One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
There were empty shelves because of panic buying. That's just the public for you I know what can you do but don't forget a lot of these people also voted for Brexit so we can't make any calls on their intelligence or common sense.
There were empty shelves then and there may very well be empty shelves again.
People called 999 when KFC ran short
Food shortages due to Brexit will not be met with stoicism
How many people did? Did 17.4 million people call 999 due to KFC ?
The UK did react to food shortages with stoicism as recently as March. We got through it and life went on.
I don't think you realise how hand to mouth - and how dependent on processed food - a lot of families are because of cash and time pressures. Not being able to get a pizza, for instance, can disrupt plans and routines. That is what is being ignored in the discussion, I think.
given half the UK is being told to stay at home where are the time pressures ? You cant actually go anywhere much except the supermarket.
People have to go to work and children to school. It's common to have a family with the children home and hungry at 5pm, and one adult not till 7, and so on ...
Meals such as pizzas and so on help a lot, but if they cannot be obtained reliably ... it will be interesting to see what happens.
I take it you cant cook.
Knocking up a hot meal is a doddle whatever your budget.
So long as you like risotto.
(The ultimate 50p meal.)
couscous or noodles are the fastest thing youll cook aside from bread and wraps
My favourite quick and cheap meal is an omelette. It is dead easy and if you do it right, a sophisticated dish.
Toast and marmite with scrambled eggs on top. A bit of cheese on top of the toast that melts on impact with the hot egg if you are feeling particularly sophisticated.
The better you cook your eggs the less need for cheese and marmite. Fantastic toast is the key, and some butter on the toast. Then perfectly cooked eggs. A hint of shaved cheese perhaps and the slightest taint of marmite on the buttering knife.
All this celebratory bake off crap and you can't buy a decent loaf of bread!
We need a blokeish bake-off. Bread for cheese and pickle sandwiches, bread for bacon sandwiches, buns for burgers, buns for hotdogs. Bread for pate, and we need to get the good pate's back for this bread.
I can cook faultless boiled eggs, time after time: whites set, yolks runny.
Food of the Gods.
Although 'faultless' seems a boast, and although my boiled eggs are ok - I'm quite envious.
Try this:
Use eggs that have been at room temperature for several hours; NEVER from the fridge.
Use large eggs (for anything smaller the timings will need to be reduced by some indeterminate amount!)
Large pan of water brought to a good boil.
Put 2-4 eggs into that boiling water for four and a half minutes. (More eggs than that and the timings might need slightly extending.) Turn off the heat and let them stand for another 30 seconds. Take them out, take the top off one to eat first and smash the tops of the others, to allow the heat out and stop them cooking.
Eat with dipping soldiers.
Perhaps its from the fridge thing.
Do you have any insight on scrambled eggs? I'd say they would be my best hand in egg cookery - very slow, lots of butter, stirring madly.
Poached eggs - these are the eggs of god. I intend to keep trying.
Scrambled is the wife's forte. Wouldn't dare to tread on her toes there.
Poached eggs - just get a decent poacher. Don't ever try to cook them in a swirl of boiling water. Urgh.
You should investigate ' scrambled' yourself - buy loads of butter. Not omletting it is the key. It's a mans sort of egg dish anyway - best served very early to a sleepy girlfriend. You can even bugger up the toast if the scrambled eggs are right.
Poached - trust me this is the true way of the egg!
I'm far from good at poached eggs, but boiling water is too hot, and I'm not sure that swirling (or vinegar) helps. (edit: if I could get this right i'd be very happy)
Tomorrow morning I'm going to follow your plan with some eggs that are out of the fridge overnight.
Pro tip for poached eggs: your water should be only just wobbling on the surface, def. not boiling. Lower your unbroken eggs into it for 30 seconds, then hoick them out again and break them into the water as usual. This boils the outer layer of white so they hold together better.
That's very similar to me - except I use the intermediate step of breaking the eggs into a mug.
Eggs must be broken with one hand.
Like Harry Palmer.
How do you break Harry Palmer with one hand?
Was hoping to demonstrate that from The Muppets A Christmas Carol, but Miss P seems not to have Karate Chopped Mr Scrooge (Michael Caine).
Big thank you to everybody for the answers re milk, bread and root vegetables.
Milk: Yes I have some frozen but it takes up a lot of room and I can't fit any more. I don't like the taste of long life milk but given Rochdale's concern about packaging I will stock up on some.
Bread: Yes I noticed that as Selebian says bread was still available even when flour was very hard to get hold of. Didn't know our main flour imports were from Canada, thanks for that. I have some stock of bread flour, think I will get some more just in case.
Root veg: No greenhouse (or green fingers ;-) ) unfortunately - I have been thinking I could grown my own onions, carrots, potatoes if I had any idea about gardening. But I know local farmers round here do root veg boxes.
I don't like beetroot (whether Beethoven-reared or otherwise) - sorry MattW! But thanks for the tip about freezing eggs - they won't take up much room in that form, either.
I'm hoping most of this won't be necessary - but prefer to "Be Prepared". Nothing will be wasted anyway. At some point in the future I am going to have some very small food bills as all this gets unwound!
