People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
Stupid Brexiter arseholes.
Are you sober?
I’m going to have a wild guess and say Non
I've just said yes to one of those little bottles of wine so the answer is, shall we say, fluid.
But really - the Eurostar experience has been completely transformed. The UK Border Force person I showed my passport to had the decency to be embarrassed, as we both looked over at the French family undergoing the third degree as to why they wanted to come to the UK.
Queues meanwhile stretching along nearly to the top of the escalators.
And we voted for it all ourselves. Bravo.
Our experience too over half term. Long queues and UK border people incredibly obnoxious even to British passport holders.
On the Eurostar or somewhere else?
Eurostar.
Interesting. I’ve heard reports of the same from others: on Eurostar
So I suggest it probably ain’t nothing to do with Brexit, and @topping can stop having a hernia, because it exactly mirrors my experience here in Samos today (another major refugee/asylum funnel)
Best guess: the traffickers have started faking passports really well. Makes sense. The guy here in Samos read every single page on my passport really slowly and carefully. He wasn’t doing it to be awkward. He was doing his job. Greece needs tourists desperately so they don’t want to put people off, but he absolutely made sure I was legit
France-Britain is another major refugee/asylum route. Especially trains? Much less security than airports. So they are cracking down
I also imagine Patel has sent out a blanket command to all UK Border Forces at the Franco-British border: watch out
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
Coleen Rooney’s lawyer has accused Rebekah Vardy of suggesting using the anniversary of his client’s sister's death as the “peg” to message her.
David Sherborne said that, after she realised she’d been blocked by Mrs Rooney’s Instagram account in January 2019, Mrs Vardy suggested mentioning “Rosie” in a message to Mrs Rooney.
Mr Sherborne said that Mrs Vardy was intending to use the anniversary of Rosie’s death – Mrs Rooney’s sister, who had a brain disorder, died in 2013 aged 14 – as “the peg” to message her.
Mrs Vardy responded that this was “interpreted wrong”.
This is the equivalent of buying a brand new Bugatti and driving it into a wall at 150mph, without a seatbelt.
It's Jamie Vardy I feel sorry for. What must their home life be like?
Who the f*** gives a flying sh*t about anything these people say or do and why is it front page news? Why is it even in the courts? It all sounds like it belongs in the infants' school playground.
I can understand the tabloids, but seriously disappointing to see BBC news giving it an airing.
As for the libel courts, they are the preserve of those with more cash than sense (or sometimes with the cash to suppress stories they don't want aired), that's all.
People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
Stupid Brexiter arseholes.
Are you sober?
I’m going to have a wild guess and say Non
I've just said yes to one of those little bottles of wine so the answer is, shall we say, fluid.
But really - the Eurostar experience has been completely transformed. The UK Border Force person I showed my passport to had the decency to be embarrassed, as we both looked over at the French family undergoing the third degree as to why they wanted to come to the UK.
Queues meanwhile stretching along nearly to the top of the escalators.
And we voted for it all ourselves. Bravo.
Our experience too over half term. Long queues and UK border people incredibly obnoxious even to British passport holders.
On the Eurostar or somewhere else?
Eurostar.
Interesting. I’ve heard reports of the same from others: on Eurostar
So I suggest it probably ain’t nothing to do with Brexit, and @topping can stop having a hernia, because it exactly mirrors my experience here in Samos today (another major refugee/asylum funnel)
Best guess: the traffickers have started faking passports really well. Makes sense. The guy here in Samos read every single page on my passport really slowly and carefully. He wasn’t doing it to be awkward. He was doing his job. Greece needs tourists desperately so they don’t want to put people off, but he absolutely made sure I was legit
France-Britain is another major refugee/asylum route. Especially trains? Much less security than airports. So they are cracking down
I also imagine Patel has sent out a blanket command to all UK Border Forces at the Franco-British border: watch out
Or it could just be that all the questioning and "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DECLARE" stuff is actually Brexit.
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
Indeed. And I do funnily enough! (Not turmeric, might try that though) But I also sometimes just have a boiled egg and a bit of bread or kippers or etc etc.
I have discovered that fried eggs are immeasurably improved with Tabasco. And yet poached eggs benefit from soy, or chili flakes - or both
People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
Stupid Brexiter arseholes.
Are you sober?
I’m going to have a wild guess and say Non
I've just said yes to one of those little bottles of wine so the answer is, shall we say, fluid.
But really - the Eurostar experience has been completely transformed. The UK Border Force person I showed my passport to had the decency to be embarrassed, as we both looked over at the French family undergoing the third degree as to why they wanted to come to the UK.
Queues meanwhile stretching along nearly to the top of the escalators.
And we voted for it all ourselves. Bravo.
Our experience too over half term. Long queues and UK border people incredibly obnoxious even to British passport holders.
They've always been obnoxious. It's a shock to go somewhere like Denmark and find they generally aren't.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
We have amazing produce in the UK, eg possibly the best seafood in the world, so that doesn’t explain it. We can’t grow oranges but English strawberries are superb etc etc
I’ve always understood it as the fault of the Industrial Revolution which disconnected people from rural life and the source of all their food, and of course that happened first in the UK, and in a bigger way in the UK than almost anywhere else
And British food is vastly better now (and much better than Germany or the Netherlands). TV cooking shows are a major reason for this. Maybe THE reason
I feel like somewhere between the Industrial Revolution to the hang ups from WW2 rationing and the homogenisation of species/supermarket offerings, the country forgot what culinary gifts it was blessed with. We now have world class meat produce too, not just sea food, and some fabulous traditional ways of seasoning it. Same for fruit.
The war is the biggest single recipient of blame for destroying the British diet. Powdered eggs. Everything tinned. Horrendous food trends that linger to this day. Look at the photos of the winning England team in 1966 - the teeth (or lack of). That's a legacy of the WW2 diet.
The war greatly improved health for a lot of people who ate better than otherwise. Brown bread, vitamins, British Restaurants, and so on. Perhaps more the relapse into peace. I don't think cooking changed greatly from before the war.
No, I'm afraid that's simply a myth, espoused by those who back low fat and other discredited diet methodologies. Have you seen the allowances for butter, milk and cheese in the rations? Those nutrient dense foods cannot be replaced by munching on a home grown carrot, laudible though the effort is. Sugar rationing was probably the only beneficial part of it.
