Agas

IanExMachina

"The AGA cooker is a stored-heat stove and cooker invented in 1929 by the Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén!"

They are inefficient, and almost encapsulate middle class snobbery and favouring of status symbols.

Video related:

Vorpy

The animation in that video bugged me.

snowbull

Never seen or heard of these. I don't quite get what's so bad about them from wikipedia's description, other than the absurdly extreme inefficiency.

Khwarizmi

They are pretentious.  Pretentious people have them.

snowbull

Is this some UK thing? What is pretentious about them?

GuitarBizarre

Best part of that video was that the music at the end was Boards Of Canada.

Wicked223

^Oh, maybe I should actually watch it then

Khwarizmi

^^^ Because they're a meaningless status symbol that middle class people buy to make themselves look fashionable.

IanExMachina

What Khwarizmi said. X2

Also get some taste, Monkey Dust is ace.

Damn Khwarizmi ninja.

snowbull

It just looks like an oven with 4 little bays.

I don't even get how this could become some weird bourgeois hipster thing. What is there about it to attract this reputation?

IanExMachina

Normal UK ovens don't look anything like it (we usually just have gas/electric cookers).

I'm not sure entirely, but it is there as a middle class distinction now.

Edit:

Maybe as it harkens to country house style ovens, and those were usually for the upper class and it's an attempt to emulate/force the social class up.

snowbull

Around here the mark of a bourgeois kitchen owner is a toaster oven.

IanExMachina

Yeah, you can't compete with the British Class system.

I remember reading a book about the differences in language used by those who wanted to be seen as higher in the class system giving them away as middle class. Interesting but still makes you think that it's a bit messed up.

Khwarizmi

^ Like how real posh people are supposed to say "loo", middle class people say "toilet", posh say "napkin", middle class say "serviette", etc?

IanExMachina

^ Yup, that exactly.

GuitarBizarre

Actually napkins and serviettes are geuinely different things. A napkin is made of fabric and is washed after the meal for reuse, whereas a serviette is a disposable item, usually paper or tissue, that is thrown away once used, and usually a person will use more than one during the course of a meal.

IanExMachina

^ UK uses the terms interchangeably.

Although you are right in the sense:

"it is 'not the done thing' to refer to a cloth napkin as a serviette; in fact some some think it 'common' (lower class) to use the word at all"

Khwarizmi

Oh, OK.  Didn't know that.  I haven't had much contact with either.

^ Oh, is that so?  OK then.

GuitarBizarre

Ian - I'm English. They're two different things. They're used interchangeably by people who don't know the difference.

Khwarizmi

Gah, which is it?

Fuck it, Googling.

IanExMachina

Sorry I'm used to just going "different culture".

Yeah however the misuse is common, so they are still used interchangeably.

The googling doesn't help tbh, both serviette and napkin both come up with paper and cloth.

Khwarizmi

From Wikipedia

A napkin, or face towel (also in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia: serviette) is a rectangle of cloth or paper used at the table for wiping the mouth while eating. It is usually small and folded. The word comes from Middle English, borrowing the French nappe—a cloth covering for a table—and adding -kin, the diminutive suffix.

In the United Kingdom and Canada both terms, serviette and napkin, are used. In the UK, napkins are traditionally U and serviette non-U. (In other words, in the United Kingdom it is 'not the done thing' to refer to a cloth napkin as a serviette; in fact some some think it 'common' (lower class) to use the word at all.) In some places, serviettes are those made of paper whereas napkins are made of cloth.[1] The word serviette in lieu of the term napkin is not typically used in American English, though, as discussed is not uncommon in Canadian English and Canadian French.

IanExMachina

So both then.

IanExMachina

Fucking Agas/Middle class.

glennmagusharvey

Never heard of it.

That said, Boards of Canada got mentioned; lemme go get Unknown_Entity.

IanExMachina

^ 

Yeah it seems America doesn't have the same distinctions with Agas