Root vegetables can be bought in frozen form, or in tins. Unopened tins can be donated to foodbanks in six months or so, if Brexit has gone smoothly.
Cooking tips & skills -- the easiest chef to follow on Youtube is, perhaps surprisingly, Gordon Ramsay. But once you've got the basics down pat, remember there is no "one true recipe" for anything.
I freeze 3 eggs (ie one omelette for my eggs) in a small freezer bag, and have about 3 or 4 of those bags in a marg. pot container- need to be very level when freezing. Don't overdo the egg bags in the container as they may run out, or even use sealable bags if you are nervous.
And mix first to the point where you cannot tell the yolk and white apart, but not to bubbly stage.
Good for omelettes or baking cakes etc. Or even things like brioche.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
Its quite possible that Boris Johnson is not Chamberlain or Churchill, but Sir Robert Peel.
A man who forced through a measure that split his party for a generation. For the Corn Law repeal, read Johnson's Brexit.
Except this time, I think it would be more than a generation. It would be for ever.
The big political divide for the foreseeable is populist versus globalist and the tories are fatally split, there.
Most of the Tories are united on Brexit, most of Peel's party were opposed to Corn Law repeal and all that led to was a political realignment with the Peelites joining the Liberals and in time the Protectionist Liberals like Chamberlain joining the Tories, the Tories still won again.
All a populist v globalist split would do would be to create a similar realignment, the Corbynites would split off from Starmer Labour and form a new protectionist hard left party, the Cameroons would split off from the Tories and form a new globalist liberal party with the LDs and maybe some Blairites too and Farage's remaining supporters would merge into the Tories too.
Only thing stopping it is FPTP, if we had PR it would probably happen next week
If we had a decent system of PR, a lot of very good things might happen, young HY. I think you are beginning to see the light.
I think a parallel between Thatcher vs the miners can be drawn between Boris vs no deal. In both cases the outcome is a known, the difference is that Mrs Thatcher spent a long time preparing the nation for the inevitable miners strike by stockpiling coal and ensuring there was never any chance of shortages and we could break the strikes and outlast any resolve the strikers had. This time we sort of know what will happen with no deal and Boris/the government haven't done any of the prep work for it, we haven't stockpiled, we haven't got processes in place and there is no guarantee that we can outlast the resolve of the EU to hold on to their unsustainable position on the LPF/fish.
This is why Boris has made a grave error on not getting the two year extension.
One of the questions for later is going to be "what was Boris thinking of?" Had he quietly got a minion to do the necessary in (say) late May, nobody would have noticed, and most would have understood. Set a deadline for negotiations of about now, sure, but (literally) buy some time to do the boring stuff that needs to be done.
That's probably the answer, of course. Meaningful preparations are boring, which is why Boris and Dom (for in those days, it was Boris and Dom) feared them.
Yes, in May of this year he could easily have walked back the no extension hole he dug for himself, the COVID uncertainty was absolutely huge across the whole continent and two additional years of preparation would have suited the UK a lot better than it would the EU. All they get from us in those two years is a bit more money, what we get from that two years is countless more independent trade deals, build up of customs infrastructure, building out a trusted trader scheme for imports of agricultural and other JiT goods, we would be on the other side of the COVID economic carnage. It is highly likely that the EU would be ready to deal given the alternative of no deal would be economically sanitised from a UK perspective and we'd already have infrastructure for customs pre-clearance with a trusted trader scheme they could also participate in and police independently.
One of the reasons the EU is holding to the terms they have is that they view no deal as economically unpalatable for the UK. Not changing that part of the negotiating stance has not worked in our favour. Two years would have been more than enough to do that. It would also have given us time to normalise our relationship with the US and remind them that in Europe there is no other true ally on defence and intelligence and the other European nations aren't reliable.
I would err towards silence meaning there’s finally movement. If one side or the other has thrown their toys, we’d have heard already.
Makes a change from constant 'nothing has changed' updates, that feel like a shirking employee emailing 'working hard, boss' to justify their paycheck.
Trade isn't going to halt though. Trade will still happen even if it is disrupted.
But yes for a couple of weeks if we are disrupted it's perfect possible to live off potatoes, root vegetables, peas, beans, cabbages, apples, lamb, seafood etc.
But it won't be necessary. It is panic mongering to suggest it would be. Disruption doesn't mean an end to trade, it never has done.
Trade will stop until they find a way to remove the bottleneck. We know the 12-20 hour queues to cross the EU border with a far smaller volume of trucks at a land border. So suggesting 48 hours plus delays for our sea border is sensible. As you can't tie up the truck fleet in that kind of queue they won't be sent. An eerie calm where the greatly reduced cross border traffic only waits a few hours as opposed to days.
Problem is that if you step up traffic it backs up to a stop again. I know that you disagree with all of this despite the endless evidence that it is facts. Then again you've spent all afternoon telling me about how food supply chains and supermarkets work in a way that would be funny (they'll overface empty chillers with beans FFS) if you weren't so serious.
I never said they'll overface empty chillers with beans.