Wasn't it simply that rationing meant everyone could afford to eat enough, which wasn't the case in the 1930s? Not that the mix of food was better.
Very little white bread - shift to wholemeal was a significant improvement. Vitamin enriched stuff for children.
I don't know precisely what 'vitamin-enriched' foods you're speaking of, but I do know that the origin of 'fortified with vitamins and iron' on foods was because they were replacing foods that contained natural vitamins and iron. So typically this would not be a net gain, and indeed, given that synthetic vitamins and minerals are less absorbable than those naturally occurring in foods, would represent a net loss.
I was thinking of the rosehip syprup with VitC. The wholemeal bread didn't have the vitamins taken out in the first place.
Further to this I checked. National Loaf was mainly wholemeal (maybe bulked out with oats/odd flour) but did also have added vitamins as well. So better all round.
But it was (and is) a shadow nutritionally of its natural country bread predecessor, that had to wait to absorb natural airborne yeast, rather than use fast acting brewer's yeat (a product of industrialisation). That slow process eliminated the phytic acid we discussed last week, making the natural nutrients in the grains accessible.
Also, some 'fortification' is rather dubious, for example, we still adulterate our bread with chalk (calcium carbonate) because we see this as a benefit. It's actually not too likely that our bodies and bones can absorb chalk in the way that is intended.
The chalk wouldn't be absorbed as chalk. The ions would dissociate in the stomach to Ca2+ and CO3 2- which last would vanish in the acid environment. So same calcium as always. There is an issue with chelation to phytic acid IIRC so it's seen as useful to ensure some extra, but I'm not an expert on this.
The absorbtion of calcium into the body is a complex process involving, afaicr, vitamins D and K, and magnesium, in very specific proportions. Naturally found in high quality dairy, not naturally found in adding chalk shavings to things. Yes I am being a little cheeky, but you get the point.
Whilst we're on food: now is the season for English asparagus, and therefore for omelettes with a little cheese (the strongest cheddar you can find), into which you put roasted asparagus tips before folding the omelette over. An easy and wonderful, wonderful dish, especially if you have top-notch eggs and above all don't overcook the omelette.
Asparagus or purple-sprouting broccoli - harvesting both from my garden at the moment. Can't get enough of either.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
Stupid Brexiter arseholes.
Are you sober?
I’m going to have a wild guess and say Non
I've just said yes to one of those little bottles of wine so the answer is, shall we say, fluid.
But really - the Eurostar experience has been completely transformed. The UK Border Force person I showed my passport to had the decency to be embarrassed, as we both looked over at the French family undergoing the third degree as to why they wanted to come to the UK.
Queues meanwhile stretching along nearly to the top of the escalators.
And we voted for it all ourselves. Bravo.
Our experience too over half term. Long queues and UK border people incredibly obnoxious even to British passport holders.
They've always been obnoxious. It's a shock to go somewhere like Denmark and find they generally aren't.
They probably go on courses in the United States. The selection procedure is based on one criteria, which is "on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you hate foreign people?"
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
Indeed. And I do funnily enough! (Not turmeric, might try that though) But I also sometimes just have a boiled egg and a bit of bread or kippers or etc etc.
I have discovered that fried eggs are immeasurably improved with Tabasco. And yet poached eggs benefit from soy, or chili flakes - or both
I'm allergic to chilli, and coriander tastes of soap, so sadly perhaps a third of the world's cuisine is essentially inedible for me.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
We have amazing produce in the UK, eg possibly the best seafood in the world, so that doesn’t explain it. We can’t grow oranges but English strawberries are superb etc etc
I’ve always understood it as the fault of the Industrial Revolution which disconnected people from rural life and the source of all their food, and of course that happened first in the UK, and in a bigger way in the UK than almost anywhere else
And British food is vastly better now (and much better than Germany or the Netherlands). TV cooking shows are a major reason for this. Maybe THE reason
I feel like somewhere between the Industrial Revolution to the hang ups from WW2 rationing and the homogenisation of species/supermarket offerings, the country forgot what culinary gifts it was blessed with. We now have world class meat produce too, not just sea food, and some fabulous traditional ways of seasoning it. Same for fruit.
The war is the biggest single recipient of blame for destroying the British diet. Powdered eggs. Everything tinned. Horrendous food trends that linger to this day. Look at the photos of the winning England team in 1966 - the teeth (or lack of). That's a legacy of the WW2 diet.
The war greatly improved health for a lot of people who ate better than otherwise. Brown bread, vitamins, British Restaurants, and so on. Perhaps more the relapse into peace. I don't think cooking changed greatly from before the war.
No, I'm afraid that's simply a myth, espoused by those who back low fat and other discredited diet methodologies. Have you seen the allowances for butter, milk and cheese in the rations? Those nutrient dense foods cannot be replaced by munching on a home grown carrot, laudible though the effort is. Sugar rationing was probably the only beneficial part of it.
Wasn't it simply that rationing meant everyone could afford to eat enough, which wasn't the case in the 1930s? Not that the mix of food was better.
Very little white bread - shift to wholemeal was a significant improvement. Vitamin enriched stuff for children.
I don't know precisely what 'vitamin-enriched' foods you're speaking of, but I do know that the origin of 'fortified with vitamins and iron' on foods was because they were replacing foods that contained natural vitamins and iron. So typically this would not be a net gain, and indeed, given that synthetic vitamins and minerals are less absorbable than those naturally occurring in foods, would represent a net loss.
I was thinking of the rosehip syprup with VitC. The wholemeal bread didn't have the vitamins taken out in the first place.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
Quite simply, calories are cheaper now than at any time in human history. In living memory, we have stories of food (quite ordinary food) as a treat or luxury.
There's plenty of food culture in the UK. It has been deprecated by cheap-is-better.
The obesity epidemic is an artefact of this - our culture and society is not well adapted for a situation where too many calories is the problem.
Too many calories isn't the problem. The wrong type of food is the problem.
Indeed. A truth the French and Italians understand and that we do not. Hence the raft of processed "low fat" shite in our supermarkets which is packed full of additives and, often, sugar.
Yes, a simple step we could take is to phase out the sale of margarine entirely or have a huge public health campaign to prefer butter and ban the advertising of any perceived health benefits of margarine over butter (simply, there aren't any).
