Not an ad. So sue me.
Woody
"Richard P. Grant" <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
news:rpg14-05B251....@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> The Lego Mac is . . .
>
>
> Current bid: £365.00
>
> with half an hour to go!
Daniele did well with all that publicity for £5 worth of lego and £20 worth
of powerbook :)
Woody
Jon B
So how long before that pair of broken iBooks of Apple Juice is rebuilt
and encased in Lego?
--
Jon
jon.br...@btinternet.com
David Kennedy
Never mind that, what about the present iMac in Lego !
--
David Kennedy
Jon B
Mmm that would be interesting, esp if you could maintain the iMac shape
and curves......
--
Jon
jon.br...@btinternet.com
Chris Ridd
<use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
You obviously haven't seen the price of Lego nowadays, but it would have
cost a couple of times that I'm sure :-(
Still it is a handsome profit, with fame to boot.
Cheers,
Chris
James Savage
> The Lego Mac is . . .
>
>
> Current bid: £365.00
>
> with half an hour to go!
I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
;)
--
James
Home http://www.countb.co.uk/
Blog http://www.countb.co.uk/blog/
David Kennedy
> In article <BAF11F2B.82C1D%chri...@mac.com>,> So when does the clock start for his 15 minutes?
>
Too late, you missed it !
David Kennedy
> Richard P. Grant <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>>The Lego Mac is . . .
>>
>>
>>Current bid: £365.00
>>
>>with half an hour to go!
>
>
> I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
>
> ;)
Back to the Purple dungeon with you !!!!
[and mind those stray Goths on the way down]
Simon Liddle
You've left out the most important ingredients: the imagination, the idea,
and the time he spent carrying it out. :)
S.
--
Simon Liddle
The email address in the header is no longer used.
Please address replies to this newsgroup.
Chris Ridd
3ECB637B...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid, "David Kennedy"
<david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
> Richard P. Grant wrote:
>> In article <BAF11F2B.82C1D%chri...@mac.com>,
>> Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Still it is a handsome profit, with fame to boot.
>>>
>>
>>
>> So when does the clock start for his 15 minutes?
>>
>
> Too late, you missed it !
Daniele who?
Cheers,
Chris
James Savage
> James Savage wrote:
> > Richard P. Grant <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>The Lego Mac is . . .
> >>
> >>
> >>Current bid: £365.00
> >>
> >>with half an hour to go!
> >
> >
> > I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
> >
> > ;)
>
> Back to the Purple dungeon with you !!!!
I *like* that idea!
> [and mind those stray Goths on the way down]
The best kind.
James Savage
> In article <1fvb6aj.1c9y699b55xbmN%ne...@countb.coco.uk>,
> ne...@countb.coco.uk (James Savage) wrote:
>
> > Richard P. Grant <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > The Lego Mac is . . .
> > >
> > >
> > > Current bid: £365.00
> > >
> > > with half an hour to go!
> >
> > I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
> >
>
> Ashley, James, I didn't.
Ooooh isn't perception weird!
Simon Liddle
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
>> James Savage wrote:
>>> Richard P. Grant <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> The Lego Mac is . . .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Current bid: £365.00
>>>>
>>>> with half an hour to go!
>>>
>>>
>>> I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
>>>
>>> ;)
>>
>> Back to the Purple dungeon with you !!!!
>
> I *like* that idea!
>
>> [and mind those stray Goths on the way down]
>
> The best kind.
Okay, I've seen enough references to know that Purple is a project by James.
It's a newsreader in the works, as I understand it. Is this correct?
So, who's going to give me a run-down of when it started, what prompted it,
how it's going, and any other questions that might prompt new posts to spur
James on? ;P
Seriously though, I've tried googling usenet but can only find references to
Purple and not many posts detailing it's origins and progress. I'm sure
it's my poor google skills, so point me in the right direction if you will.
;)
S.
PS - and most importantly, why 'Purple'?
David Kennedy
>
> PS - and most importantly, why 'Purple'?
It's Goffic i'nit......
Simon Liddle
> Simon Liddle wrote:
>
>
>>
>> PS - and most importantly, why 'Purple'?
>
> It's Goffic i'nit......
>
Izit? I'll take your word for it then. ;)
S. <not having a clue what the Purple/gothic connection is, despite
numerous visits to the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Fridays>
Woody
"Simon Liddle" <simon_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BAF12D09.245E8%simon_...@hotmail.com...
> Okay, I've seen enough references to know that Purple is a project by
James.
> It's a newsreader in the works, as I understand it. Is this correct?
if 'in the works' means unfinished and sitting dormant on james hard disk
then yes!
> So, who's going to give me a run-down of when it started, what prompted
it,
> how it's going, and any other questions that might prompt new posts to
spur
> James on? ;P
http://www.blackcat-software.com/purple.html
> PS - and most importantly, why 'Purple'?
why not? its the new black ;)
Woody
Ivor Gleek
> Woody wrote:
>
> >
> > "Richard P. Grant" <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:rpg14-05B251....@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> >> The Lego Mac is . . .
> >>
> >>
> >> Current bid: £365.00
> >>
> >> with half an hour to go!
> >
> > Daniele did well with all that publicity for £5 worth of lego and £20 worth
> > of powerbook :)
> >
>
> You've left out the most important ingredients: the imagination, the idea,
> and the time he spent carrying it out. :)
Also known as 'Think Different'
Ivor
Simon Liddle
>
> if 'in the works' means unfinished and sitting dormant on james hard disk
> then yes!
>
Well, I didn't want to put it in quite those terms, so I went with
unfinished. ;)
>
> http://www.blackcat-software.com/purple.html
>
Ooh, nice[1]!
S.
[1] ok, ok, shiny then. :)
Woody
> Woody wrote:
>
> >
> > if 'in the works' means unfinished and sitting dormant on james hard
disk
> > then yes!
> >
>
> Well, I didn't want to put it in quite those terms, so I went with
> unfinished. ;)
Probably doesn't get much time now he is up there in the big wheels of
industry.
Woody
David Kennedy
> In article <1fvb7bd.3sxkf7rimid1N%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>,
> usene...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
>
>
>>BTW, well done Daniele, magnificently media managed and a very good
>>result. Do you want to start marketing the olive oil from my farm for me
>>:-)
>
>
> OooH? You supply olive oil?
>
> We're not great consumers but it's about the only oil I ever use now (I
> do use butter - it's just I've gone off veggie/rape oil).
>
> I'll buy it, support the small local wotnot and thingy.
>
Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
David Kennedy
>
> S. <not having a clue what the Purple/gothic connection is, despite
> numerous visits to the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Fridays>
Come back Killing Joke all is forgiven.......
[well, maybe not.]
James Savage
> James Savage wrote:
>
> > David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> James Savage wrote:
> >>> Richard P. Grant <rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> The Lego Mac is . . .