Why wouldn't they overface empty chillers with cold produce we have a surplus of?
Be a good opportunity to have a sale on overfaced lamb perhaps?
Jesus. Like I said, have no idea about how supply chain works.
The lamb that gets exported to the EU - if there is a disruption to international trade then why can't that be sold in the UK?
If there's something I'm missing then why not educate me? My local Morrisons wraps up its meat on-site with the in-store butcher, I appreciate not every supermarket does that but why can't lamb if we have a surplus of it be shipped to the supermarkets and sold there?
The point about lamb is that British farmers produce a significant amount of lamb and British consumers eat a significant amount of it, but not the whole animal, just some meaty parts like the legs and the back. The rest is exported to southern/eastern europe, with more meaty bits imported from there. In a No Deal situation you may rediscover your taste for sheep entrails. Bon Appetit.
I’ve tried sheep’s brain, served in the whole roasted head. Chopsticks to lift out the flaps. Wasn’t enough chilli sauce in all the world to stop the instant retch. If there’s a no deal Brexit, I’ll stick to British shellfish I think.
And to think all the recipes tonight have been absolutely tasty sounding, and then this comes along ...
In fact, this provokes a memory, coming up from the abyss like something from the Cthulhu mythos. My granny used to cook sheep's heid at home. From the butcher three doors away, or maybe the other two within 100 yards. Split in two. And boiled, none of this fancy roasting.
Mind, it was for the dog. But the smell ...
Smoked sheep's head is a traditional Christmas meal in some coastal parts of Norway. Those parts always seemed to provide the Camp Bosses (Head chefs) on the Norwegian rigs so it was the mainstay of any Norwegian offshore Christmas along with Lutefisk and 'Roadkill and Cabbage'. The smoked sheep's head was easily the best of those festive choices.
I've never been able to shake the words of a teacher of mine to avoid 'traditional' foods, on the basis that if it's not awful, it is probably offal.
Given that wording, maybe it was ydoethur's mentor.
What is the obsession with adding dairy products to scrambled egg?
Eggs.
Seasoned.
Scrambled.
Perfection.
Because it tastes great, and is good for you. Here's my ultimate (lazy) scrambled egg recipe:
Get a very good non-stick frying pan. Switch on the ring (low heat), and dump in a good blob of butter (I use unsalted), lots of salt (I use Himalayan pink), lots of pepper, and sometimes some coconut oil too. Instead of milk, put in a good blob of natural yoghurt. Stir. Break the eggs straight into the pan - I usually do three per person, sometimes 4. They will slowly start to fry, but there's ample time to break them up with a wooden spoon. Continue to stir. Keep the ring on low and don't be tempted to turn it up high to get the eggs cooked faster. Stop when the eggs are still creamy but not runny.
You are welcome!
It has always baffled me that (as you say) scrambled eggs and also omelettes are considered good for us. But fried eggs are absolutely not.
Eggs, butter, seasoning in all cases. Why is one not good?
Good evening, everybody.
Frying things at high temperatures can remove some of the goodness and result in 'acrylamides' - carcinogenic compounds building up. So I don't think frying is as good as the other ways, but I don't avoid fried eggs at all. Frying them in coconut oil (or good lard or beef tallow) would be best, as these fats are more heat stable.
When I fry eggs (rarely) I don't use a high temperature. They come out best done more slowly, with a lid on the pan to trap the heat/steam to cook the top of the white. Still doesn't take long, mind.
Is there any difference between no deal and Australian deal?
If they are looking for a cute bit of spin, why don’t they say we are having a Brazilian brexit?
It's a way of reclaiming the discussion from the (deliberate imo) strategy of conflating not getting an FTA with the EU, with last year's 'No deal' scenario. 'No deal' last year meant no withdrawal agreement, a situation of considerable seriousness, as that 'deal' meant the rules which govern planes flying, international travel, and lots of important legal practicalities. There was a great deal written about 'no deal' then, and, understandably, a great deal of fear and angst built up around the term. The same people are no re-using that phrase to describe the current scenario, which is simply not getting a free trade agreement, so trading with the EU as an independent third nation - as Australia does.
Losers or not, Remainers have been extremely good at using their choice of language to frame the arguments, and Leavers have, for the most part, acquiesced. 'Brexiteers' is another term that should never have been adopted.
The Christmas hall pass is looking more and more a very bad idea. England haven't squashed covid down enough and Wales is already running away in the other direction, but waiting until after Christmas to decide if further restrictions are required.
Lockdown in February.....
Have to agree with this. Other than the fear that people won't adhere to restrictions, what is the rationale? And even if that is true, is the answer to not even try restrictions (or reduce them for a period)?
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
#1/#2 are the real issues. The fishing stuff is small fry that can be fudged.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
This is also my view. Everyone expects a deal to happen because a deal always happens. Except a deal doesn't always happen.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in and clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in to clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
So do you think Ursula taking over has made Barnier look inept?