We could just ban the fake colouring of margerine, and see how people like it in its natural grey.
Wow are we cancelling margarine now? I like margarine, it's much easier to spread than butter.
You like margarine? Wow, Anabob's going to blow a gasket.
Amongst my general agreement with good, primarily home-prepared tasty food, I will admit certain inverted snobberies. You just need to be selective and make your own informed choices. So for me:
Margarine: vegetable oil chemically altered to do a job, namely, to be more spreadable and healthier than butter. It gives a good layer to separate filling from bread, and I'm easy with it being the product of a chemical process using metal catalysts. That said, its almost complete substitution with blended spreads is a step forward - nothing at all wrong with a spread. I despair of my wife's general reversion to butter a few years ago, doesn't she know my life insurance isn't THAT big - butter is for taste, but only when the butter is a taste you want to come through. Happy toix and match.
Coffee: a functional food, taken primarily for its drug qualities. Love a good espresso, saturated with sugar for a hit, but some cafetiere with bitter grounds in the bottom, no thanks. I'll take my chance with instant for a regular and consistent dosage (the difference between caffeine content of fresh coffees from I'm still dead (Starbucks) to bolt upright (many independents) is not what I want in my drugs. As for Nescafé Gold Blend, trying to recreate the authentic experience of grounds in an instant - wtaf. So. I'm on Sainsbury's own brand now
Pizza with pineapple: look Italians eat ham with peaches and it's lovely. Pineapple is itself an acquired taste, it's not authentic, but I don't accept the ban. Ironically, you want a good thin tomato heavy Italian pizza, not an Americanised slab of bread - pineapple with too much bread and overly cheese heavy isn't great.
It's not healthier than butter.
Indeed, it's a fraud that has been perpetrated by Unilever on the British public that margarine is healthier than butter. Not as bad as the tobacco companies but still damaging. Butter has so many essential nutrients in it and fat from dairy is very good for us.
It boils my blood when they target older people with those loathsome ad campaigns emotionally telling people to 'make the switch'. Thankfully those seem to have calmed down these days.
Sounds like you may be suffering from extreme blood pressure when you watch those ads.
Try low sodium Flora. 9 out of 10 vikings said they preferred Lurpak.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
Quite simply, calories are cheaper now than at any time in human history. In living memory, we have stories of food (quite ordinary food) as a treat or luxury.
There's plenty of food culture in the UK. It has been deprecated by cheap-is-better.
The obesity epidemic is an artefact of this - our culture and society is not well adapted for a situation where too many calories is the problem.
Too many calories isn't the problem. The wrong type of food is the problem.
Indeed. A truth the French and Italians understand and that we do not. Hence the raft of processed "low fat" shite in our supermarkets which is packed full of additives and, often, sugar.
Yes, a simple step we could take is to phase out the sale of margarine entirely or have a huge public health campaign to prefer butter and ban the advertising of any perceived health benefits of margarine over butter (simply, there aren't any).
We could just ban the fake colouring of margerine, and see how people like it in its natural grey.
Wow are we cancelling margarine now? I like margarine, it's much easier to spread than butter.
Have you tried this amazing innovation called a butter dish, which you store, er, outside the fridge?
You can buy spreadable butter now, which is butter with a small amount of oil.
People say how dreadful the food is in Paris well I can tell you that's total bollox. Sitting outside just about any cafe/bistro/restaurant more than 400yds from the Gare du Nord (although the Terminus Nord looks pretty good - clean, white table cloths, wooden chairs, chequerboard floor) and you are into a just fabulous dining experience. Is it Bocuse? No. Does it need to be? Absolument non.
Day1 Crepes in the 6th, day 2 the obligatory for Brits steak frites and a decent bottle of red at a random place.
Can't beat it. You can take your persian dim sum, tasting plate, waiter explains the concept, no reservations, happening new restaurant in London and stick it up your arse.
As for the queue at Gare du Nord to come home, how embarrassing. A complete mob with customs all over the shop and clearly uncomfortable UK Border Force agents asking French families of two adults and two toddlers what the purpose of their trip to the UK was.
Stupid Brexiter arseholes.
Are you sober?
I’m going to have a wild guess and say Non
I've just said yes to one of those little bottles of wine so the answer is, shall we say, fluid.
But really - the Eurostar experience has been completely transformed. The UK Border Force person I showed my passport to had the decency to be embarrassed, as we both looked over at the French family undergoing the third degree as to why they wanted to come to the UK.
Queues meanwhile stretching along nearly to the top of the escalators.
And we voted for it all ourselves. Bravo.
Our experience too over half term. Long queues and UK border people incredibly obnoxious even to British passport holders.
They've always been obnoxious. It's a shock to go somewhere like Denmark and find they generally aren't.
I've noted that when I go through UK immigration on my own as a white man they are much friendlier to me than when I go through with my Sri Lankan heritage wife and our three children. I've drawn my own conclusions.
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
Indeed. And I do funnily enough! (Not turmeric, might try that though) But I also sometimes just have a boiled egg and a bit of bread or kippers or etc etc.
I have discovered that fried eggs are immeasurably improved with Tabasco. And yet poached eggs benefit from soy, or chili flakes - or both
Tabasco is chilli sauce for people who don't like chilli sauce.
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
Indeed. And I do funnily enough! (Not turmeric, might try that though) But I also sometimes just have a boiled egg and a bit of bread or kippers or etc etc.
I have discovered that fried eggs are immeasurably improved with Tabasco. And yet poached eggs benefit from soy, or chili flakes - or both
My mum believed she was the only human on the planet that could fry eggs properly. I made the mistake of frying her one on toast after she got ill. Oh my!
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
Edit: BTW the Scotsman is a very SNP-hostile newspaper. I haven't looked for others, though as it seems to make the point well, given the timing.
Fair enough, thank you. I can understand Nicola wishing to distance herself from Putin as I guess the SNP can't help the fact that they are still very favoured by Mr. Putin and any future referendum will no doubt receive his support both in spirit and also in significant social media advertising and trolling.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
Edit: BTW the Scotsman is a very SNP-hostile newspaper. I haven't looked for others, though as it seems to make the point well, given the timing.
Fair enough, thank you. I can understand Nicola wishing to distance herself from Putin as I guess the SNP can't help the fact that they are still very favoured by Mr. Putin and any future referendum will no doubt receive his support both in spirit and also in significant social media advertising and trolling.