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Current bid: £365.00
> >>>>
> >>>> with half an hour to go!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I can hear Davids blood pressure rising as we speak. You said eBay.
> >>>
> >>> ;)
> >>
> >> Back to the Purple dungeon with you !!!!
> >
> > I *like* that idea!
> >
> >> [and mind those stray Goths on the way down]
> >
> > The best kind.
>
> Okay, I've seen enough references to know that Purple is a project by James.
> It's a newsreader in the works, as I understand it. Is this correct?
Yup.
> So, who's going to give me a run-down of when it started, what prompted it,
> how it's going, and any other questions that might prompt new posts to spur
> James on? ;P
When it started - early 2002
Why - MacOS X hasn't got a good newsreader yet.
Hows it going - it's usable for some but has many unfinished bits, and
no threading.
How to spur me on - wish I knew!
> Seriously though, I've tried googling usenet but can only find references to
> Purple and not many posts detailing it's origins and progress. I'm sure
> it's my poor google skills, so point me in the right direction if you will.
> ;)
Try Black Cat Software :)
> PS - and most importantly, why 'Purple'?
Why not? :)
James Savage
> Simon Liddle wrote:
> >
> > S. <not having a clue what the Purple/gothic connection is, despite
> > numerous visits to the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Fridays>
>
> Come back Killing Joke all is forgiven.......
It bloody isn't!
James Savage
Mike Edwards
> > OooH? You supply olive oil?
> >
> > We're not great consumers but it's about the only oil I ever use now (I
> > do use butter - it's just I've gone off veggie/rape oil).
> >
> > I'll buy it, support the small local wotnot and thingy.
> >
>
> Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
Unless you are one of those that will die from the slightest trace of it!
Worth being very, very careful given the number of people who seem to be
developing nut allergies these days.
David Kennedy
Very true but mostly ignored by the majority I suspect.
I wonder if people are allergic to nuts or a specific type of nut ?
David Kennedy
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>>Simon Liddle wrote:
>>
>>>S. <not having a clue what the Purple/gothic connection is, despite
>>>numerous visits to the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Fridays>
>>
>>Come back Killing Joke all is forgiven.......
>
>
> It bloody isn't!
>
Maybe not then. What about King Kurt ? Do they qualify ?
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 2:11 pm:
>> OooH? You supply olive oil?
>>
>> We're not great consumers but it's about the only oil I ever use now (I
>> do use butter - it's just I've gone off veggie/rape oil).
>>
>> I'll buy it, support the small local wotnot and thingy.
>>
>
> Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
Grapeseed oil too!
Bella Jones
Edwards at mike.e...@rocksoft.demon.co.uk wrote on 21/5/03 2:58 pm:
I have a couple of friends who are allergic. One of them would definitely
die from a small bag of peanuts. They (doctors) are now seeing why so many
people have keeled over in the past, for no apparent reason.
Also see Marfan's Syndrome - one of the effects is being tall and thin (with
stretched heart capillaries). Quite a few healthy young athletes have
collapsed and died, for no apparent reason, until it was discovered they had
it.
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 3:51 pm:
AIUI, peanuts can be the worst, with others in various orders of danger for
different people.
My old boss from years ago, who was allergic, died after eating some
ice-cream in a restaurant that must have had hidden nut traces, or been
served with a different spoon. Anaphalaxis.
Bella Jones
Grant at rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 1:57 pm:
> OooH? You supply olive oil?
>
> We're not great consumers but it's about the only oil I ever use now (I
> do use butter - it's just I've gone off veggie/rape oil).
>
> I'll buy it, support the small local wotnot and thingy.
Did you see the paper last weekend, about the olive oil that costs £175 per
litre??
Anyway, who has this ucsm olive oil farm? Where? Interesting!
David Kennedy
> in article 3ECB9256...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid, David Kennedy at
> david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 3:51 pm:
>
>>
>
> AIUI, peanuts can be the worst, with others in various orders of danger for
> different people.
>
> My old boss from years ago, who was allergic, died after eating some
> ice-cream in a restaurant that must have had hidden nut traces, or been
> served with a different spoon. Anaphalaxis.
>
Jamie M
>>> Worth being very, very careful given the number of people who seem to be
>>> developing nut allergies these days.
>>
>
> AIUI, peanuts can be the worst, with others in various orders of danger for
> different people.
<pedant hat>
Well, strictly speaking, the peanut is a legume -- many people can be
allergic to peanuts, but have no problem with, for example, walnuts.
</pedant hat>
James Savage
> James Savage wrote:
> > David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Simon Liddle wrote:
> >>
> >>>S. <not having a clue what the Purple/gothic connection is, despite
> >>>numerous visits to the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Fridays>
> >>
> >>Come back Killing Joke all is forgiven.......
> >
> >
> > It bloody isn't!
> >
>
> Maybe not then. What about King Kurt ? Do they qualify ?
You might just get away with Teardrop Explodes...
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 4:31 pm:
>> My old boss from years ago, who was allergic, died after eating some
>> ice-cream in a restaurant that must have had hidden nut traces, or been
>> served with a different spoon. Anaphalaxis.
>>
> Bad news and something which many times gets ignored.
<teatime ramble>
Food allergy / intolerance issues throw up a lot of opposing attitudes, and
seem to bring out peoples' deepest moral prejudices.
On the one hand, there are those who say 'it's all a media invention' and
say that people who have symptoms are deluding themselves, and have read too
many articles. And on the other, there are people who are convinced they
must be allergic to practically everything, and feel themselves to be in a
persecuted minority.
However, I'd say the former group hold the inner whip hand in the UK. We
have a curious fetish for the lowest common denominator in many things, food
being only one of them. If it's really crap, low quality, and preferably
fried in days-old grease, it's somehow got a salt-of-the-earth aspect to it
that must be cherished, and hidden from the evil intellectuals / nannies (or
whoever).
Bella Jones
nop@no_junk_thanks.com wrote on 21/5/03 4:41 pm:
>> AIUI, peanuts can be the worst, with others in various orders of danger for
>> different people.
>
> <pedant hat>
>
> Well, strictly speaking, the peanut is a legume -- many people can be
> allergic to peanuts, but have no problem with, for example, walnuts.
>
> </pedant hat>
>
Interesting! And I've heard that walnuts are not too bad for some. But where
does this leave sesame seeds? (which some people can't eat either) What
plant family are they from?
David Kennedy
> in article 3ECB9BD2...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid, David Kennedy at
> david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 4:31 pm:
>
>
>>>My old boss from years ago, who was allergic, died after eating some
>>>ice-cream in a restaurant that must have had hidden nut traces, or been
>>>served with a different spoon. Anaphalaxis.
>>>
>>
>>Bad news and something which many times gets ignored.
>
>
> <teatime ramble>
>
> Food allergy / intolerance issues throw up a lot of opposing attitudes, and
> seem to bring out peoples' deepest moral prejudices.