This was always going to happen. Neither Barnier nor Frost had the mandate to make significant concessions to the other side - this end stage was always going to look like this.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in and clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
Boris always wanted to get his big moment going into an EU summit with the threat of No Deal hanging over their heads because he imagines he can charm them into backing down. It's Varoufakis syndrome.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Bottom line is that Boris wants two things. Tariffless trade and freedom from EU rules. He has to choose, whether he likes it or not. Does he want his cake, or does he want to eat it? If the rest of us really are just a backdrop to The Story Of Boris, it's always pointed to this. Let's hope he picks wisely.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in to clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
So do you think Ursula taking over has made Barnier look inept?
This was always going to happen. Neither Barnier nor Frost had the mandate to make significant concessions to the other side - this end stage was always going to look like this.
But unlike Boris, Ursula cannot unilaterally make decisions on behalf of the EU.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in and clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
What one has to remember is that in his own mind Johnson really thinks of himself as a modern day Churchill. Stop laughing! He needs to be the hero of his own psychodrama.
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in to clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
So do you think Ursula taking over has made Barnier look inept?
This was always going to happen. Neither Barnier nor Frost had the mandate to make significant concessions to the other side - this end stage was always going to look like this.
But unlike Boris, Ursula cannot unilaterally make decisions on behalf of the EU.
She may be pre authorised to make certain decisions in the event of specific actions by Boris.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
This is also my view. Everyone expects a deal to happen because a deal always happens. Except a deal doesn't always happen.
Agree, and from a UK perspective no deal does actually achieve all three points as you have:
1. The ability to set regulations and laws without encumbrance 2. Post-action WTO dispute resolution mechanism 3. 100% control over territorial water
Obviously there are huge, huge drawbacks to no deal economically and it is a big step into the unknown but as I see it as soon as the UK gains all three of these it will never give them up as part of any EU trade deal.
There were empty shelves because of panic buying. That's just the public for you I know what can you do but don't forget a lot of these people also voted for Brexit so we can't make any calls on their intelligence or common sense.
There were empty shelves then and there may very well be empty shelves again.
People called 999 when KFC ran short
Food shortages due to Brexit will not be met with stoicism
How many people did? Did 17.4 million people call 999 due to KFC ?
The UK did react to food shortages with stoicism as recently as March. We got through it and life went on.
I don't think you realise how hand to mouth - and how dependent on processed food - a lot of families are because of cash and time pressures. Not being able to get a pizza, for instance, can disrupt plans and routines. That is what is being ignored in the discussion, I think.
given half the UK is being told to stay at home where are the time pressures ? You cant actually go anywhere much except the supermarket.
People have to go to work and children to school. It's common to have a family with the children home and hungry at 5pm, and one adult not till 7, and so on ...
Meals such as pizzas and so on help a lot, but if they cannot be obtained reliably ... it will be interesting to see what happens.
I take it you cant cook.
Knocking up a hot meal is a doddle whatever your budget.
So long as you like risotto.
(The ultimate 50p meal.)
couscous or noodles are the fastest thing youll cook aside from bread and wraps
My favourite quick and cheap meal is an omelette. It is dead easy and if you do it right, a sophisticated dish.
Toast and marmite with scrambled eggs on top. A bit of cheese on top of the toast that melts on impact with the hot egg if you are feeling particularly sophisticated.
The better you cook your eggs the less need for cheese and marmite. Fantastic toast is the key, and some butter on the toast. Then perfectly cooked eggs. A hint of shaved cheese perhaps and the slightest taint of marmite on the buttering knife.
All this celebratory bake off crap and you can't buy a decent loaf of bread!
We need a blokeish bake-off. Bread for cheese and pickle sandwiches, bread for bacon sandwiches, buns for burgers, buns for hotdogs. Bread for pate, and we need to get the good pate's back for this bread.
I can cook faultless boiled eggs, time after time: whites set, yolks runny.
Food of the Gods.
Although 'faultless' seems a boast, and although my boiled eggs are ok - I'm quite envious.
Try this:
Use eggs that have been at room temperature for several hours; NEVER from the fridge.
Use large eggs (for anything smaller the timings will need to be reduced by some indeterminate amount!)
Large pan of water brought to a good boil.
Put 2-4 eggs into that boiling water for four and a half minutes. (More eggs than that and the timings might need slightly extending.) Turn off the heat and let them stand for another 30 seconds. Take them out, take the top off one to eat first and smash the tops of the others, to allow the heat out and stop them cooking.
Eat with dipping soldiers.
Perhaps its from the fridge thing.
Do you have any insight on scrambled eggs? I'd say they would be my best hand in egg cookery - very slow, lots of butter, stirring madly.
Poached eggs - these are the eggs of god. I intend to keep trying.
Scrambled is the wife's forte. Wouldn't dare to tread on her toes there.
Poached eggs - just get a decent poacher. Don't ever try to cook them in a swirl of boiling water. Urgh.
You should investigate ' scrambled' yourself - buy loads of butter. Not omletting it is the key. It's a mans sort of egg dish anyway - best served very early to a sleepy girlfriend. You can even bugger up the toast if the scrambled eggs are right.
Poached - trust me this is the true way of the egg!