Not corporate funding, though, unless I missed something.
My mum believed she was the only human on the planet that could fry eggs properly. I made the mistake of frying her one on toast after she got ill. Oh my!
I'm amazed that you could get the toast hot enough to fry an egg.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Exonerate? You seem to be missing my point.
Your point if I recall was it is absurd to suggest that the Tories were ever "bought" by Putin. I guess you can play around with that statement, but if you think there was no Russian influence and that it did not play a part in Putin's miscalculation then you are not being very bright.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
They also got Brexit; decimation of the armed forces; gay marriage (which Putin probably thinks takes us closer to eternal damnation); increased likelihood of the break-up of the United Kingdom.
My mum believed she was the only human on the planet that could fry eggs properly. I made the mistake of frying her one on toast after she got ill. Oh my!
I'm amazed that you could get the toast hot enough to fry an egg.
I might as well have tried for how badly it was received! Poor mum, her taste was shot to ribbons with the cancer. But crispy edges? She was not a happy bunny
My mum believed she was the only human on the planet that could fry eggs properly. I made the mistake of frying her one on toast after she got ill. Oh my!
I'm amazed that you could get the toast hot enough to fry an egg.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
Trillin has written three books on finding good food in America: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings. (I have the first two, and have enjoyed them greatly, over the years.) Trillin argues that there is wonderful food in America, and that you can find it in many cities if you ignore the Chamber of Commerce suggestions that you visit the imitation French restaurant called something like "La Maison de la Casa House". Instead you should look for the best local specialties; in, for example, Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was able to find wonderful barbecue.
Times have changed since he was traveling in America, but I think that his general advice still holds. Of course there are large cosmopolitan cities where one could find then, and no doubt can find now, great restaurants of almost any kind. He once explained that he and his wife chose to live in New York, because they are "big eaters", who enjoyed the incredible variety of restaurants there.
As for food tastes generally, Trillin once observed that food packages were being shipped all over the United States to people who missed some food from their childhood. And, years ago, there was a small store in the home of Microsoft, Redmond, which was selling British specialties, most of them foods to, I imagine, Brits working for Microsoft who missed them.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Exonerate? You seem to be missing my point.
Your point if I recall was it is absurd to suggest that the Tories were ever "bought" by Putin. I guess you can play around with that statement, but if you think there was no Russian influence and that it did not play a part in Putin's miscalculation then you are not being very bright.
Not quite.
My point is that given how they have dealt with the current war, the idea that the Tories were bought by Russia looks absurd to the average person, which is why the story mentioned at the top of the minithread isn't getting cut-through.
Problem is he's doubling down on his nonsense and obscuring any legitimate points he's trying to make. "Use is exaggerated". I've worked in a food bank. We kept scrupulous records. The Trussell Trust requires referrals. He's implying widespread fraud. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Yes he is playing politics with it all, as are much of the left on the opposite side in response.
The better response from Labour would be along the lines of:
We do not agree with how you have framed it but thanks for raising the importance of better food and personal finance education. What funding is the government willing to allocate to address this nationally?
Nah, it's easier for them to say "look evul torys, vote for us" despite this same tactic failing in 2015.
The reason this has had such a furious reaction from the left is because there is a recognisable grain of truth in what he's saying. Lots of people in food poverty spend far, far too much money on fast food. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to McDonald's this year or any other fast food place. Go to any council estate and take a look at their spending, I can guarantee the average will be far higher than it is in a leafy suburb.
Wait til your offspring arrives. You will find McDonalds an amazingly useful place to feed and quieten the kid/s, I guarantee
And this is an important point. A hard pressed single mum hasn’t got time or energy to whip up home made pasta with arrabiata sauce and a green salad, her kids probably wouldn’t eat it anyway. So, Maccie D’s it is. Again. I can empathise
Your example is literally the problem with every policy the UK has come up with since New Labour. Everything is looked at through the lens of "hard working single mum" rather than the more common "two working parent family". I have no doubt it's difficult being a single mum, I also think the issue exists in countries across Europe, yet they have nowhere near the same childhood obesity issues, nothing like the takeaway and fast food consumption we have and being healthy is actively encouraged by the state rather than seen as a chore or something reserved for the middle classes because "they have the time" or "it's unfair to expect hardworking single mum to prepare healthy food for her kids, but hardworking middle class mum uses 37 billion ingredients and has hard working middle class dad to do the washing up and they don't understand how difficult real life is".
Also on McDonald's I fully get what you're saying and I'm sure when my own kid is 4 years old and screaming at me because it doesn't want to eat broccoli for the 7000th time that week McDonald's will look like a good option. That doesn't make it a good option.
We limit our children to one MacDonald's meal per day.
This is an interesting one for students of government. This journalist seems to be suggesting that Kit Malthouse is a member of cabinet. My understanding is that as a junior minister he is not. Sloppy journalism or am I technically wrong?
Don't keep your butter in the fridge during the day, we have ours on a butter dish with a nice lid and the first one out of bed just takes it out of the fridge while the coffee machine heats up, by the time the other of us is downstairs it's perfect for spreading on toast. Just need to put half of a small block out at a time. Not looking forwards to making the switch to unsalted though.
You won't miss salt if you gradually phase it out. My wife and I largely stopped using salt about thirty years ago, pretty much without noticing. It wasn't a conscious health-kick particularly, we just found ourselves using less and less added salt most of the time, and eventually none except on a few things like tomatoes. We certainly don't miss salted butter - in fact, it tastes rather unpleasant now.
I personally think English butter is the best in the world. It annoys me that the French try to pretend otherwise.
Last Tango in Paris makes a strong case for the French product.
I watched that a few years ago.
Absolute crap; a real stinker. The 1970s were really odd, sexually. I presume it was a kind of collective insanity produced by loosening the repression of earlier times.
I also don’t “get” Marlon Brando. Even in “On the Waterfront”.
I don't know. I thought he "could have been a contender".
You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
Edit: BTW the Scotsman is a very SNP-hostile newspaper. I haven't looked for others, though as it seems to make the point well, given the timing.
Fair enough, thank you. I can understand Nicola wishing to distance herself from Putin as I guess the SNP can't help the fact that they are still very favoured by Mr. Putin and any future referendum will no doubt receive his support both in spirit and also in significant social media advertising and trolling.