>
> On the one hand, there are those who say 'it's all a media invention' and
> say that people who have symptoms are deluding themselves, and have read too
> many articles. And on the other, there are people who are convinced they
> must be allergic to practically everything, and feel themselves to be in a
> persecuted minority.
>
'cheesy whatsits', too much beta carotene was our eventual conclusion,
we kept her away from them for many years if we could although parties
were always a threat, but, as she grew the reaction faded.
I find that red wine gives me a headache whereas white doesn't seem to....
> However, I'd say the former group hold the inner whip hand in the UK. We
> have a curious fetish for the lowest common denominator in many things, food
> being only one of them. If it's really crap, low quality, and preferably
> fried in days-old grease, it's somehow got a salt-of-the-earth aspect to it
> that must be cherished, and hidden from the evil intellectuals / nannies (or
> whoever).
>
I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing. After
all, if you look at the quantity [and quality] of the food available to
the average person there is no hope for decent meals. And lets not
forget that it continued for some time after 1946 so there is a whole
generation of people who boil all vegetables to death, roast meats until
they are dry and crispy and produce soggy salads.
So, as a reaction to that - and the fish fingers/baked beans culture
that kids seem to face these days, it's not surprising that kids go for
MacDonalds, Sunny Delight etc. etc.
David Kennedy
So, are there people allergic to other peas / beans ?
David Kennedy
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
>>
>>Maybe not then. What about King Kurt ? Do they qualify ?
>
>
> You might just get away with Teardrop Explodes...
I hadn't recognized them as a Goth Icon....
Bauhaus I could cope with.
Julian Barkway
multitudes, agog with barely concealed anticipation:
>When it started - early 2002
>Why - MacOS X hasn't got a good newsreader yet.
Yes but it's coming....
>Hows it going - it's usable for some but has many unfinished bits, and
>no threading.
>How to spur me on - wish I knew!
Thought the appearance of Gunnar might have the required effect. Obviously
not.....
James Savage
James Savage
> James Savage wrote:
> > David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Maybe not then. What about King Kurt ? Do they qualify ?
> >
> >
> > You might just get away with Teardrop Explodes...
>
> I hadn't recognized them as a Goth Icon....
There not, but Julian Cope is mad enough to fit in!
> Bauhaus I could cope with.
Ohyes.
bogus address
>>> Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
>> Unless you are one of those that will die from the slightest trace of
>> it! Worth being very, very careful given the number of people who seem
>> to be developing nut allergies these days.
Most people with "nut allergies" are allergic to peanuts, which aren't
nuts at all. See the plant relationships file on my website. The
reason they think they have wider allergies is that most commercially
available nut products are contaminated with peanut, whatever nut they
may purport to be.
Some people are allergic to a range of unrelated tree nuts, as they
tend to contain similar substances (as antifungals) despite their
distant botanical relationship. But hardly anyone is allergic to
almonds; they're closely related to plums, peaches and almonds, i.e.
in the rose family, which is among the least allergenic in the plant
kingdom.
========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro".
Julian Barkway
multitudes, agog with barely concealed anticipation:
>On the one hand, there are those who say 'it's all a media invention' and
>say that people who have symptoms are deluding themselves, and have read too
>many articles. And on the other, there are people who are convinced they
>must be allergic to practically everything, and feel themselves to be in a
>persecuted minority.
And on the left foot, there are those who say the prevalence of allergies
is due to kids leading far more cosseted lives than ever before. Homes must
be made more sterile than the average operating theatre and children are
rarely allowed out lest they fall victim to the friendly neighbourhood
child molester or kidnapper. There's one on every street....apparently.
Living in such an environment means they don't build up resistance. That
and all the junk food they eat. Remember, kids: a little dirt is good for
you...
Well, that's my excuse for avoiding cleaning my flat, anyway.... ;-)
Mike Edwards
> >>> Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
> >> Unless you are one of those that will die from the slightest trace of
> >> it! Worth being very, very careful given the number of people who seem
> >> to be developing nut allergies these days.
> > I wonder if people are allergic to nuts or a specific type of nut ?
>
> Most people with "nut allergies" are allergic to peanuts, which aren't
> nuts at all. See the plant relationships file on my website. The
> reason they think they have wider allergies is that most commercially
> available nut products are contaminated with peanut, whatever nut they
> may purport to be.
>
> Some people are allergic to a range of unrelated tree nuts, as they
> tend to contain similar substances (as antifungals) despite their
> distant botanical relationship. But hardly anyone is allergic to
> almonds; they're closely related to plums, peaches and almonds, i.e.
> in the rose family, which is among the least allergenic in the plant
> kingdom.
My allergy to peanuts is quite severe, the usual anaphylactic shock type
thing, although I am also allergic to pine nuts which means I have to be
careful about pesto sauce, etc. as well.
I am also one of the awkard few whose allergy is sensitive enough to
have a reaction from breathing the dust from someone else eating peanuts
in the close vicinity.
Seamaster
>>> When it started - early 2002
>>> Why - MacOS X hasn't got a good newsreader yet.
>>> it's usable for some but has many unfinished bits, and
>>> no threading. How to spur me on - wish I knew!
>>
>> Thought the appearance of Gunnar might have the required effect. Obviously
>> not.
>
> It wouldn't even load so it never appeared for me :)
I really liked Halime a lot. Pity the development of it seems to have
stalled. It was shaping up to be a great newsreader, IMO.
I've gone back to Mozilla. Sure, it lacks a lot of bells and whistles,
but I'm used to the UI, which is as good as anything else out there (and
a hell of a lot better than most *cough*MacSoup*cough*).
--
Seamaster
David Kennedy
It's all true you know, I read it in the paper.......
David Kennedy
>>>>Nut oil, especially walnut, is great. As an all purpose try peanut oil.
>>>
>>>Unless you are one of those that will die from the slightest trace of
>>>it! Worth being very, very careful given the number of people who seem
>>>to be developing nut allergies these days.
>>
>>I wonder if people are allergic to nuts or a specific type of nut ?
>
>
> Most people with "nut allergies" are allergic to peanuts, which aren't
> nuts at all. See the plant relationships file on my website. The
> reason they think they have wider allergies is that most commercially
> available nut products are contaminated with peanut, whatever nut they
> may purport to be.
Is that to 'pad' out the product or just sloppy practise ?
>
> Some people are allergic to a range of unrelated tree nuts, as they
> tend to contain similar substances (as antifungals) despite their
> distant botanical relationship. But hardly anyone is allergic to
> almonds; they're closely related to plums, peaches and almonds, i.e.
> in the rose family, which is among the least allergenic in the plant
> kingdom.
>
So, someone allergic to, say, hazelnuts, would probably also be allergic
to other nuts. But someone allergic to peanuts might be OK with other -
genuine - nuts ?
David Kennedy
> In article <3ECBA646...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid>,
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>>I find that red wine gives me a headache whereas white doesn't seem to....