I'm far from good at poached eggs, but boiling water is too hot, and I'm not sure that swirling (or vinegar) helps. (edit: if I could get this right i'd be very happy)
Tomorrow morning I'm going to follow your plan with some eggs that are out of the fridge overnight.
Pro tip for poached eggs: your water should be only just wobbling on the surface, def. not boiling. Lower your unbroken eggs into it for 30 seconds, then hoick them out again and break them into the water as usual. This boils the outer layer of white so they hold together better.
That's very similar to me - except I use the intermediate step of breaking the eggs into a mug.
Eggs must be broken with one hand.
Like Harry Palmer.
I hesitate to ask what the average PBer needs the other hand for.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
If I had to guess I'd say they discussed a lot of stuff but need to take it back to their bases now (EU members and UK HMG) to see what more can be done.
UK has made gestures today with IM Bill and also on fishing, and the EU has been looking at LPF limits too, so something is definitely going on.
Is that a going back to your base in the Curb Your Enthusiasm sense?
Is this Bozo goes to Brussels and single handedly saves the negotiations drama being played out .
The EU are quite happy indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
I suspect so. Tough on Frosty perhaps - being made to look so inept that Boris has to step in to clear up his mess - but being able to claim the glory is a perk of being PM I guess.
So do you think Ursula taking over has made Barnier look inept?
This was always going to happen. Neither Barnier nor Frost had the mandate to make significant concessions to the other side - this end stage was always going to look like this.
But unlike Boris, Ursula cannot unilaterally make decisions on behalf of the EU.
Boris Johnson can unilaterally make decisions on behalf of the EU? Then what’s the argument about?
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
Mindful Chef isn't that good. Found a lot of their recipes very, very bland.
If you are doing recipe boxes I would recommend Gousto over the them by a very wide margin. Their 'flavour' is excellent, high-quality spy, spices and Chipotle paste gives their recipes a real headstart to tastiness.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
Agree, but also, crunchy nut cornflakes as a dish is bollocks, because you were hungry again by 6am!
It's very silly (and a bit arrogant) to think that the food traditions and tastes we've built up over millennia are just because people 'didn't know any better' - rather than the truth, that these traditions were, and still are, key to thriving.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Bottom line is that Boris wants two things. Tariffless trade and freedom from EU rules. He has to choose, whether he likes it or not. Does he want his cake, or does he want to eat it? If the rest of us really are just a backdrop to The Story Of Boris, it's always pointed to this. Let's hope he picks wisely.
Which leads me back to the extension not taken. We're in such an unnecessary position right now.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
If I had to guess I'd say they discussed a lot of stuff but need to take it back to their bases now (EU members and UK HMG) to see what more can be done.
UK has made gestures today with IM Bill and also on fishing, and the EU has been looking at LPF limits too, so something is definitely going on.
Is that a going back to your base in the Curb Your Enthusiasm sense?
Both sides have a political constituency to manage, and their irreconcilables.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
Agree, but also, crunchy nut cornflakes as a dish is bollocks, because you were hungry again by 6am!
It's very silly (and a bit arrogant) to think that the food traditions and tastes we've built up over millennia are just because people 'didn't know any better' - rather than the truth, that these traditions were, and still are, key to thriving.
Yeah, but what else was I going to do at 11.30pm when I was trying to sleep?
I could have done beans on toast I suppose but my objective was to instantly ingest calories in 2-3 minutes.. and then sleep.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage.
An extension is also underpriced, assuming the EU has a way to do it.
I think if Boris asks for one then a mechanism will be found and the UK will secretly pay into the EU fund through some off the books method for that period of time, maybe reducing our stake in the EIB by the corresponding amount or something along those lines. I just don't think Boris will ask and we're going to no deal which will be a disaster for us and UK/EU relations for a very long time.
If I had to guess I'd say they discussed a lot of stuff but need to take it back to their bases now (EU members and UK HMG) to see what more can be done.
UK has made gestures today with IM Bill and also on fishing, and the EU has been looking at LPF limits too, so something is definitely going on.
Is that a going back to your base in the Curb Your Enthusiasm sense?
Both sides have a political constituency to manage, and their irreconcilables.
They both know that.
I don't think you got the allusion. Not a Curb fan?
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
Mindful Chef isn't that good. Found a lot of their recipes very, very bland.
If you are doing recipe boxes I would recommend Gousto over the them by a very wide margin. Their 'flavour' is excellent, high-quality spy, spices and Chipotle paste gives their recipes a real headstart to tastiness.
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
Haven't seen any comments on this but Republican in Pennsylvania has appealed PA Supreme Court ruling to SCOTUS.
It's in Alito's territory - Alito originally requested evidence by 9th Dec (standard 6 day deadline) - ie after safe harbour deadline - but subsequently revised this to 9am on 8th Dec (he could have requested it much quicker if he had wanted to).
Anyway some kind of ruling may well be issued tomorrow - link:
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
Sounds pretty far fetched. When did Johnson ever have strategies?
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
Agree, but also, crunchy nut cornflakes as a dish is bollocks, because you were hungry again by 6am!
