Are we becoming increasingly ignorant of and divorced from what we eat?

A poll for ‘British Food Fortnight’ (whatever) billed as; ‘An annual mass movement to excite and educate young people about British food.’ apparently demonstrates a woeful lack of knowledge about regional foods amongst the said ‘young people’.

It seems many were under the impression cheddar cheese comes from the midlands for instance.

This is hardly surprising when a recent survey by the 'Linking Environment And Farming' (LEAF) indicated 22% of adults didn’t know that bacon and the meat in sausages originated on farms. Also 23% didn’t know the main ingredient of bread (wheat) was grown on farms. A staggering 47% hadn’t a clue the main ingredient of porridge (oats) came from farms.

Whether this is down to surveying particularly thick people, or the effects of long term urbanisation on the population, only ever seeing pre packaged and processed supermarket food, or just a narrow and poor education, is difficult to say. Certainly a lack of the most basic knowledge about the geography of the UK.

This is the basic stuff of living, we are not talking logarithms here.

Things like that used to be covered in primary school, mine was not unusual and we visited farms, but that was a while back now. Probably banned on the grounds of health and safety now.

What is really worrying, when you think about it, is that these people are armed (and dangerous) with the vote.

How can they vote sensibly on policies such as farming and the environment, when they have no idea what the actual likely impact and ramifications of those policies may be and lack the basic knowledge to work it out.

We could all end up with no bread, or milk - and more ‘turkey twizzlers’ than you could shake a stick at.

Brown Still planning to betray his party’s election promise to the UK electorate and agree EU constitutional ‘treaty’

Despite massive opposition, according to the Telegraph, it appears Gordon Brown is still planning on agreeing the EU constitutional ‘treaty’ in On October 18th, breaking Nu-Labs referendum manifesto promise made at the last election.

According to YouGov against the wishes of the majority of the population.

Given that NU-Lab were effectively elected under false pretences it is difficult to see how they can claim to have any real mandate to govern, let alone sign away powers, loaned to them by the electorate, to a foreign power, without a specific mandate.

It will be interesting to see if the electorate will remember the contempt with which they have been treated over this when they next have the opportunity to express themselves. Broon must be betting his whole shooting match that they won’t.

Gordon Brown. His hand - in your pocket.

The PM Gordon Brown is on target to personally drive UK petrol prices to record levels.

A delayed tax hike he introduced on fuel in this year’s budget, when he was still chancellor, is due to bite next week. It is likely to push the average price of a litre of unleaded petrol to 98p. These levels are astronomical compared to the European average.

But wait – there is more good news. Lurking like a terrorists second bomb is a further little present. In that same budget he lined up yet another 2p fuel tax hike for next April. Plus yet another tax hike the following year.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Don’t forget - that is before you allow for the effects of VAT (Value Added Tax). You get to pay VAT on the tax that you pay for fuel.

On the face of it this looks like yet another instance of NU-Lab’s trick of gradual and preferably initially limited, hits designed to limit opposition to unpopular measures. Broon will have been anxious to avoid a repeat of the popular and widespread fuel price protests of 2000.

This little fillip to inflation will in turn work it’s way via road transport costs into the cost of almost everything we eat, drink and use. It may also go on to help drive higher interest rates.

Critical Faculty Dojo - Banned in China?

Well well. It seems the Chinese government may have banned Critical Faculty Dojo - or it could just be due to ‘technical reasons’.

At least according to this site.

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility though, if they are sensitive and have been reading this, this, this, or this.

Maybe they wouldn’t want their citizens reading about Chinese net censorship. Hey the truth is out there, if you are not being censored you may even be able to read it too…

Dave Cameron Keen on return to Conservative values - Before Brown steals them all

It seems that Dave the Chameleon is now keen on re-branding himself.

Many members of the party formerly known as the Conservatives must have been wondering what on earth he was playing at, when some of his more ludicrous ideas were touted to the press and bombed with many of his natural supporters, whist simultaneously failing to convince anyone else.

It all almost seemed calculated to alienate his natural constituency whist at the same time be lukewarm at best to floating voters and the hoards of Ming the merciless.

It must have been galling watching Broon make direct appeals to Tory voters and Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has finally been forced to fight back, to try to regain lost ground and attempt to prevent the PM looking more far more conservative than his own leader.

So, instead of the ‘heir to Blair’ he is now keen to be seen as the ‘heir to Thatcher’ - Unfortunately it looks like he was a bit too slow again. He turned up at the new busking pitch only to find that Broon got there first.

He really does desperately need to dump the comparison many see with Blair. That is a millstone round his neck.

Gordon Brown has stolen virtually all his clothes while he wasn’t looking (Dave had thought they were out of fashion). Now all he has left to protect his modesty is a dodgy suit he got from Tony that still has several payments left on it. Because of the suit, when he goes out at night people keep mistaking him for Tony and he gets into trouble over that.