Not corporate funding, though, unless I missed something.
As far as we know that is correct, but it wasn't what I said. I also didn't refer to the SNP per se. I think any political party in these islands, or on the continent who wants to throw stones needs to ask whether there has been a full and proper risk assessment carried out in how far Putin has attempted to undermine the institutions and coherence of the West in all parties, institutions and businesses. The same needs to be asked of Chinese infiltration.
Coleen Rooney’s lawyer has accused Rebekah Vardy of suggesting using the anniversary of his client’s sister's death as the “peg” to message her.
David Sherborne said that, after she realised she’d been blocked by Mrs Rooney’s Instagram account in January 2019, Mrs Vardy suggested mentioning “Rosie” in a message to Mrs Rooney.
Mr Sherborne said that Mrs Vardy was intending to use the anniversary of Rosie’s death – Mrs Rooney’s sister, who had a brain disorder, died in 2013 aged 14 – as “the peg” to message her.
Mrs Vardy responded that this was “interpreted wrong”.
This is the equivalent of buying a brand new Bugatti and driving it into a wall at 150mph, without a seatbelt.
It's Jamie Vardy I feel sorry for. What must their home life be like?
Who the f*** gives a flying sh*t about anything these people say or do and why is it front page news? Why is it even in the courts? It all sounds like it belongs in the infants' school playground.
Much petty shit may get dragged through courts I bet, the proverbial fight over a garden hedge for 20 years, but most of it we don't hear about.
It's a handy way of being able to laugh at rich people though.
Problem is he's doubling down on his nonsense and obscuring any legitimate points he's trying to make. "Use is exaggerated". I've worked in a food bank. We kept scrupulous records. The Trussell Trust requires referrals. He's implying widespread fraud. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Yes he is playing politics with it all, as are much of the left on the opposite side in response.
The better response from Labour would be along the lines of:
We do not agree with how you have framed it but thanks for raising the importance of better food and personal finance education. What funding is the government willing to allocate to address this nationally?
Nah, it's easier for them to say "look evul torys, vote for us" despite this same tactic failing in 2015.
The reason this has had such a furious reaction from the left is because there is a recognisable grain of truth in what he's saying. Lots of people in food poverty spend far, far too much money on fast food. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to McDonald's this year or any other fast food place. Go to any council estate and take a look at their spending, I can guarantee the average will be far higher than it is in a leafy suburb.
Wait til your offspring arrives. You will find McDonalds an amazingly useful place to feed and quieten the kid/s, I guarantee
And this is an important point. A hard pressed single mum hasn’t got time or energy to whip up home made pasta with arrabiata sauce and a green salad, her kids probably wouldn’t eat it anyway. So, Maccie D’s it is. Again. I can empathise
Your example is literally the problem with every policy the UK has come up with since New Labour. Everything is looked at through the lens of "hard working single mum" rather than the more common "two working parent family". I have no doubt it's difficult being a single mum, I also think the issue exists in countries across Europe, yet they have nowhere near the same childhood obesity issues, nothing like the takeaway and fast food consumption we have and being healthy is actively encouraged by the state rather than seen as a chore or something reserved for the middle classes because "they have the time" or "it's unfair to expect hardworking single mum to prepare healthy food for her kids, but hardworking middle class mum uses 37 billion ingredients and has hard working middle class dad to do the washing up and they don't understand how difficult real life is".
Also on McDonald's I fully get what you're saying and I'm sure when my own kid is 4 years old and screaming at me because it doesn't want to eat broccoli for the 7000th time that week McDonald's will look like a good option. That doesn't make it a good option.
We limit our children to one MacDonald's meal per day.
Problem is he's doubling down on his nonsense and obscuring any legitimate points he's trying to make. "Use is exaggerated". I've worked in a food bank. We kept scrupulous records. The Trussell Trust requires referrals. He's implying widespread fraud. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Yes he is playing politics with it all, as are much of the left on the opposite side in response.
The better response from Labour would be along the lines of:
We do not agree with how you have framed it but thanks for raising the importance of better food and personal finance education. What funding is the government willing to allocate to address this nationally?
Nah, it's easier for them to say "look evul torys, vote for us" despite this same tactic failing in 2015.
The reason this has had such a furious reaction from the left is because there is a recognisable grain of truth in what he's saying. Lots of people in food poverty spend far, far too much money on fast food. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to McDonald's this year or any other fast food place. Go to any council estate and take a look at their spending, I can guarantee the average will be far higher than it is in a leafy suburb.
Wait til your offspring arrives. You will find McDonalds an amazingly useful place to feed and quieten the kid/s, I guarantee
And this is an important point. A hard pressed single mum hasn’t got time or energy to whip up home made pasta with arrabiata sauce and a green salad, her kids probably wouldn’t eat it anyway. So, Maccie D’s it is. Again. I can empathise
Your example is literally the problem with every policy the UK has come up with since New Labour. Everything is looked at through the lens of "hard working single mum" rather than the more common "two working parent family". I have no doubt it's difficult being a single mum, I also think the issue exists in countries across Europe, yet they have nowhere near the same childhood obesity issues, nothing like the takeaway and fast food consumption we have and being healthy is actively encouraged by the state rather than seen as a chore or something reserved for the middle classes because "they have the time" or "it's unfair to expect hardworking single mum to prepare healthy food for her kids, but hardworking middle class mum uses 37 billion ingredients and has hard working middle class dad to do the washing up and they don't understand how difficult real life is".
Also on McDonald's I fully get what you're saying and I'm sure when my own kid is 4 years old and screaming at me because it doesn't want to eat broccoli for the 7000th time that week McDonald's will look like a good option. That doesn't make it a good option.
We limit our children to one MacDonald's meal per day.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
We have amazing produce in the UK, eg possibly the best seafood in the world, so that doesn’t explain it. We can’t grow oranges but English strawberries are superb etc etc
I’ve always understood it as the fault of the Industrial Revolution which disconnected people from rural life and the source of all their food, and of course that happened first in the UK, and in a bigger way in the UK than almost anywhere else
And British food is vastly better now (and much better than Germany or the Netherlands). TV cooking shows are a major reason for this. Maybe THE reason
I feel like somewhere between the Industrial Revolution to the hang ups from WW2 rationing and the homogenisation of species/supermarket offerings, the country forgot what culinary gifts it was blessed with. We now have world class meat produce too, not just sea food, and some fabulous traditional ways of seasoning it. Same for fruit.