It's very silly (and a bit arrogant) to think that the food traditions and tastes we've built up over millennia are just because people 'didn't know any better' - rather than the truth, that these traditions were, and still are, key to thriving.
Yeah, but what else was I going to do at 11.30pm when I was trying to sleep?
I could have done beans on toast I suppose but my objective was to instantly ingest calories in 2-3 minutes.. and then sleep.
It hasn't nothing to do with veganism. You simply didn't eat enough calories. What did you expect from a cauliflower?
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other EU strategy could be let us no deal and experience that for three months, I suspect the country will insist we sign up to any deal.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
Yes, Boris can rely on some of the dimmer ERG types immediately saying it's a triumph to give him cover. That should sow sufficient confusion, and by the time they've realized their error the circus will have left town.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other EU strategy could be let us no deal and experience that for three months, I suspect the country will insist we sign up to any deal.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
I just don't see it. I think there is much more resolve in the UK (especially England and Wales) to "make do". As TOPPING has pointed out many times, the result of no deal is more than likely going to end up as a few pennies/pounds on the price of a few things we buy in the shops. The world will keep turning and ultimately people will get on with life. If that's the strategy they are trying to use then they are being advised as badly as the Nazis being told by Edward VIII that Britain's resolve would break if they kept up the bombing campaign.
Hasn't it been more or less this for months from sourcery news? 90-95% agreed but tripping over fish& lpf, with international law breaking floating about the rail.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other EU strategy could be let us no deal and experience that for three months, I suspect the country will insist we sign up to any deal.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
I just don't see it. I think there is much more resolve in the UK (especially England and Wales) to "make do". As TOPPING has pointed out many times, the result of no deal is more than likely going to end up as a few pennies/pounds on the price of a few things we buy in the shops. The world will keep turning and ultimately people will get on with life. If that's the strategy they are trying to use then they are being advised as badly as the Nazis being told by Edward VIII that Britain's resolve would break if they kept up the bombing campaign.
Look at the evidence, Boris Johnson said he would die in a ditch than extend Article 50, he set the middle of October as a deadline for the talks.
He's done plenty to avoid no deal, deep down he knows how bad it will be.
The chances of an accidental no deal is pretty high than a deliberate no deal.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The British resolve. Which "resolve" would that be? The man on the Clapham omnibus, sans toilet roll "resolve", or the "resolve" of Jacob Rees Mogg?
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other EU strategy could be let us no deal and experience that for three months, I suspect the country will insist we sign up to any deal.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
I think you guys are spot on.
There was never going to be a cake and eat it deal. There never was an oven ready deal with solution to the issues, that was a lie.
On one side we have a government trapped by expectations stoked by their own promises, on the other an EU with a winning strategy the longer no deal goes on the better any deal for themselves.
I don’t think they are even remotely close to any workable deal to a whole host of issues, particularly how to prevent and stop trade deflections, undercutting on cost and conditions and stealing each other’s custom. Without that, no FTA.
Haven't seen any comments on this but Republican in Pennsylvania has appealed PA Supreme Court ruling to SCOTUS.
It's in Alito's territory - Alito originally requested evidence by 9th Dec (standard 6 day deadline) - ie after safe harbour deadline - but subsequently revised this to 9am on 8th Dec (he could have requested it much quicker if he had wanted to).
Anyway some kind of ruling may well be issued tomorrow - link:
I suspect Alito's deliberations will do more to decide the fate of the US election than a thousand calls for Biden from CNN.
You do know that Alito will duck this, right?
Unless the Justices are so pissed off at Trump's abuse of the judicial system that they want the opportunity to throw it back in Trump's face with prejudice.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
The other EU strategy could be let us no deal and experience that for three months, I suspect the country will insist we sign up to any deal.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
I just don't see it. I think there is much more resolve in the UK (especially England and Wales) to "make do". As TOPPING has pointed out many times, the result of no deal is more than likely going to end up as a few pennies/pounds on the price of a few things we buy in the shops. The world will keep turning and ultimately people will get on with life. If that's the strategy they are trying to use then they are being advised as badly as the Nazis being told by Edward VIII that Britain's resolve would break if they kept up the bombing campaign.
Look at the evidence, Boris Johnson said he would die in a ditch than extend Article 50, he set the middle of October as a deadline for the talks.
He's done plenty to avoid no deal, deep down he knows how bad it will be.
The chances of an accidental no deal is pretty high than a deliberate no deal.
Personally I think a way out of this is buying two years of "deal implementation period" which keeps the three contentious issues frozen for two more years for two years worth of contributions, in that time a new tariff agreement can be worked into the eventual trade deal and we can "implement" the other parts of the deal in theory while staying in the same state we are now.
That's the kind of fudge that would work, as long as it has "deal" in it and it kicks fish, LPF and governance down the road for two years while some serious prep work for customs and trusted trader schemes are done as part of the "deal implementation" stuff then I can see the MPs living with it.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
This is also my view. Everyone expects a deal to happen because a deal always happens. Except a deal doesn't always happen.
A deal should not happen unless there is a ZOPA (zone of potential agreement). There is none, given the positions you have outlined.
