

Don't forget to double up on the oval paper plates as well! :eek:

The B Word

I hope the PMC is, even now, searching for the Mess Webley. :ooh:

As a former Wines Member and D/PMC there, I can only say "it's gone downhill"

Don't worry Ladies and Gents, I'm sure Works Services are all over this and it'll be fixed by breakfast.

And here was me thinking this thread was going to be an enlightened debate about the relative merits of good old traditional paper approach plates vs those new-fangled iPad app thingys......

But no, it's about dishes. :ugh:

An awards ceremony in Wad's OM tomorrow - I wonder if the guests will get paper cups with the coffee?! :ouch:

And presumably this is in breach of (ISS?) contract, so - at the very least - Mess Members will be Paying Less As They Dine .....

No - I don't really think so either .......... :(

...... and why not??

Paper plates today, paper planes tomorrow .....?:rolleyes:

Jack

Teeterinhead old chap ... I may be off mark ... But I suspect it has something to do with UK food hygiene regulations :eek:

That was certainly the case when Mr & Mrs Coff stayed at The Grand Del Mar in San Diego when they suffered a "power outage" one evening :hmm:

So will they be using disposable cooking utensils, pans, baking trays etc then? If not, and if they can be washed by hand, then any argument about food hygiene or the dreaded H&S regs would appear to be weakened. More likely someone has decided they don't have the inclination or time to wash up.

So so very glad I no longer live in, Messes across the Services are becoming more and more like a poor impression of a Premier Inn than a home and welcoming club for Mess members. A curse on which ever idiot signed off on the idea to contractorise messes.

Ah that old chestnut. I've heard it often in RAF messes, usually at the end of the month or financial year.

Seriously... I have never ever gone into a civvy restaurant and been given a paper f***ing plate and plastic knife and fork. It's funny how their dishwasher has never broken down.

The only time a mess got worse, was when one mess constantly failed to have the most basic of food. From what I remember, it was the only place in the uk where there were a bread famine despite the local Tesco 6 miles away having crates of the stuff.

The sooner PAYD fails the better.

Plates..... eeeeeh 't luxury, when a'rr was a lad, theee were lucky 't get it in yer 'at and 't whippet would lick thee clean, don't yee knows..



..

Nutty ... Cue ...

Mind you ... I remember one business trip to the USA where I attended a corporate function with (anyhow rather indifferent) champers served in styro cups... :eek:

Hardly. One gets a TV with a full spread of digital channels in a Premier Inn. And you can wear jeans whenever the hell you want.

The messes will have to go significantly upmarket to compete with cheap motels.

Willard,

You forgot to mention the fully stocked mini-bar (exploited several times in USAF BOQ's) and heating that can be turned on/off all year round!

Not just heating - Air Conditioning!

I'll bet a PE has more than the 2 plug sockets present in my first couple of messes - one of which was on the left of the door to the corridor, with the tv aerial socket on the right :rolleyes:

Visited Leeming last year and the same arrangements in place - paper plates; though it was a one off, but ISTR it went on for several mths. I think the argument there was that the dishwasher was GFE and the RAF couldn't afford to repair it or some such. It was nearly as bad as Henlow!

Anyhoo, dragging myself back on topic; whilst on a ground tour at XW a couple of years back I used to eat in the mess at lunchtime every day of the 'working' week. It seemed the dishwasher broke down every fortnight judging by the paper plate proliferation. Even so, t'was better than eating at one's desk, which seemed all too prevalent amongst my colleagues - or worse still they'd spend lunchtime at the gym!

The main problem with paper plates was that they were considerably smaller than the earthenware ones, thus resulting in a lack of space for sufficient chips with one's burger.

MAD BOOM,

Just have a dig around the old in-flight rolls at the back of the fridge in the Tea Bar, (you know the one under the really expensive coffee machine); some of them are less than a week old!

P.S. Eating’s cheating:ok:

I bet the soup course was a bitch.

