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Yes I take the point that assuming that someones right just because I agree with them is a slippery slope ! I seem to be having regular depressing conversations these days with various relatives/inlaws about the reliability of news outlets and I'm grown increasingly protective of both the BBC & The Guardian as a result.
'It's a difficult conversation to have frankly on a public forum because I still have a mortgage to pay, I could be a lot more open over a beer!' - If they ever let me out I'll take you up on that one
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Interesting -are you saying that the Guardian journalists are less exact than others ? You don’t really provide anything other than personal anecdote . Were you working in PR or as a Journalist?
Thanks by the way for the faintly patrician suggestion that only those who’ve worked for the Guardian are able to gauge the quality of the journalism. There is so much wrong with that and I don’t like to be rude. In the spirit of this friendly forum I’m happy to discuss civilly via PM if you wish and if not we can agree to disagree. -
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‘The vast majority of 'inedible' species either taste like shit, have a horrible texture, or will make you feel rough - you have to seriously fuck up to be at any real risk of dying or being hospitalised from wild mushrooms.’
Hmm - I’m not convinced about that as I’m sure that Amanita phalloides fried up with some garlic and parsley would be delicious. I wouldn’t rely on taste as a diagnostic for toxicity. The Roman Emperor Claudius apparently enjoyed what was to be his final meal. More recently Nicholas Evans ended up on dialysis after misidentifying Cortinarius as edible. Professional mycologists I know suggest the only way to be sure is spore prints and microscope but that’s going a bit far for most folks. I used to pick multiple baskets with ceps at a National Nature Reserve many years ago but it was a lot quieter than it is now and not only was nobody else interested I was regularly warned that I would almost certainly die. R. Gordon Wasson (the ‘rediscoverer’of psilocybin) suggested that there was a distinction between mycophile cultures such as the Slavic ones and the Anglo- Saxon mycophobic ones. I’m not convinced but it’s an entertaining suggestion .
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Surely they were off piste all the time 😉