Brave leaders would have recognized this months ago, ended the current negotiations, and set about limited arrangements to make the transition to no deal least painful for both sides.
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
The difficulty Johnson has now is Leaver skepticism. Any deal will be pored over with Brexiteer gusto, and whatever the deal, they won't like it.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
If you feed them healthy raw veg, then you can compost the scrapings :-) .
To be pedantic, raw veg isn't always the healthiest option. Humans have developed our ways of processing foods to make the nutrients in them more available over centuries. It's a myth that it would all be better if we lived on raw veg.
I had a cauliflower "steak" last night for dinner (in other words a slice of cauliflower) as part of a Mindful Chef recipe for a main meal.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
I think people are seriously underpricing a no deal at this stage. We know what the problems are:
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law. 2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension. 3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit. 2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair. 3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
Fudge, lots of fudge.
The problem for Boris (and the EU) is that he's out of a job if he fudges away 1 or 2 and his replacement isn't going to go for it either.
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
I think the EU are playing a long game, keep the UK close enough for a Labour government* to take us back into the single market and customs union.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
That's possible but then they would already have acquiesced to points 1 and 2 then renegotiated with Labour in a few years to get closer alignment.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
😂. Isn’t about time you drew a cross on a piece of paper, wrote powers/territory back as heading, and listed positives and negatives underneath?
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
The difficulty Johnson has now is Leaver skepticism. Any deal will be pored over with Brexiteer gusto, and whatever the deal, they won't like it.
Last time the Tories knew they were in a hole and pulled together, so Farage's betrayal narrative didn't get anywhere. It's harder to pull that off with a big majority.
Peter "Tebbit" Bone looking very chipper on Channel 4 News. "We've got total confidence that the Prime Minister won't come back from Brussels with a bad deal." Either he, Redwood and others are trying to box him in with friendly warnings, or they're genuinely confident Johnson will return with an Albania-style deal ( no deal ).
Nailed on. I think that the forecasts are something like 5% growth next year as we recover from Covid. Good luck to those who want to argue it would have been 6% with a better (any) deal.
My main reason for wanting a deal is that the idea of debating this ad nauseam is just too depressing for words.
Haven't seen any comments on this but Republican in Pennsylvania has appealed PA Supreme Court ruling to SCOTUS.
It's in Alito's territory - Alito originally requested evidence by 9th Dec (standard 6 day deadline) - ie after safe harbour deadline - but subsequently revised this to 9am on 8th Dec (he could have requested it much quicker if he had wanted to).
Anyway some kind of ruling may well be issued tomorrow - link:
I suspect Alito's deliberations will do more to decide the fate of the US election than a thousand calls for Biden from CNN.
You do know that Alito will duck this, right?
Unless the Justices are so pissed off at Trump's abuse of the judicial system that they want the opportunity to throw it back in Trump's face with prejudice.
That would be the right thing to do.
(The funny bit, of course, is that 2024 might be fought by a Trumpian candidate promising to pack the Court to get rid of all the lily livered liberals like ACB, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.)
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
The difficulty Johnson has now is Leaver skepticism. Any deal will be pored over with Brexiteer gusto, and whatever the deal, they won't like it.
Last time the Tories knew they were in a hole and pulled together, so Farage's betrayal narrative didn't get anywhere. It's harder to pull that off with a big majority.
Indeed. It is especially difficult for Johnson now, in as much that cool heads who could have helped calm troubled waters in his hour of need, have almost all been ejected from the Party personally by Johnson. He has shackled himself to John Major's "bastards".
The other strategy Boris Johnson might be employing is that he's not giving his MPs enough time to read the deal.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
The difficulty Johnson has now is Leaver skepticism. Any deal will be pored over with Brexiteer gusto, and whatever the deal, they won't like it.
So what? Labour are going to abstain or support any deal so Johnson can stand 50-80 rebels or more on his own side.
One of the small things I hope for from Brexit is that farms will be able (when the animals are for domestic consumption) to feed scraps to animals again. When I was little (which wasn't a HUGELY long time ago) our school dinner scrapings used to go to the chickens. Can't do that anymore, and it results in dreadful food waste, and farmers shelling out for animal feed which probably isn't even as good.
Trouble is that is a rather convoluted bit of law because it originated not with the EU but with us. It was the UK who first introduced the ban on feeding kitchen scraps to animals and then persuaded the rest of the EU to adopt those rules. They are genuinely stupid rules and I for one ignore them completely but the original blame lies with the UK not the EU.
Of course once we are out of the EU it would be easier for us to repeal them through our own legislation but we should take it as a warning that not all stupid legislation by any means begins in Brussels.
Comments
And mix first to the point where you cannot tell the yolk and white apart, but not to bubbly stage.
Good for omelettes or baking cakes etc. Or even things like brioche.
If they are looking for a cute bit of spin, why don’t they say we are having a Brazilian brexit?