>
> and found that *some* red wines give me headaches, and others don't.
> Yet others, it depends on whether I drink a glass or a bottleful, and
> for how long it's left to breathe.
>
I can't often afford the ones that don't.......
> There's a rational explanation for this - you and I are defective in a
> particular detoxifying enzyme. The phenolics it detoxes are present in
> varying amounts, depending on the grape, the region, and the process.
>
Where does tannin enter the equation ?
> Some white wines I find give me stomach aches.
>
Well yes, but aren't they paint stripper in disguise ?
Mike Edwards
> > Most people with "nut allergies" are allergic to peanuts, which aren't
> > nuts at all. See the plant relationships file on my website. The
> > reason they think they have wider allergies is that most commercially
> > available nut products are contaminated with peanut, whatever nut they
> > may purport to be.
>
> Is that to 'pad' out the product or just sloppy practise ?
>
Yep, in the same way that the definition of vegetable oil can include a
proprtion of peanut oil. In fact, it can be just peanut oil depending on
what happens to be cheapest today.
The bit that worries me is the way basic products such as flour can be
contaminated. Surely a supplier should be able to guarantee if to be nut
free!
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 5:16 pm:
food allergies]
> It's real all right, my daughter used to get hyperactive if she ate
> 'cheesy whatsits', too much beta carotene was our eventual conclusion,
> we kept her away from them for many years if we could although parties
> were always a threat, but, as she grew the reaction faded.
I get that from bread... Yuk: racing heart and exhausted at the same time.
> I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing. After
> all, if you look at the quantity [and quality] of the food available to
> the average person there is no hope for decent meals. And lets not
> forget that it continued for some time after 1946 so there is a whole
> generation of people who boil all vegetables to death, roast meats until
> they are dry and crispy and produce soggy salads.
Definitely. But it is also the puritanism behind it all that makes people
feel good about eating bad food, and a parochialism which makes them fear
'foreign muck'.
> So, as a reaction to that - and the fish fingers/baked beans culture
> that kids seem to face these days, it's not surprising that kids go for
> MacDonalds, Sunny Delight etc. etc.
>
And, to be fair, decent basic foods are so expensive here. If you're skint,
you don't buy fruit and veg.
Tim Gowen
> Why - MacOS X hasn't got a good newsreader yet.
True. Will it have an offline reader option? Please say yes.
Halime's okay, but it annoys me with the poor threading and the
unexpectedly quitting - especially when I quit expectedly!
--
Tim Gowen
Bella Jones
at jbarkwayLEA...@mac.com wrote on 21/5/03 5:34 pm:
> And on the left foot, there are those who say the prevalence of allergies
> is due to kids leading far more cosseted lives than ever before. Homes must
> be made more sterile than the average operating theatre...
I was lucky (for this reason, anyway) to grow up in a village; mess
everywhere; lots of gardening; animals, their hairs and the remains of small
animals killed by them; lots of bits of old metal etc to tinker with, and
chemicals 'liberated' by my dad from god knows where...
>and children are
> rarely allowed out lest they fall victim to the friendly neighbourhood
> child molester or kidnapper. There's one on every street....apparently.
Back in them days, we went off on bike rides all day. Don't think many
people let their kids do that now?
Peter Constantine
>David Kennedy wrote:
>
>> Come back Killing Joke all is forgiven.......
>
>It bloody isn't!
Too late... their new album 'The Unperverted Pantomime' (Burning Airlines
cat no PILOT158) was released on 12 May.
x
["Eighties - I'm living for the eighties..."]
Bella Jones
at rp...@yahoo.co.uk wrote on 21/5/03 6:28 pm:
> Ah . . . I used to think that. Then I grew more subtle in my analysis
> and found that *some* red wines give me headaches, and others don't.
> Yet others, it depends on whether I drink a glass or a bottleful, and
> for how long it's left to breathe.
>
> There's a rational explanation for this - you and I are defective in a
> particular detoxifying enzyme. The phenolics it detoxes are present in
> varying amounts, depending on the grape, the region, and the process.
>
> Some white wines I find give me stomach aches.
All this leads to why I gave up alcohol. Wine especially was having a nasty
cumulative effect, and the hangovers were getting worse, even after half a
bottle, or less.
[Is nothing on-topic today? I have a possible M-- related question. Will
look into it first, and see if I can't relate it to Spinoza (about whom I
know next to nothing), tobacco blends, or whether it's best to crush or chop
garlic.]
David Kennedy
> In article <3ECBB9BE...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid>,
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
> There is that, yes :) although you might try the Marlborough reds.
>
Been there, done that. Got to 60 a day and decided it was time to have a
rethink....
>
>>>There's a rational explanation for this - you and I are defective in a
>>>particular detoxifying enzyme. The phenolics it detoxes are present in
>>>varying amounts, depending on the grape, the region, and the process.
>>
>>Where does tannin enter the equation ?
>
> Um, dunno. How are you with tea? There's a particular class of
> phenolics found in grape skins that does it.
>
Rarely, I find that tea gives me a headache, as does any caffeine drink
at more than 1 or 2 cups per week. Fortunately you can get reasonable
decaf these days.
David Kennedy
> in article 3ECBA646...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid, David Kennedy at
> david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 5:16 pm:
>
> food allergies]
>
>>It's real all right, my daughter used to get hyperactive if she ate
>>'cheesy whatsits', too much beta carotene was our eventual conclusion,
>>we kept her away from them for many years if we could although parties
>>were always a threat, but, as she grew the reaction faded.
>
> I get that from bread... Yuk: racing heart and exhausted at the same time.
>
>
>>I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing. After
>>all, if you look at the quantity [and quality] of the food available to
>>the average person there is no hope for decent meals. And lets not
>>forget that it continued for some time after 1946 so there is a whole
>>generation of people who boil all vegetables to death, roast meats until
>>they are dry and crispy and produce soggy salads.
>
> Definitely. But it is also the puritanism behind it all that makes people
> feel good about eating bad food, and a parochialism which makes them fear
> 'foreign muck'.
>
Well it's understandable in a way, people have to justify the fact that
they eat crap.
>
>>So, as a reaction to that - and the fish fingers/baked beans culture
>>that kids seem to face these days, it's not surprising that kids go for
>>MacDonalds, Sunny Delight etc. etc.
>
> And, to be fair, decent basic foods are so expensive here. If you're skint,
> you don't buy fruit and veg.
>
I'm not certain about that, I figure an average of a tenner for a main
meal for the 4 of us - certainly cheaper than the golden arches MRM
burgers. Our local butcher is as cheap as the supermarkets on many
things and cheaper on some. Ditto our local 'convenience' store, open 6
to 10 7 days, all their prices are within a penny or two of the nearest
supermarket.
That only covers the basics though, for other items, spices, creamed
coconut etc. the local chinese shop is always cheaper than the
supermarkets and still manages to make a profit - even their delivery
van is a Merc.