Earhtenware? Porcelain, I would hope.

What a sorry state of affairs, though. :uhoh:

OHmiGod! Horrors....probably had to use paper serviettes too!

Now that just isn't the done thing Sir.....no not at all....just not on at all!

Why next time it might even be.....styrofoam and Sporks!

Serviettes? How very lower order - the proper word is 'napkin'!

Mad Boom, you poor, poor man. I'm outraged, having to use paper plates whilst the dishwashers bust. Maybe you should go directly to the SWO and demand he expells the airmen from thier mess so you can go there?

What next ... that blue stuff from Kimberly Clark out the hanger :ugh:

Nothing here about paper plates ... :E

RAF Waddington ISS

I'm sure either Mr Walsh or Mr Murphy would be very receptive to providing an explanation to a serving member of the Officers Mess ... :}

RAF Waddington Officers Mess

Mess tins, your own irons and mug and a filthy great, scalding plate wash bath in the entrance, worked in the App's mess at Locking in the '60s.

Looking at that ISS templated link, what I find a shame is that all of a sudden, mess members are exposed to prose lifted from a Wetherspoon menu. There is no sense of understanding the audience.. not even an attempt to fit in around them. Knowing the price of something such as tradition is one thing - understanding the value of it is another.

I like the Waddington mess, I'm sponsoring the Man V Food (I think!) Halloween nosh up next month. The military chef is getting stuck in with far more passion than I experienced on my plate at a supposed 4 star venue yesterday.

Anyway, talking of paper, what about the old toilet roll? As recently as the late 80s ("as recently?!!"), the issued highly glossed, slick article seemed to be treated with something that should be applied to the keel of ocean going vessels. NOTHING stuck to it.

Something caught my eye on the ISS web site, so I looked up "deli" in Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge:

Then I looked again at the Waddington ISS site:

Ah, those delicacies, Walkers crisps and Pepsi!

Quote:

plate wash bath in the entrance

Exit surely?

Although my dad swore by bread as the best means of cleaning his irons and tin.

The huge bath of water for washing mug & irons at Cosford (1959-61) was frequently boiling hot, woe betide you if you dropped any of your irons in there as you'd get 3rd degree burns trying to extract them. And your pot mug was a prime target for malicious sods who would give it a smart tap with their knife thus shattering the said pot mug and forcing you to go plastic

Serviettes? How very lower order - the proper word is 'napkin'!

Quite right too! Please tell me that, someone, somewhere, still has access to a supply of "fluted cups for officers with fluted lips" .......;)

Jack

You might have a shortage of crockery at Waddington, but at least you don't have absolutely no bacon whatsoever for weekend brunch at Venning Barracks Officer's Mess in Donnington, as happened the weekend before last. Eventually, after much grumbling on our part, the chef gracelessly produced a burnt sausage baguette with a complementary sachet of tomato ketchup. Pathetic doesn't even cover it... I much, much prefer Cosford Officer's Mess, albeit the coffee machines in the ante room are out-of-order. :(

I should count yourself lucky that you've still got paper plates! At a punchy frontline Hampshire airbase there is currently no service in the O's mess for main meals at all. Rumour has it combined messing is in force for several (3 or 4) months....

Halton Apprentices ate off proper plates, but I suppose Locking was a bit out in the sticks :). Fond memories of the steaming Vats of water for Iron cleansing :ok:.

lm

Frontline.... All 3574 miles from it, Unless you are having trouble with the locals in North Warnborough, I cannot see how you can define it as erm frontline. :}

was it true that officers' chamberpots had handles, airmens' had not, on the basis that officers had to keep their thumbs dry?
We certainly had the handled variety at Nicosia 1961, my wife grew cress in it.

Only asking!

Ref Serviettes vs Napkins. I was always told it was, 'paper serviettes,' or napkins. Serviettes during the day, and napkins at any other time, or when you had guests...