The war is the biggest single recipient of blame for destroying the British diet. Powdered eggs. Everything tinned. Horrendous food trends that linger to this day. Look at the photos of the winning England team in 1966 - the teeth (or lack of). That's a legacy of the WW2 diet.
The war greatly improved health for a lot of people who ate better than otherwise. Brown bread, vitamins, British Restaurants, and so on. Perhaps more the relapse into peace. I don't think cooking changed greatly from before the war.
No, I'm afraid that's simply a myth, espoused by those who back low fat and other discredited diet methodologies. Have you seen the allowances for butter, milk and cheese in the rations? Those nutrient dense foods cannot be replaced by munching on a home grown carrot, laudible though the effort is. Sugar rationing was probably the only beneficial part of it.
Wasn't it simply that rationing meant everyone could afford to eat enough, which wasn't the case in the 1930s? Not that the mix of food was better.
Very little white bread - shift to wholemeal was a significant improvement. Vitamin enriched stuff for children.
I don't know precisely what 'vitamin-enriched' foods you're speaking of, but I do know that the origin of 'fortified with vitamins and iron' on foods was because they were replacing foods that contained natural vitamins and iron. So typically this would not be a net gain, and indeed, given that synthetic vitamins and minerals are less absorbable than those naturally occurring in foods, would represent a net loss.
I was thinking of the rosehip syprup with VitC. The wholemeal bread didn't have the vitamins taken out in the first place.
Where Lee Anderson is correct is that a shocking amount of people in this country cannot cook and have no discernible interest in food. But that is certainly not limited to the poor.
Take PB – we have fully grown professional men on here who earn £70k+++ who cannot even find their way around a saucepan, and luxuriate in eating ready meals and assorted other shite in service stations, after starting their day with coffee-flavoured dust and hot water (job done!).
We also have the quasi-hair-shirted PB Northerners who balk at spending even £40 a head in a restaurant, clearly having never done even the most rudimentary analysis of where £40 a head in a good restaurant goes.
Given such a large proportion of the English population continues to refuse to spend a reasonable proportion of its income on what it puts inside its own bodies, one can perhaps forgive (to some extent) the hackneyed stereotype held of us by our continental cousins that we are a nation of potato-faced barbarians.
An Italian colleague was lamenting Londoners calling themselves "foodies" recently, suggesting that in Italy it's just normal life. I think she's right. What we'd call a "foodie" in the UK is simply living normally in lots of European countries (notable exceptions include Germany and the Netherlands which also have the same shit food as the UK).
I defended us on the basis that the UK simply hasn't got a food culture the same as Italy, Spain or France because we have never been able to grow the same quality fruit and veg (lack of sunshine) which means our food is simply lacking in flavour. If you look at traditional British food it is basically warm, beige coloured and slightly salty. It's not easy to build a food culture out of that.
Quite simply, calories are cheaper now than at any time in human history. In living memory, we have stories of food (quite ordinary food) as a treat or luxury.
There's plenty of food culture in the UK. It has been deprecated by cheap-is-better.
The obesity epidemic is an artefact of this - our culture and society is not well adapted for a situation where too many calories is the problem.
Too many calories isn't the problem. The wrong type of food is the problem.
Indeed. A truth the French and Italians understand and that we do not. Hence the raft of processed "low fat" shite in our supermarkets which is packed full of additives and, often, sugar.
Yes, a simple step we could take is to phase out the sale of margarine entirely or have a huge public health campaign to prefer butter and ban the advertising of any perceived health benefits of margarine over butter (simply, there aren't any).
We could just ban the fake colouring of margerine, and see how people like it in its natural grey.
Wow are we cancelling margarine now? I like margarine, it's much easier to spread than butter.
You like margarine? Wow, Anabob's going to blow a gasket.
Amongst my general agreement with good, primarily home-prepared tasty food, I will admit certain inverted snobberies. You just need to be selective and make your own informed choices. So for me:
Margarine: vegetable oil chemically altered to do a job, namely, to be more spreadable and healthier than butter. It gives a good layer to separate filling from bread, and I'm easy with it being the product of a chemical process using metal catalysts. That said, its almost complete substitution with blended spreads is a step forward - nothing at all wrong with a spread. I despair of my wife's general reversion to butter a few years ago, doesn't she know my life insurance isn't THAT big - butter is for taste, but only when the butter is a taste you want to come through. Happy toix and match.
Coffee: a functional food, taken primarily for its drug qualities. Love a good espresso, saturated with sugar for a hit, but some cafetiere with bitter grounds in the bottom, no thanks. I'll take my chance with instant for a regular and consistent dosage (the difference between caffeine content of fresh coffees from I'm still dead (Starbucks) to bolt upright (many independents) is not what I want in my drugs. As for Nescafé Gold Blend, trying to recreate the authentic experience of grounds in an instant - wtaf. So. I'm on Sainsbury's own brand now
Pizza with pineapple: look Italians eat ham with peaches and it's lovely. Pineapple is itself an acquired taste, it's not authentic, but I don't accept the ban. Ironically, you want a good thin tomato heavy Italian pizza, not an Americanised slab of bread - pineapple with too much bread and overly cheese heavy isn't great.
It's not healthier than butter.
Indeed, it's a fraud that has been perpetrated by Unilever on the British public that margarine is healthier than butter. Not as bad as the tobacco companies but still damaging. Butter has so many essential nutrients in it and fat from dairy is very good for us.
It boils my blood when they target older people with those loathsome ad campaigns emotionally telling people to 'make the switch'. Thankfully those seem to have calmed down these days.
They've moved on to the 'plant based' cash cow. Buy processed shit to make your grandkids happy. Veggie is fine, the 'plant based' processed muck not so much
"Stored briefly in a room which contained a plant" is the next big trend.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Scottish Nationalists? Party funding? Not the SNP AFAIK, but Mr Salmond's and Ms Ahmed-Sheik's rboadcasting on RT in the UK after they left their MP seats. To considerable criticism from the party and thier eventual departure.