David Kennedy
>
> The bit that worries me is the way basic products such as flour can be
> contaminated. Surely a supplier should be able to guarantee if to be nut
> free!
I've often wondered about that myself.
It has become an even bigger problem recently as now the kids read the
labels on food and won't eat anything with dodgy ingredients.....
flavio
Jones" <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> [Is nothing on-topic today? I have a possible M-- related question. Will
> look into it first, and see if I can't relate it to Spinoza (about whom I
> know next to nothing), tobacco blends, or whether it's best to crush or chop
> garlic.]
oh, chop, definitely
well, at least for pesto, anyway
same, don't put the basil in the blender, chop it very finely and take the
twigs out
crush the pine kernels, though...
--
flavio matani
classical guitar tuition/performance
take the obvious bit out to reply...
Simon Dobbs
(in message <BAF17736...@dclient80-218-50-61.hispeed.ch>):
> And on the left foot, there are those who say the prevalence of allergies is
> due to kids leading far more cosseted lives than ever before. Homes must be
> made more sterile than the average operating theatre and children are rarely
> allowed out lest they fall victim to the friendly neighbourhood child
> molester or kidnapper. There's one on every street....apparently.
I don't really understand this logic at all. Human resistance to disease is
due to the immune system. Human allergy is due to an immune system reacting
in a disproportionate way to one individual substance. So- building up
resistance, increasing the immune response, is the opposite of what you might
want. Sterile homes: allergies are due to single, pure substances, so what
difference does mixing them up with many others (in, say dirt).
Homes may be sterile- which, incidentally I would dispute- have you ever left
an agar plate open in your living room for half an hour? you might be
surprised what you cultivate!- but that is simply not relevant to the allergy
problem.
Simon Dobbs
(in message <rpg14-3D22F2....@news.fu-berlin.de>):
> But this is immunology. What appears to be happening is that low-grade
> exposure 'deadens' the response the immune system makes. It's learning that
> not everything it encounters requires an armed response.
that could be fairly deadly- low level exposure to microorganisms stimulates
a response- and that is due to single antigens on the microorganisms, so
single substances, otherwise you could be dead. Have you a mechanism for your
postulated effect? I know that immunology is very complex, and my
understanding is limited to biochemistry undergraduate lectures, and they
were a LONG time ago so it is far from my specialism, but i would genuinly
like to know. Please- a brief explanation would suffice!
Simon Dobbs
(in message <rpg14-3D22F2....@news.fu-berlin.de>):
> Of course, then there's sensitization, in which the reverse happens.
yes- i remember a colleague injecting something called, wait, freud's
adjuvant or something to 'increase resistance', hypersensitise the immune
system in little furry bunnies so that he could use them as antibody farms
for the proteins he was interested in. I occasionally held them when he bled
their ears- they cried like babies, the poor things.
Bella Jones
usene...@malloc.co.uk wrote on 21/5/03 5:54 pm:
>> Well, strictly speaking, the peanut is a legume -- many people can be
>> allergic to peanuts, but have no problem with, for example, walnuts.
>
> Or the other way around. I'm allergic to (some) nuts but peanuts are
> fine. OTOH the way that my family and others react to my allergy is far
> from fine, the hysteria is never from my side.
[This post only just came in,from earlier]
Oh no. 'Are you all right?' Flap flap. 'He can't have that!' You sometimes
wonder if people enjoy (perversely; subconsciously) getting involved in
others' medical conditions and allergies. Opening your mouth for you, in a
way.
bogus address
>> Food allergy / intolerance issues throw up a lot of opposing attitudes,
>> and seem to bring out peoples' deepest moral prejudices.
> It's real all right, my daughter used to get hyperactive if she ate
> 'cheesy whatsits', too much beta carotene was our eventual conclusion,
> we kept her away from them for many years if we could although parties
> were always a threat, but, as she grew the reaction faded.
Beta carotene is *not* allergenic to anybody. It's a natural precursor
of vitamin A found in almost all plant foods.
Most products like Cheese Wotsits also contain preservatives and
synthetic dyes - azo dyes like tartrazine and benzoate or paraben
preservatives are commonly implicated in hyperactivity.
> I find that red wine gives me a headache whereas white doesn't seem to....
That's not exactly an allergy. Red wine contains amines like tyramine
which tend to increase blood pressure; they are normally inactivated by
the monoamine oxidase family of enzymes, but in some people the enzymes
don't work fast enough (and they are deliberately inactivated by some
rarely used antidepressants, which make some common foods very dangerous).
Allergies involve the immune system and this reaction doesn't.
> I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing. After
> all, if you look at the quantity [and quality] of the food available to
> the average person there is no hope for decent meals. And lets not
> forget that it continued for some time after 1946 so there is a whole
> generation of people who boil all vegetables to death, roast meats until
> they are dry and crispy and produce soggy salads.
This is a common urban myth, but if you look at the dietary advice
issued to the public during WW2 you *don't* see any stupid cooking
suggestions like that. It was all pretty sane, from the standpoints
of both nutritional quality and edibility.
Bella Jones
usene...@malloc.co.uk wrote on 21/5/03 5:55 pm:
> Bella Jones <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Anyway, who has this ucsm olive oil farm?
>
> Me.
>
>> Where?
>
> Abruzzo, Italy
>
>> Interesting!
>
> Well to me, maybe.
Me too...!
Many people dream of doing something like that. But of course they want the
nice easy bits - Italian sunsets, showing off the pictures of olive groves;
interview in the Observer; rather than the graft, both physical and
financial...
Simon Dobbs
(in message <rpg14-6DEA37....@news.fu-berlin.de>):
> You and I, Simon, are in the same boat :)
>
> I'll have to ask Kate . . .
sorry -I didn't mean to be a trouble. Your word is enough!
PeterD
> Food allergy / intolerance issues throw up a lot of opposing attitudes, and
> seem to bring out peoples' deepest moral prejudices.
>
> On the one hand, there are those who say 'it's all a media invention' and
> say that people who have symptoms are deluding themselves, and have read too
> many articles.
I ate two mini-carrots from Tesco, thought they tasted a bit weird and
then noticed a grey slime in the bottom of the bag. Two days later I had
violent diarrhoea, nothing else I'd eaten remotely unusual. I put the
carrots in the freezer, even kept a squirt sample.
After I informed Tesco, they first told me it was impossible to get food
poisoning from carrots, then told me their carrots have an impeccable
quality control, and no-one else had complained, but they'd look into
it. They asked for the carrot samples, said they'd have them tested.
Told them I had a shit sample, they said not interested, ta. A couple of
weeks went by, I talked to the Food people at the local council. They
asked for the samples, said they'd have them tested. Told them I had a
shit sample, they said not interested, ta.
