Gordon Ramsay's Street Burger

St. James Quarter

Edinburgh

by Beau Cadiyo

When my son was a toddler, sometimes he spilled things.  Naturally.  Because he was so little, we tried to do things to minimize the potential damage - we only gave him plastic cups, say, or small amounts of food, so that we would only need to clean up a little bit if he dropped a cup or plate.  If he spilled something, we would, of course, clean it up for him.  

At some point, we started getting him to take more responsibility for his mistakes.  When he was ready, if he spilled something, I would ask him to go get some tea towels or cloths to soak up water, milk, etc., and then walk him through the cleanup, helping as necessary.  

Then, last week, something miraculous happened.  

We were eating breakfast, and he reached for a cup of water and knocked it over.  It was full, so the water rushed across the table in a thin puddle.  He said, "Daddy!  I spilled some water!"  I looked at it, then looked at him, and just said, "Cool.  Fix it."  

He immediately got out of his chair, then paused, his feet staggered, hands out, like a photo of a man of action.  He looked at the water, then said to himself, "I need some blue cloths."  He dashed out of the room, then returned with one cloth; dabbing at the water, he realized he would need more, so he ran out again, coming back with an armful.  He placed them around the spill, then edged them in toward the water, soaking it up as he went.  

When he was done cleaning up, and he had put all of the wet cloths in the washing machine, I asked him to come over.  I hugged him, and told him I was proud of him for admitting that he had messed up, then doing what it took to fix his mess.  The reason: I didn't want him to feel like he had done something bad, because he is a kid, and he is going to make mistakes, and this was absolutely an honest error with no real negative ramifications.  He didn't need me to make him feel bad about it; if I had, he would have tried to cover it up.  Instead, I wanted him to start associating mistakes with a question: What do I need to do to make things right?  No child, no matter what, will do their best work when someone else is making them feel like an idiot, or an inherently bad person, for messing up, and no kid is going to be better off for someone making them feel wrong; indeed, they will just start justifying their actions to themselves, and blaming the other person - a parent, a teacher, a peer - for being a dick.  Indeed, they will find themselves resenting that other person, no matter how right they are.  

Recently, it seems that a lot of Republicans are stating, publicly, that "this is not what I voted for."  They look at Trump, Vance, and Musk, and are unsure as to the proper response; they feel uneasy, but, because they voted for the ticket, feel as if they can't be fully against the administration, because they, in effect, enabled this behavior.  Democrats, in response, seem to be acting like what I would say are ineffective parents; their response, in effect, is, "We told you so; you decided to fuck things up, so fuck you."  

I get it.  I kind of feel the same way.  If the first few weeks are any indication, the next four years are going to be an absolute shitshow.  I was actually talking to a friend, and I first said that if China was going to invade Taiwan, they would have done it on January 25; they would have known, because the Chinese are smart people, that the new administration was going to be completely chaotic, and would have taken advantage of it.  Then, I thought: no.  They are smart, the Chinese, and they probably know that their best chance of success is in 2027, when everything has gone completely awry.  

And Republican voters are the ones who bear this responsibility.  

But it will do nobody any good to remind them of this fact.  It will not help if Democrats keep saying, "Fuck you, assholes; you made your socio-economic bed, now sleep in it with everyone else who has to put up with this shit."  Instead...

Well, we have to help them fix it.  

We need to be able to step aside and say, "Yes, it was a bad move, but it's not too late.  Help us do something about it." 

We need to help them help themselves to make a better America.  

In other words: we need to be bigger.  

If any Republican seems to be having second thoughts, embrace them.  Ask them what they think needs to be done now to right the ship of state.  Enable them to do what they can to mop up the mess that they created.  Just don't push them away by making them feel like idjits.  

