please empty your brain below

Everything I’ve read about this just smacks of wanky Hoxton pretentiousness.

My idea of a canteen is a place where the vegetarian option is chips and beans: this is just an ironic exercise so those with more money than common sense can pretend they are still in touch with the workers.

Put it like this: I don’t own a single speed bike and wear skinny jeans, so I won’t be going.
Have plans to go on Sunday. Someone i know though who has accessibility issues, inquired about step-free access. There isn't any, so they've offered to get two people to 'carry them' up the stairs. Not humiliating at all ...
If you keep rejecting all those PR emails, you will always be an "off-the-street member of the public with no accreditation".
(In other words, do accept them, and you can chat to the prize chair lady :)
Am I the only person who HATES the phrase "pop up"? It seems to be used by public school marketing types (who Marc might describe as "wanky" but I'm too polite) when they want something to sound more exotic than it is.

The worst use, I think, is "pop up mall". To you and me, thats a market!
I'm with you Ian. I also dislike "Street Food".
A burger van can provide street food. Doesn't mean it's any good.
Ian and Brad: Get used to it. Language changes. Just because a phrase is new, doesn't mean it's bad. Street food is food you buy on the street. (Or maybe food that you buy somewhere else but someone thinks - rightly or wrongly - that you could have bought it on the street). If the new phrases mean something useful, they will stay, and later generations will bemoan their ultimate replacements.
So, judging by the description, the TfL canteen food on offer doesn't reflect on the real canteen food that was the mainstay of train and bus crews everywhere before the canteens went downhill after privatisation.

Many old timers will recall the "meat pie (oval)" unceremoniously dumped upside down on the plate with chips and beans, the "lamb chop toad", the "teacake with egg" and "welsh rarebit" that was some of the standard fare in all their canteens (except the post one at 55 Broadway!).

Also, at Christmas time, their excellant Christmas puddings, Christmas cakes and Christmas Hampers - all from Croydon. And, of course, their range of own-brand Griffin products including tea (loose and bags) and coffee.

The canteens were usually rough and ready but had their own character. Sadly the doing away with the Croydon Food Production Centre, then the privatisation, did away with a lot of the atmosphere of the canteens. This probably wasn't helped by the reduction in customers due to the getting rid of bus conductors and guards.
Marc and Ian have beaten me to it and said it better than I probably would have done.

Those same warehouse apartment tossers also think that slapping a video on YouTube and calling it "viral" makes it viral. Similarly, something is "social" if you have to log into Facebook in order to use it.
I've got to say I am anal enough to email reputable sources when they use "pop up", DG included. I've given up with Londonist who is a frequent offender.

I don't mind language changing. I don't like language bein abused to sex up otherwise dull concepts.

"Pop Up" in this context first appeared when various types decided it would be spiffing fun to call their dining room a "pop up restaurant" and charge other people with more money than sense to come round for dinner.
Do they pop down again when they are finished?

Is there something wrong with the word "temporary"?
The opening times are easy enough to find now, just one link to click on. Perhaps the webmaster reads this blog!
Went today to the 'TfL Canteen', expected something '50s in style but hugely unimpressed. Just a cafe really, pie and mash was nice though.
This is a great idea .. in the wrong place, and not done very well. My pie & mash, turned out to be a tiny chicken pie and an artistically crafted mashed potato, served up ... in a box.

There could be a a real restaurant somewhere serving proper 50's food in a proper 50's style restaurant.

Oh, and there aren't enough toilets there! Massive queues. In the end, it was quicker/easier for me to walk down the road to Costa and use theirs.
I didn't go, but I can't really see the point of serving food that wasn't at least in part related to the era in which the canteen was supposed to represent. As a LU canteen user for 36 years it would have been interesting to see how they recreated the past to make it authentic and this would have included the menu. It would appear that they couln't be that bothered.










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