Still all is not necessarily entirely lost, there is hope of some light at the end of the tunnel , Dave will probably be hoping that it is not just an oncoming train ;-)

Nu-Lab’s campaign against ‘traditional’ light bulbs gathers pace.

Son of staring eyed Left Winger Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Hilary, Nu-Lab’s Environment Secretary, informed their conference he wanted to see sales of 150-watt bulbs banned from next January.

But of course it is not just 150 watt bulbs - He wants to take the same ‘defeat in detail’ route Nu-Lab so successfully applied with HIPs, that minimises resistance to the point where it can be ignored.

He stated "our aim is for traditional 150-watt light bulbs to be phased out by January next year, 100-watt bulbs the year after, 40-watt bulbs the year after that and all high-energy light bulbs by 2011."

This might be worthwhile if it had a reasonable chance of ‘doing what it says on the tin’, as they say.

Mr Benn claims that the ban could save five million tonnes of CO2 a year. Typically he appears to fail to take several factors into account:

Firstly he appears to fail to take into account that the heat generated by incandescent bulbs, that he is counting as wasted, actually contributes to heating the premises the bulbs are used in - and this reduction in heat will actually largely have to be made up by additional heating costs and result in increased CO2 emissions required in heating that will offset the supposed saving to be gained in introducing the bulbs.

So a lot of expense in changing all the bulbs for far less gain than touted. Then there are the disparities in production costs… All this will be coming out of the consumers pockets.

Then there is the small matter of the mercury that goes into making the ‘low energy’ bulbs. Nu-Labs Euro MPs were so concerned about the threat of mercury to the environment that they banned mercury barometers, but they seem happy turn a blind eye to the threat of a metric ton of Mercury being dumped in the UK each year that these bulbs pose.

Straw to call for new laws to protect homeowners who defend themselves

In a move to be announced by the UK ‘Justice’ Secretary, Jack Straw, in his conference speech, telegraphed by ‘sources close to him’, it seems Nu-Lab are at long last apparently planning to ‘reform’ self-defence laws in a way that "better balances the system in favour of victims of crime".

“This will be aimed at ensuring that those who seek to protect themselves, their loved ones and their homes as well as other citizens have confidence that the law is on their side,"

Where have we heard this before?

Oh yes - familiar stuff this - A 2004 review of the self-defence laws, following Conservative pressure resulted in...

...absolutely no change whatsoever, any changes being ruled out by Blair on the grounds that the existing legislation was ‘sound’. Right, almost as sound as a cracked bell.

So what has changed since then? Well we know that Gordon would like to Tar Dave the Chameleon with Tony Blair’s brush and steal some of ‘the party formerly known as the Conservatives’ clothing (and votes). So a good sound bite then.

To be fair, it could be that Mr Straw may have actually had genuine second thoughts on the matter, after reportedly being involved in four ‘there but for the grace of god…’ ‘have-a go’ incidents, including chasing and restraining muggers near his south London home.

So we know the Justice dude kicks ass then - Judge Dread eat your heart out…

It remains to be seen what actual practical difference, if any, this may make. But the sheeple may well dimly remember the sound bite, even if nothing more comes of it.

TV & Internet ‘cold turkey’

From time to time one reads of people, who as an experiment, go without TV, the internet, etc. Sometimes they appear to make heavy going of it.

I am a pretty heavy user of the internet and I usually watch at least an hour of news per day, Plus there are the papers.

I do not see myself as a news and politics junky - but I do generally take a keen interest.

In any event I have just had a two week break from TV and didn’t even rally think about it ‘till the initial idea of technology withdrawal surfaced in my mind. Ditto the internet – and I am normally a heavy user. I must confess to having read a couple of newspapers though…

I just got by with convivial conversation, reading books, sight seeing, swimming, good food, drink and relaxation.

I suppose it may have been different if I had to go without them in my normal day to day routine, but I can honestly say, that I missed them so little on holiday that I didn’t even consciously notice their absence.

Another party conference - another self serving spinning sound bite

In a speech today at NU-Lab’s Party conference their Health Fascist in chief Secretary Alan Johnson, had the nerve to criticise Dave the Bloke’s "Party formerly known as the Conservatives", claiming they were a "major risk" to the NHS.

Why? Apparently because they are calling for a moratorium in wholesale casualty department closures.

Now it seems on the face of it that more relatively small local casualty departments, able to handle the normal run-of-the-mill stuff - combined with some larger more advanced establishments could actually be beneficial.

The fact is that many in the UK, contrary to the spin pushed by Nu-Lab politicians, will have experienced an increase in the distance it is necessary to for them to travel to reach an A&E Department.

Without moving house, the distance it is necessary for me to travel to reach an A&E Dept has gone up from around 2 and a half miles to seven and a half and now sits at 12 miles. From my own practical experience the time necessary to be dealt with once you have arrived has risen over that same period.

There is no way Mr Johnson can convince me (or probably anyone else other than the Nu-Lab faithful) that this is an improvement.

Certainly not what you might see as; reshaping the NHS to become "clinically led and locally driven", treating patients close to home where possible…