We have been to this Street Burger a bunch of times, and it was, generally, a good experience.  This time, though, everything was a bit off.  The lighting was terrible, which, really, would not have been a big deal from the getgo except that the menus were printed on medium-brown paper with black ink and 10-point font, making them all but illegible in the gloom of the back wall.  They have changed the food; the burgers are now packaged with fries, for £18.  This is a hefty increase, and might be reasonable, except that the burgers and fries are all smaller than they used to be.  Then, we were told that we needed to scan a QR code to order; the app was incredibly hard to navigate.  Just after being told that we would have less human interaction, I saw that we would also be charged a 12.5% fee on top of our bill for "service" - this might be a normal ask in America, but in the UK, this means that we were paying upwards of £21 for a burger and fries that, around the corner at Bonnie and Wild, would have been 2/3 the price for a much, much better product.  The only thing that Gordon Ramsay has over El Perro Negro: constantly-visible televisions showing food being prepared, and Pacman, which, for parents trying to avoid screen time, is actually a downside.  Ergo: we won't be blaming them for making terribly stupid decisions about how to run their business, but we also won't be returning until they fix their mistakes.  

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Level 1, St James Centre, Unit C1.30

Leith Street Eats

Edinburgh EH1 3SR

+44 131 287 2603

by Beau Cadiyo

1. There are, in most places, three main levels of government: national, regional, and local.  In the United States, this translates to Federal, State, and Local; in the UK, this ends up being the national government, devolved governments (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and Local.  
2. Each level of government is explicitly responsible for different areas.  In the US, the Federal government has certain responsibilities, and whatever does NOT fall into those areas is reserved for the other levels; in other words, unless it is specifically given to the Federal government, the Feds have to stay out.  In the UK, however, the default is that responsibilities fall to the national government in Westminster, which then sends out responsibilities to other governments, which can then take control of these areas.  
3. Regional/devolved governments have been given more and more power over the years, including in areas of policing, health care, and education.  
4. I am occasionally asked what I think about the Scottish government, and Scottish independence.  In response, I start by telling one or more of the following stories.  
1. I was walking by an Indian restaurant near my house early on a Sunday afternoon, maybe around one p.m.  Inside, a man was taking chairs and smashing them against the walls, smashing the tables against the floors, and screaming.  The staff was cowering in the kitchen, seemingly unable to escape (which is insane to me - shouldn't there be a fire escape from the kitchen?).  I walked up the street so I was not in immediate harm's way and, watching the restaurant door, called the police to report what was happening.  I gave them the address, a description of the man, and my information.  Four hours later, I got a call: was the man still smashing up the restaurant?  I paused for a beat, incredulous, and then said I had no idea; I had called hours before, and then left.  The next question: was I still at the restaurant?  Again, I paused, unable to process what I was being asked.  No, I had left four hours earlier.  The next question: well, could I go back to see if the man was still smashing up the restaurant so that they could decide whether to send a police officer down?  And now, I think: this is the state of Scottish policing.  
2. I broke my finger.  It took 19 months for it to be seen; at that point, the doctor just said, "It has been too long and there is nothing left for us to do."  I thought: of course not; you waited 19 months.  People often say, "but in America, you have to pay for health care."  My response: here it is "free," and you absolutely get what you pay for.  
3. I've worked with people who hold Ph.D.s from Cambridge and Oxford who don't know the difference between plural and possessive, who have never heard of the Scientific Method, and who have never heard of an Oxford comma.  I went to one of the worst public school systems in America, and I know people who graduated from remedial classes who are better educated than high-level academics in the UK.  The school system here is an absolute joke; many teachers describe the schools as "holding pens" for the children.  
5. My experiences are, sadly, not unique.  
1. In policing, even the head of Police Scotland says that the system is "overwhelmed" and that it is "not working efficiently or effectively."  And this is from the person who is responsible for policing.
2. In health care, the NHS is on the verge of collapsing, with increasing wait times, the inability to deal with emergency room patients quickly, and health care workers quitting at ever-increasing rates.  
3. In education, the school systems keep falling further behind, on both a national and international level, with students leaving school more or less uneducated.  
6. The Scottish National Party has been in charge of all of these basic governmental functions.  
7. The SNP also thinks that Scotland should be independent and the SNP should be in control.  
8. If a political party thinks that they should be able to run everything, they should take responsibility and do well with the remit they have been given.  If they can't do well with the responsibilities they have, they do not deserve to be given further responsibilities; indeed, the responsibilities they have should be removed and given to more capable people.  

Five Guys produces a dependably good hamburger.  Their website also makes in incredibly easy to order a take-out meal that is ready just after one arrives to collect it.