Weeks went by, numerous phone calls, no-one doing any testing but lots
of "no-one else has had any problems" and "carrots can't give you food
poisoning". Council food people said they'd given the carrots to Tesco
to test, Tesco said they'd given the carrots to supplier to test,
supplier said no point carrots don't give you food poisoning and anyway
their quality control was impeccable and no-one else had any problems.
Eventually I got a letter with a Tesco voucher for £10, saying I must
have suffered from "food aversion reaction" - in other words I talked
myself into it. Finally threw away shit sample in disgust.
Another round of phone calls, fobbed off with "carrots are too old to
test now". Mentioned to a chemist friend what had happened, he said it
sounds like the carrots had fermented and squirts is typical of methanol
ingestion. Another round of phone calls, council food people said if I'd
given them a shit sample they could've had it tested. Sigh.
--
Pd
PeterD
> crush or chop garlic.
What? Garlic is supposed to crushed or chopped?
Whole cloves, roasted and squeezed out like toothpaste. Yum.
--
Pd
PeterD
> parochialism which makes them fear 'foreign muck'.
My grandfather-in-law refused to eat lasagne, cos it was foreign muck.
--
Pd
PeterD
> If you're skint,
> you don't buy fruit and veg.
Au contraire, if you're skint *only* buy fruit and veg. You can eat very
healthily and well for a week on twenty quid worth of f&v. Potatoes are
ridiculously cheap. It's all the other crap that really eats into the
budget (tobacco for example :-)
--
Pd
PeterD
> Back in them days, we went off on bike rides all day.
When I was six, me and my best mate went off on our trikes to a picnic
spot seven miles out of town, on the open road. The occasional car that
passed us would honk, but no-one stopped to find out why two six year
olds were in the middle of nowwhere on trikes.
--
Pd
Simon Dobbs
(in message <BAF17E57.10FF3%bella...@yahoo.co.uk>):
>
> Back in them days, we went off on bike rides all day. Don't think many
> people let their kids do that now?
many seem to let them hang around drinking and taking drugs in gangs around
our town centre.
Mike Edwards
> > Well, strictly speaking, the peanut is a legume -- many people can be
> > allergic to peanuts, but have no problem with, for example, walnuts.
>
> Or the other way around. I'm allergic to (some) nuts but peanuts are
> fine. OTOH the way that my family and others react to my allergy is far
> from fine, the hysteria is never from my side.
> would be surprised if anyone did suffer from an oil allergy since the
> nut particles are filtered out. The nuts listed above all cause me
> severe problems.
There used to be a couple of interesting articles on http://www.anaphylaxis.org.uk/ about eating refined peanut oil versus unrefined peanut oil. Th enumber
of people getting allergic reactions to the refined stuff was down
significantly on the unrefined variant. Despite the tests they quote I
have seen others where a few people did have serious reactions to the
refined version.
Pretty academic really as most food manufacturers can't even tell you
where in the process a peanut may have come in to contact with it yet
alone the type oil used.
Despite the large numbers of foods with nut warnings on it I am always
surprised when I read the little food information booklets from
Mac<spit>Donalds which shows how many of their products people should be
avoiding for the same reason.
bogus address
>> Most people with "nut allergies" are allergic to peanuts, which aren't
>> nuts at all. See the plant relationships file on my website. The
>> reason they think they have wider allergies is that most commercially
>> available nut products are contaminated with peanut, whatever nut they
>> may purport to be.
> Is that to 'pad' out the product or just sloppy practise ?
There are few if any food-processing plants in the UK that handle tree
nuts but not peanuts. It takes so little peanut to kill somebody with
an anaphylactic reaction to them that the safe bet is to assume that
any nut product had been contaminated with peanut somewhere up the line.
If you get nut products from very close to where they're produced, you'd
be okay. I've had hazelnut stuff from around Samsun on the Black Sea
coast of Turkey (biggest hazelnut-producing area in the world, I think)
and walnut stuff from near Grenoble (where it's such a source of local
pride they have a bloody great fibreglass walnut on a pole as the first
thing you see when your plane lands at the airport). No way would
either place import peanut-anything to adulterate their crop with.
>> Some people are allergic to a range of unrelated tree nuts, as they
>> tend to contain similar substances (as antifungals) despite their
>> distant botanical relationship. But hardly anyone is allergic to
>> almonds; they're closely related to plums, peaches and [apricots], i.e.
>> in the rose family, which is among the least allergenic in the plant
>> kingdom.
> So, someone allergic to, say, hazelnuts, would probably also be allergic
> to other nuts. But someone allergic to peanuts might be OK with other -
> genuine - nuts ?
Yes, but good luck finding them. You'd have to get them directly from
the area they were grown in, without involving any firm that ever dealt
in peanuts. I wouldn't even trust Traidfare goods in this situation.
bogus address
>>> I find that red wine gives me a headache whereas white doesn't seem to.
>> There's a rational explanation for this - you and I are defective in a
>> particular detoxifying enzyme. The phenolics it detoxes are present in
>> varying amounts, depending on the grape, the region, and the process.
> Where does tannin enter the equation ?
Tannins are polymerized anthocyanins, which are the "phenolics" the
previous poster is talking about. This is yet another kind of adverse
reaction, and one I get; in high enough doses, tannins and anthocyanins
give me arthritis- or RSI-like symptoms. This has nothing to do with
the headache reaction, which is caused by tyramine (present at a high
level in red wine, also to some extent in all fermented foods: real ale,
Marmite, pickled herring and all cheese except cottage cheese) and
other "pressor" (blood-pressure-raising) amines like histamine. The
tannin/anthocyanin reaction doesn't depend on fermentation; red grape
juice affects me in the same way.
The amount or pressor amine in a red wine depends on the fermentation
process. The safest would be something made by chemical synthesis
from crude oil and coloured with E numbers (which used to describe
most of Italy's output; somebody in the 1970s carbon-dated a bottle
of Italian wine and found it dated to the time of Christ).
T.P. Coultate's "Food: the chemistry of its components" is a handy
source on this sort of stuff.
bogus address
>> But this is immunology. What appears to be happening is that low-grade
>> exposure 'deadens' the response the immune system makes. It's learning
>> that not everything it encounters requires an armed response.
> that could be fairly deadly- low level exposure to microorganisms
> stimulates a response- and that is due to single antigens on the
> microorganisms, so single substances, otherwise you could be dead.
> Have you a mechanism for your postulated effect?
There seems to be some sort of competitive process at work - your body
can only organize immune responses against a limited range of stimuli.
Getting it to react to germs soaks up most of the immune system's
activity. In the absence of germs, it goes looking for something else
to do with its time, and decides to fire off the Doomsday Machine when
you eat a kiwifruit.
In some cases, bacterial infection can cause persistent food or other
allergy. One of my girlfriend's patients was a policeman who was so
badly affected by multiple chemical sensitivity he could never work at
any job again after getting food poisoning from the copshop's canteen.
