What pretending to be French restaurant critic Jean Le Boeuf taught me about privilege

“I spent 15 years pretending to be a White guy.

For more than a third of my life, I wrote restaurant reviews under the pseudonym Jean Le Boeuf —“ washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
“(This) as one in a long line of Le Boeufs at the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla. The name dates to 1979 and has been handed down critic to critic.

Le Boeuf could, in theory, be anyone.

That was the point.”
“But if my inbox served as indication — where emails started “Dear Sir” and “Cher Monsieur” — most readers assumed Jean was a dude. A French dude.

I liked being a French dude.

Perhaps because I’m not at all a French dude.”
“I’m a half-Filipina, half-Yugoslavian/English/Canadian woman, born one year after Le Boeuf was created in the same place he was created: a city named for a Confederate colonel.”

I like the category of “multiracial”

Do we have it @ONS

If not, why not?

Millions of us are.
Her mother wanted her to study medicine.

But her father (who died when she was a child) and she loved food.

So cooking it was.

And hiding behind the nom de plûme “le Boeuf” she was fearless.

White priviledge.

Go on, Gullis. Report me for some “discipline”.
But the power came at the price of her identity.

When she voiced her own opinion she was asked by Rotary clubs “But do you know Jean Le Boeuf?”
So she revealed herself

Annabelle Tometich

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More from @fascinatorfun

12 Oct
This chapter makes sorry reading.

And quite something that in March it was thought that the intermittent lockdown approach might get deaths down to 100k even if no vaccination

Bad. But not as bad as the possible half a million.
Yet here we are 18 mnths later, post 3 lockdowns of sorts, Alpha then Delta variants increasing the risks & worsening the odds, 45 mill+ fully vaccinated
163,500 Covid deaths (by date of death): deaths & hospitalisations still piling up.
And a Government even sloppier than at the beginning.

The second and third/ fourth waves are unequivocally on Johnson. His choice against scientific advice.

How very Johnson to absent himself from the country when the Select Committee report is published.
Read 12 tweets
12 Oct
In China, in the early days of the pandemic it was established that about 21% of (mostly elderly) admissions had a history of diabetes but a further c20% were diagnosed on admission.

Was Coronavirus precipitating diabetes or were these people with it previously but undiagnosed?
“The precise mechanisms for new-onset diabetes in people with COVID-19 are not known, but it is likely that a number of complex interrelated processes are involved”
These include
📌previously undiagnosed diabetes,
📌stress hyperglycemia,
📌steroid-induced hyperglycemia, and
📌direct or indirect effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on the b-cell.
Read 12 tweets
11 Oct
Notable that this 151 page report suggesting (correctly) our Covid response was one of the worst in history was lead by two ex Tory ministers
Having read part of the report, however, it seems to be pointing to a whitewash when it comes to the second wave on.

By then there was no excuse.

A terrible price had already been exacted.

We knew early and hard works far better than late and lax.
By 18 September 2020 we were not even at 42k deaths.

Still. We already knew that was over 20k more deaths than was Vallance had said would be a “good outcome”.

We knew that

Yet now we are at 120k MORE deaths.
Read 6 tweets
11 Oct
Britain’s energy crisis is spiralling – but all we get is a spat between ministers | Gaby Hinsliff

If it’s true (that Kwarteng lied about discussions with the Treasury) we shouldn’t believe a word Kwarteng says, then he shouldn’t be business secretary. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
“If it’s a wicked smear, then heads should roll at the Treasury instead. Eventually the prime minister might deign to prenez un grip on all this, but first he has chosen to prenez un holiday in sunny Marbella.”

Ha! @gabyhinsliff turns Johnson’s “Bon mots” back on him
As Johnson chills on his Marbella sun lounger likely courtesy of Zac Goldsmith offering a home from home so he can WFH…

“It beggars belief that any government would choose this particularly chaotic moment to threaten to start a trade war with the EU too.
Read 5 tweets
11 Oct
🦠 Cases by REPORT date Last Monday reached 35,077

But now processing is more or less complete we can see that BY SWAB date they were already over 43k cases. So about 8k more.

Today BY REPORT date cases were 40,224. Let’s hope is isn’t the same as last week and nearly at 50k ImageImage
Zoe app puts it at 69,845

Remember that most common symptoms for Covid now (especially amongst the vaccinated, but in both vaccinated and unvaccinated) are not “eligible” for a PCR test.

What a shambles.
In order of frequency the top 5 symptoms for Delta

Vaccinated early symptoms =

Runny nose
Headache
Sneezing
Sore throat
Loss of smell (anosmia)

Unvaccinated early symptoms =

Headache
Runny Nose
Sore Throat
Fever
Persistent cough
Read 4 tweets
11 Oct
Crushing, from @TheIFS on the Government approach to local government. Unfair and out of date formula.

Local Government not getting a mention in Johnson’s speech - despite having to deliver it.

No levelling up in practice.
“Future challenges may be less about adapting to Covid, though, than coming to terms with the last decade, a decade during which councils’ spending per person on services has been cut by a quarter.

That’s worth repeating.”
“ Local authority spending per person has fallen by 25 per cent since 2010. There have been sweeping cuts to planning, economic development and leisure services.”
Read 4 tweets

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