I didn't notice anyone with a Scottish Nationalist preference on here criticising him for it. I also don't recall reading about any criticism from Nationalist circles. If you can point out any evidence of such prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I would be genuinely interested
Edit: BTW the Scotsman is a very SNP-hostile newspaper. I haven't looked for others, though as it seems to make the point well, given the timing.
Fair enough, thank you. I can understand Nicola wishing to distance herself from Putin as I guess the SNP can't help the fact that they are still very favoured by Mr. Putin and any future referendum will no doubt receive his support both in spirit and also in significant social media advertising and trolling.
Not corporate funding, though, unless I missed something.
As far as we know that is correct, but it wasn't what I said. I also didn't refer to the SNP per se. I think any political party in these islands, or on the continent who wants to throw stones needs to ask whether there has been a full and proper risk assessment carried out in how far Putin has attempted to undermine the institutions and coherence of the West in all parties, institutions and businesses. The same needs to be asked of Chinese infiltration.
You didn't, quite right, but the OP clearly implied it, and that puzzled me.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Exonerate? You seem to be missing my point.
Your point if I recall was it is absurd to suggest that the Tories were ever "bought" by Putin. I guess you can play around with that statement, but if you think there was no Russian influence and that it did not play a part in Putin's miscalculation then you are not being very bright.
Not quite.
My point is that given how they have dealt with the current war, the idea that the Tories were bought by Russia looks absurd to the average person, which is why the story mentioned at the top of the minithread isn't getting cut-through.
Sometimes these things don't. If you were a little less partisan, and more in favour of a well run democracy you would be concerned at this. Instead you seem to gloat that the party you support has got away with it. There lies the path to a Putinist style pseudo-democracy.
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
Indeed. And I do funnily enough! (Not turmeric, might try that though) But I also sometimes just have a boiled egg and a bit of bread or kippers or etc etc.
I have discovered that fried eggs are immeasurably improved with Tabasco. And yet poached eggs benefit from soy, or chili flakes - or both
Tabasco is chilli sauce for people who don't like chilli sauce.
I was quite surprised to discover that Tabasco is still a family business. I'd assumed it was just a brand owned by Unilever or the like.
Whilst we're on food: now is the season for English asparagus, and therefore for omelettes with a little cheese (the strongest cheddar you can find), into which you put roasted asparagus tips before folding the omelette over. An easy and wonderful, wonderful dish, especially if you have top-notch eggs and above all don't overcook the omelette.
Asparagus or purple-sprouting broccoli - harvesting both from my garden at the moment. Can't get enough of either.
In brief defence of Ottolenghi; these are my favourite fishcakes, and with no rare ingredients. I highly recommend them!
"Smoked fish and parsnip cakes I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g) 260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces 25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1 thin slice of bread, crust removed) 5g dill, roughly chopped 5g chives, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 4 spring onions, finely chopped Finely grated zest of ½ lemon 1 egg, lightly whisked 20g unsalted butter 2 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper For the horseradish cream 2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce) 150g soured cream 2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside."
Who the heck is ever going to do that FOR BREAKFAST (for four?!). It’s about 60-90 minutes of prep and cooking for something you will scoff in 2 minutes then head out
I love this bit:
“1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed”
It does sound delicious but Jeeez
It's a bit more fancy than Go To Work On An Egg for sure
Sure, but you can do a perfect scrambled egg in about three minutes. Shred a bit of smoked salmon on top perhaps, or grate in some fresh turmeric if you want fancy.
Zero effort.
I've recently started having a little forkful of fresh turmeric sauerkraut with breakfast in the morning. Quite a discovery.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Exonerate? You seem to be missing my point.
Your point if I recall was it is absurd to suggest that the Tories were ever "bought" by Putin. I guess you can play around with that statement, but if you think there was no Russian influence and that it did not play a part in Putin's miscalculation then you are not being very bright.
Not quite.
My point is that given how they have dealt with the current war, the idea that the Tories were bought by Russia looks absurd to the average person, which is why the story mentioned at the top of the minithread isn't getting cut-through.
Sometimes these things don't. If you were a little less partisan, and more in favour of a well run democracy you would be concerned at this. Instead you seem to gloat that the party you support has got away with it. There lies the path to a Putinist style pseudo-democracy.
Thank you for all the kind comments and likes on the last thread. Is there any way of seeing more than just the last 10 likes (not a problem I usually have)? It would be nice to see all the usernames that liked my comment.
It appears that walking without crutches is a piece of cake, walking without the boot not so much.
It also appears that my shoe is now too small for me. I also have nerve damage and can't feel the outside part of my foot. I knew this but it wasn't to noticeable in a boot. It is noticeable in a normal shoe. I'm now told that as there hasn't been any improvement that is likely to be permanent. I don't think it is going to bother me.
Re @Selebian's observation, no I am not a Nordic Lumberjack. In terms of my desire to do certain things:
a) Driving - speaks for itself b) Skiing - I had given this up but I had intended to give it another go this May/June with some easy glacier skiing. I have loved skiing particularly yellow run ski routes for the exhilaration, solitude, views, and après ski. c) Ladder - I have several hundred metres of hedges that I enjoy cutting with power tools, plus an Orangey that I have to get on top of to clean. d) Chopping wood - I love it, particularly when frustrated. I end many a gardening day with a session. We have 3 stoves and I have never bought any wood in over 10 years. I get plenty from my garden (the February storm provided about a 2 year supply that I am dying to get into) and also I chop wood for neighbours in exchange for a share of it. An axe a wedge and sledgehammer is all you need to take out your frustrations. e) Cycling - I do a lot less now but I do like the big trips and I was planning to cycle down the Loire in May/June (next to rather than in). I hope I can do it in September. Myself and a friend cycle greenways. I think it is comparable to @BlancheLivermore but on wheels rather than foot. Again solitude, but then also meeting great people plus lots of great food and booze.
https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225 ... One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency....
And nowhere to be seen in UK media . It’s an astonishing story but for some reason isn’t getting any air play here.
Becuase the last few months have shown that the "Tories have been bought by Russia" narrative is absurd.
Not absurd at all. Circumstances have meant that they have quite rightly changed tack. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Russian interference in British politics and society will have encouraged Putin to think that the West would not punish him for his aggression. The taking of Russian money by British politicians, and not just Tory ones is a disgrace to our democracy. Labour and Scottish Nationalists also have form. The "Russia Report" was a scam and a cover up. I hope our politicians learn from this, in the same way I hope other countries learn form their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Pretending it didn't happen won't help at all.