There are a lot of situations in immunology where the same stimulus
may provoke or prevent allergic reactions depending on its intensity
and its timing with respect to earlier exposures to similar allergens.
Procedures like enzyme-potentiated desensitization require both a hell
of a lot of knowledge of immunology and years of practical experience
to make them work.
bogus address
>> Well, strictly speaking, the peanut is a legume -- many people can be
>> allergic to peanuts, but have no problem with, for example, walnuts.
Yes. The legume family is botanically very complicated (see my website)
so it's common for people to have intolerances to some subfamilies but
not others.
Soy allergy is a real nightmare to manage, particularly in the US. But
even here you can look forward to never eating chocolate or drinking
beer again if you get it. Or eating any supermarket processed meat
product. Or anything with mayonnaise. Or anything in a Chinese
restaurant. Or anything deep-fried... That makes peanut allergy look
like a picnic.
One person emailed me a few years ago to congratulate me when my website
explained to him why he had an allergy to Swiss cheese. He'd known for
years that he had a legume allergy but never realized the Swiss cheese
allergy was the same thing. It's not all obvious why.
Peter Ceresole
David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>I wonder if people are allergic to nuts or a specific type of nut ?
The person I know who has nut allergy is sensitive to every kind of nut.
And to egg whites (albumen). And to a load of other things. But the nuts
are the thing that has nearly killed her a couple of times. She's been like
that from birth; her mother carries a hypodermic of adrenaline in her
handbag at all times, in case...
--
Peter
Peter Ceresole
David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing.
My mum- who came to live in England in 1936 after spending the first part
of her life in Switzerland- always said that English food was bloody awful,
unimaginative and badly over cooked, when she arrived here. Long before the
war. It's a basic cultural thing. But contact with Europe has made it a
hell of a lot better.
--
Peter
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 7:48 pm:
>> And, to be fair, decent basic foods are so expensive here. If you're skint,
>> you don't buy fruit and veg.
>>
> I'm not certain about that, I figure an average of a tenner for a main
> meal for the 4 of us - certainly cheaper than the golden arches MRM
> burgers. Our local butcher is as cheap as the supermarkets on many
> things and cheaper on some. Ditto our local 'convenience' store, open 6
> to 10 7 days, all their prices are within a penny or two of the nearest
> supermarket.
But you're someone who has a great and long-term interest in food, and makes
the time to find the cheap interesting stuff, as well as knowing about
cooking from other cultures.
But many people, who also don't have this knowledge, are struggling with
micro budgets, and children to feed. If you're that skint, and hungry, you
go for the tasty fried quick thing (I mean at home - MacD's are way out of
budget); fruit & veg just don't cut it, and just don't fill your stomach for
the same price. It'll be beans & Mother's Pride all the way. (Been there...)
It's partly to do with our climate; we don't grow up taking cheap fresh
mangoes and lemons, or even tomatoes, for granted. Nor fresh fish etc.
This is all very sad... [plus, see that experiment they did in a prison,
with changing the inmates' diet - markedly less violence etc all round]
Bella Jones
flavio_matani...@mac.com wrote on 21/5/03 8:19 pm:
> oh, chop, definitely
>
> well, at least for pesto, anyway
>
> same, don't put the basil in the blender, chop it very finely and take the
> twigs out
>
> crush the pine kernels, though...
Home made pesto! Yum! Made some for a dinner party once - I tasted so much
of it when making it, that there was none left for me when the time came to
serve it up!
Bella Jones
pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 9:42 pm:
>
> Another round of phone calls, fobbed off with "carrots are too old to
> test now". Mentioned to a chemist friend what had happened, he said it
> sounds like the carrots had fermented and squirts is typical of methanol
> ingestion. Another round of phone calls, council food people said if I'd
> given them a shit sample they could've had it tested. Sigh.
I have an image of you forlornly toting the shit sample around with you,
saying 'Doesn't *anyone* want to have a look at this?'
Someone, somewhere, is brewing Carrot Vodka, as we speak...
Bella Jones
pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid wrote on 21/5/03 9:50 pm:
Ah, but that's what I was saying - people *don't* tend to do that. Myself
included, back then.
And, however skint they are, people will always find the money for tobacco
(or booze/drugs)... Hence Daily Mail rants about 'well, they can afford to
smoke, what are they talking about?'
Chris Ridd
Jones" <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> It's partly to do with our climate; we don't grow up taking cheap fresh
> mangoes and lemons, or even tomatoes, for granted. Nor fresh fish etc.
You could understand not taking fresh fruit for granted, but fresh fish? Er,
we're an island with lots of the little fellows swimming all around us!!
Cheers,
Chris
Bella Jones
at rp...@yahoo.co.uk wrote on 21/5/03 9:58 pm:
> But I'm not going into pop psychology here - already getting into
> enough trouble with pop immunology . . . ;)
Miaowwwwwww!
;-)
The difference, As I See It: examining peoples' behaviour and trying to
account for it is something that can be done without as much specific
book-knowledge as (say) immunology, where a mistake could send people down a
very wrong scientific road.
If more people 'indulged' in pop psychology on themselves, let alone others,
we might all be a bit healthier, IMO. If I had charged by the hour for the
time I've spent talking to people (thinks of previous relationship in
particular) about stuff like this, I would definitely be running OSX on the
flashest Mac available!
To be fair, I have considered adding a psychology degree to my other one.
Clue: relates to what I do for a living, or part of it...
<note to self: do not provide link to my blog in future sig file, for fear
of flames>
Bella Jones
wrote on 22/5/03 7:36 am:
True, but it is often expensive, cooked badly (fried in old batter), and our
seas seem to be pretty poisoned by the looks of things. Your average not
well off person is just not going to reach for the squid / octopus/ king
prawns. (Mind you, prawn farming is not a nice thing to think about either).
Chris Ridd
Jones" <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> in article BAF22E6C.83193%chri...@mac.com, Chris Ridd at chri...@mac.com
> wrote on 22/5/03 7:36 am:
>
>> On 22/5/03 7:22 am, in article BAF22B1A.1105D%bella...@yahoo.co.uk, "Bella
>> Jones" <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> It's partly to do with our climate; we don't grow up taking cheap fresh
>>> mangoes and lemons, or even tomatoes, for granted. Nor fresh fish etc.
>>
>> You could understand not taking fresh fruit for granted, but fresh fish? Er,
>> we're an island with lots of the little fellows swimming all around us!!
>
>
> True, but it is often expensive, cooked badly (fried in old batter), and our
> seas seem to be pretty poisoned by the looks of things. Your average not
That never seemed to stop the old Portugese and Spanish fishermen from
wanting a good trawl off our coast.
> well off person is just not going to reach for the squid / octopus/ king
> prawns. (Mind you, prawn farming is not a nice thing to think about either).
I had a weird image of sheepdogs wearing scuba gear just now, but clearly I
have no idea of why prawn farming is not nice.