One of the reasons the EU is holding to the terms they have is that they view no deal as economically unpalatable for the UK. Not changing that part of the negotiating stance has not worked in our favour. Two years would have been more than enough to do that. It would also have given us time to normalise our relationship with the US and remind them that in Europe there is no other true ally on defence and intelligence and the other European nations aren't reliable.
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1336018905781964803?s=20
Given that wording, maybe it was ydoethur's mentor.
Losers or not, Remainers have been extremely good at using their choice of language to frame the arguments, and Leavers have, for the most part, acquiesced. 'Brexiteers' is another term that should never have been adopted.
We now have Boris does Brussels
Everyone is fucked
The EU are quite happy to indulge Bozos theatrics if a deal is done .
1. The EU wants full future alignment on major areas of regulation and law.
2. Any breach of the above they want the ability to unilaterally suspend the entire trade deal on short notice with arbitration after suspension.
3. The EU wants to keep 80% of fish in UK territorial water.
The UK position:
1. The UK wants freedom to set its regulations and laws as it sees fit.
2. The UK says arbitration should come before tariffs or other retaliation (from either side) and it should be limited by what the arbitration panel deems fair.
3. The UK wants to keep its own fish and sell it to EU countries/businesses on a commercial basis.
None of these three positions has changed very much at all on either side in the last year, I don't see why either side will budge tonight when they haven't for a year or more.
This was always going to happen. Neither Barnier nor Frost had the mandate to make significant concessions to the other side - this end stage was always going to look like this.
Does he want his cake, or does he want to eat it?
If the rest of us really are just a backdrop to The Story Of Boris, it's always pointed to this.
Let's hope he picks wisely.
I might as well have eaten grass. I was so hungry I woke up at 11.30pm and had to go downstairs for a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. I woke up again at 6am for the same reason - and had fruit & fibre and toast with golden syrup.
Vegan is bollocks.
1. The ability to set regulations and laws without encumbrance
2. Post-action WTO dispute resolution mechanism
3. 100% control over territorial water
Obviously there are huge, huge drawbacks to no deal economically and it is a big step into the unknown but as I see it as soon as the UK gains all three of these it will never give them up as part of any EU trade deal.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/07/future-of-tate-britains-offensive-rex-whistler-mural-under-review
I hope there is a deal and both parties meet somewhere in the middle for these outstanding issues, but I just don't see it, the EU is getting high on its own supply and isn't going to compromise. It will inevitably lead to no deal as issues 1 and 2 are deal breakers.
If you are doing recipe boxes I would recommend Gousto over the them by a very wide margin. Their 'flavour' is excellent, high-quality spy, spices and Chipotle paste gives their recipes a real headstart to tastiness.
It's very silly (and a bit arrogant) to think that the food traditions and tastes we've built up over millennia are just because people 'didn't know any better' - rather than the truth, that these traditions were, and still are, key to thriving.
*I wouldn't rule out a Tory government doing the same, 'We're building on Lady Thatcher's finest achievement, the single market.'
They both know that.
I could have done beans on toast I suppose but my objective was to instantly ingest calories in 2-3 minutes.. and then sleep.
Given it took the better part of a year for the ERG and other Brexiteers to realise what the Irish Backstop and the NI Protocol they had signed up to really meant.
I made lamb kofta meat Scotch eggs this weekend.
They were awesome.
I really think that we're going to no deal and the EU are underestimating British resolve to "just get on with it" and once we have the powers/territory back from all points it is going to be a very brave government that signs them away to the EU again.
Those locals and mayorals in May might be like 1995 on speed. Add in the Scottish and Welsh elections...
https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1336020712285491201?s=20
Unless they think that, like with Varadkar Johnson agrees something he doesn't fully understand...
90-95% agreed but tripping over fish& lpf, with international law breaking floating about the rail.
He's done plenty to avoid no deal, deep down he knows how bad it will be.
The chances of an accidental no deal is pretty high than a deliberate no deal.
There was never going to be a cake and eat it deal. There never was an oven ready deal with solution to the issues, that was a lie.
On one side we have a government trapped by expectations stoked by their own promises, on the other an EU with a winning strategy the longer no deal goes on the better any deal for themselves.
I don’t think they are even remotely close to any workable deal to a whole host of issues, particularly how to prevent and stop trade deflections, undercutting on cost and conditions and stealing each other’s custom. Without that, no FTA.
That's the kind of fudge that would work, as long as it has "deal" in it and it kicks fish, LPF and governance down the road for two years while some serious prep work for customs and trusted trader schemes are done as part of the "deal implementation" stuff then I can see the MPs living with it.
Brave leaders would have recognized this months ago, ended the current negotiations, and set about limited arrangements to make the transition to no deal least painful for both sides.
The hard bastards group...new meaning to group of death.
But that's long gone.
Boris now needs to fold to preserve UK industry.
My main reason for wanting a deal is that the idea of debating this ad nauseam is just too depressing for words.
(The funny bit, of course, is that 2024 might be fought by a Trumpian candidate promising to pack the Court to get rid of all the lily livered liberals like ACB, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.)
Of course once we are out of the EU it would be easier for us to repeal them through our own legislation but we should take it as a warning that not all stupid legislation by any means begins in Brussels.