Oh, I don't doubt that Russia tried to interfere. But whatever they paid, it wasn't worth it.
Didn't try, did.
And what did they get for it? A government that both sides in the war agree is right at the top of most significant supporters of Ukraine.
This is obviously tricky for you to understand. We sent a message to Putin that he would get away with it, which made the invasion more likely. The fact that the Conservative Party (of which I used to be a member) has in concert with the rest of the West surprised and disappointed Putin does not entirely exonerate the Tories except in the eyes of folk such as yourself it would seem.
Exonerate? You seem to be missing my point.
Your point if I recall was it is absurd to suggest that the Tories were ever "bought" by Putin. I guess you can play around with that statement, but if you think there was no Russian influence and that it did not play a part in Putin's miscalculation then you are not being very bright.
Not quite.
My point is that given how they have dealt with the current war, the idea that the Tories were bought by Russia looks absurd to the average person, which is why the story mentioned at the top of the minithread isn't getting cut-through.
Sometimes these things don't. If you were a little less partisan, and more in favour of a well run democracy you would be concerned at this. Instead you seem to gloat that the party you support has got away with it. There lies the path to a Putinist style pseudo-democracy.
I don't support any party.
Or you support all the parties that deserve support. Currently none.
Coleen Rooney’s lawyer has accused Rebekah Vardy of suggesting using the anniversary of his client’s sister's death as the “peg” to message her.
David Sherborne said that, after she realised she’d been blocked by Mrs Rooney’s Instagram account in January 2019, Mrs Vardy suggested mentioning “Rosie” in a message to Mrs Rooney.
Mr Sherborne said that Mrs Vardy was intending to use the anniversary of Rosie’s death – Mrs Rooney’s sister, who had a brain disorder, died in 2013 aged 14 – as “the peg” to message her.
Mrs Vardy responded that this was “interpreted wrong”.
This is the equivalent of buying a brand new Bugatti and driving it into a wall at 150mph, without a seatbelt.
It's Jamie Vardy I feel sorry for. What must their home life be like?
Who the f*** gives a flying sh*t about anything these people say or do and why is it front page news? Why is it even in the courts? It all sounds like it belongs in the infants' school playground.
Much petty shit may get dragged through courts I bet, the proverbial fight over a garden hedge for 20 years, but most of it we don't hear about.
It's a handy way of being able to laugh at rich people though.
I can get that. But I'd far rather the media just not give these idiots the air to breathe.
Comments
So I suggest it probably ain’t nothing to do with Brexit, and @topping can stop having a hernia, because it exactly mirrors my experience here in Samos today (another major refugee/asylum funnel)
Best guess: the traffickers have started faking passports really well. Makes sense. The guy here in Samos read every single page on my passport really slowly and carefully. He wasn’t doing it to be awkward. He was doing his job. Greece needs tourists desperately so they don’t want to put people off, but he absolutely made sure I was legit
France-Britain is another major refugee/asylum route. Especially trains? Much less security than airports. So they are cracking down
I also imagine Patel has sent out a blanket command to all UK Border Forces at the Franco-British border: watch out
As for the libel courts, they are the preserve of those with more cash than sense (or sometimes with the cash to suppress stories they don't want aired), that's all.
Try low sodium Flora. 9 out of 10 vikings said they preferred Lurpak.
Edit: BTW the Scotsman is a very SNP-hostile newspaper. I haven't looked for others, though as it seems to make the point well, given the timing.
Trillin has written three books on finding good food in America: American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings. (I have the first two, and have enjoyed them greatly, over the years.) Trillin argues that there is wonderful food in America, and that you can find it in many cities if you ignore the Chamber of Commerce suggestions that you visit the imitation French restaurant called something like "La Maison de la Casa House". Instead you should look for the best local specialties; in, for example, Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was able to find wonderful barbecue.
Times have changed since he was traveling in America, but I think that his general advice still holds. Of course there are large cosmopolitan cities where one could find then, and no doubt can find now, great restaurants of almost any kind. He once explained that he and his wife chose to live in New York, because they are "big eaters", who enjoyed the incredible variety of restaurants there.
As for food tastes generally, Trillin once observed that food packages were being shipped all over the United States to people who missed some food from their childhood. And, years ago, there was a small store in the home of Microsoft, Redmond, which was selling British specialties, most of them foods to, I imagine, Brits working for Microsoft who missed them.
My point is that given how they have dealt with the current war, the idea that the Tories were bought by Russia looks absurd to the average person, which is why the story mentioned at the top of the minithread isn't getting cut-through.
It's a handy way of being able to laugh at rich people though.
Thank you for all the kind comments and likes on the last thread. Is there any way of seeing more than just the last 10 likes (not a problem I usually have)? It would be nice to see all the usernames that liked my comment.
It appears that walking without crutches is a piece of cake, walking without the boot not so much.
It also appears that my shoe is now too small for me. I also have nerve damage and can't feel the outside part of my foot. I knew this but it wasn't to noticeable in a boot. It is noticeable in a normal shoe. I'm now told that as there hasn't been any improvement that is likely to be permanent. I don't think it is going to bother me.
Re @Selebian's observation, no I am not a Nordic Lumberjack. In terms of my desire to do certain things:
a) Driving - speaks for itself
b) Skiing - I had given this up but I had intended to give it another go this May/June with some easy glacier skiing. I have loved skiing particularly yellow run ski routes for the exhilaration, solitude, views, and après ski.
c) Ladder - I have several hundred metres of hedges that I enjoy cutting with power tools, plus an Orangey that I have to get on top of to clean.
d) Chopping wood - I love it, particularly when frustrated. I end many a gardening day with a session. We have 3 stoves and I have never bought any wood in over 10 years. I get plenty from my garden (the February storm provided about a 2 year supply that I am dying to get into) and also I chop wood for neighbours in exchange for a share of it. An axe a wedge and sledgehammer is all you need to take out your frustrations.
e) Cycling - I do a lot less now but I do like the big trips and I was planning to cycle down the Loire in May/June (next to rather than in). I hope I can do it in September. Myself and a friend cycle greenways. I think it is comparable to @BlancheLivermore but on wheels rather than foot. Again solitude, but then also meeting great people plus lots of great food and booze.