Cheers,
Chris
Bella Jones
bella...@yahoo.co.uk wrote on 22/5/03 7:52 am:
> To be fair, I have considered adding a psychology degree to my other one.
<cringing heavily>
Reading this back: Christ that sounds pompous! Sorry!!!! Like they'd even
take me in the first place! However, I would have thought that ucsm was as
safe a space as any to make such a comment. :-) My excuse - the early
morning; coffee still kicking in.
However, I couldn't help noticing that some London college websites imply
that having been to *certain universities* adds weight to the application.
Sick, innit!
David Kennedy
>
> But's nothing to do with tannin. And everything to do with cholesterol.
>
Where does the cholesterol come into things with tea or coffee ?
--
David Kennedy
Bella Jones
wrote on 22/5/03 8:18 am:
>> well off person is just not going to reach for the squid / octopus/ king
>> prawns. (Mind you, prawn farming is not a nice thing to think about either).
>
> I had a weird image of sheepdogs wearing scuba gear just now, but clearly I
> have no idea of why prawn farming is not nice.
When they are mass-farmed, it can be in very cramped conditions, causing all
kinds of trauma and health problems/diseases being spread around. Think
battery chickens, but worse.
David Kennedy
>
>
> You could understand not taking fresh fruit for granted, but fresh fish? Er,
> we're an island with lots of the little fellows swimming all around us!!
>
know of ?
But, more to the point, how many people even know about cooking fresh fish ?
David Kennedy
>
> But many people, who also don't have this knowledge, are struggling with
> micro budgets, and children to feed. If you're that skint, and hungry, you
> go for the tasty fried quick thing (I mean at home - MacD's are way out of
> budget); fruit & veg just don't cut it, and just don't fill your stomach for
> the same price. It'll be beans & Mother's Pride all the way. (Been there...)
>
However we need to get people thinking as once they have kids etc. then
the responsibility is not just for yourself.
> It's partly to do with our climate; we don't grow up taking cheap fresh
> mangoes and lemons, or even tomatoes, for granted. Nor fresh fish etc.
>
This is a dodgy subject. Many things are not produced here because there
is no market which is different from demand. My neighbour farms sheep
and, for the past four or five years has consistently been paid at
market lower prices each year. For the same price as two legs of NZ lamb
in the supermarket, you can buy a whole sheep - and you get a free coat
thrown in.
> This is all very sad... [plus, see that experiment they did in a prison,
> with changing the inmates' diet - markedly less violence etc all round]
>
I saw that - it does make sense though, removing the chemicals and
additives must be a good idea.
David Kennedy
>
>
>
> True, but it is often expensive, cooked badly (fried in old batter), and our
> seas seem to be pretty poisoned by the looks of things. Your average not
> well off person is just not going to reach for the squid / octopus/ king
> prawns. (Mind you, prawn farming is not a nice thing to think about either).
>
Any kind of fish farming these days seems to be a horror story as they
are crowding them in and making all the same mistakes they did with
intensive livestock production.
David Kennedy
> In article <3ECBA646...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid>,
> David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>>I have heard the low quality food blamed on the war and rationing.
>
> My mum- who came to live in England in 1936 after spending the first part
> of her life in Switzerland- always said that English food was bloody awful,
> unimaginative and badly over cooked, when she arrived here. Long before the
> war. It's a basic cultural thing.
>
Elizabethan cookery books etc. show an incredible variety of foods etc.
Did we loose it because of the first war ? Is there another cause,
perhaps the industrial revolution meant the peasants had no time to cook
but surely somebody somewhere was eating OK......
Chris Ridd
Jones" <bella...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Ah, OK. It is slightly hard to imagine a traumatised prawn, but I take your
point about the health problems. Presumably they're swimming around in their
own faeces, that kind of thing.
Cheers,
Chris
Peter Ceresole
David Kennedy <david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid> wrote:
>> My mum- who came to live in England in 1936 after spending the first part
>> of her life in Switzerland- always said that English food was bloody awful,
>> unimaginative and badly over cooked, when she arrived here. Long before the
>> war. It's a basic cultural thing.
>>
>But why ?
>
>Elizabethan cookery books etc. show an incredible variety of foods etc.
>Did we loose it because of the first war ?
I suspect it had to do with Britain producing the first industrial
proletariat. The industrial revolution happened earlier here; maybe it
broke more social links too.
But it may also be because traditional vegetable farming in the British
Isles, without pesticides and with little fertiliser, got the inhabitants
used to the idea that outside of the prize exhibits ar village fetes,
vegetables are nasty, diseased, emaciated things. Even now; go to a Tesco
or Waitrose (going for quality) on the South coast and then cross the
channel and go to a Leclerc. The French quality is amazingly better, at
lower prices. The price might be due to other factors, but the huge quality
gap is absolutely real. Nowadays the supply is often international, the
same available to both. The gap *must* come from a lack of demand, or
rather a lack of a *demanding* clients. For me, confirmation comes from
going to the Ealing Road in Alperton. The biggest concentration of
greengrocers providing Southall, and a discerning Asian population; both
side of the road lined with a riot of vegetables. It can be done in England
too. But the English don't seem to know what they're missing, so they get
shit.
There are exceptions of course. If you're prepared to pay a lot of money
and go upmarket, you can get vegetables at the Habitat store in Kings Road
which are of as high a quality as the cheap ones in Leclerc. And there are
places like Borough Market. But they're just a drop in the ocean of
mediocre crap.
As I said, it's cultural.
--
Peter
Adrian Tuddenham
> in article 3ECB9BD2...@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid, David Kennedy at
> Food allergy / intolerance issues throw up a lot of opposing attitudes, and
> seem to bring out peoples' deepest moral prejudices.
>
> On the one hand, there are those who say 'it's all a media invention' and
> say that people who have symptoms are deluding themselves, and have read too
> many articles.
I was once the victim of an unintentional double-blind test. A friend
invited me to an unusual meal which included only one 'manufactured'
item, a vegetable purée which she made into a kind of savoury jelly.
The following day I went down for about 18 hours with a crippling
headache, which is typical of my allergy to mustard. I rang my friend,
who was adamant that, knowing of my allergy, she had checked absolutely
everything for mustard and was certain there had been none in the meal.
She even retrieved the vegetable purée tin from the bin, just to
re-check the list of ingredients.
Eventually, being a person of scientific curiosity, she researched every
ingredient in the meal and discovered that the Nasturtiums she had used
as garnish, contained mustard oil in their leaves - even though they are
not from the Mustard family.
>And on the other, there are people who are convinced they
> must be allergic to practically everything, and feel themselves to be in a
> persecuted minority.
I am also 'allergic' (or at least badly sensitised) to many of the
ingredients of modern perfumes. *That* certainly does give the feeling
of being a persecuted minority.
People who pride themselves on making their buildings 'disabled
accessible' at great expense, then go to the further expense of fitting
perfume dispensers which make them completely inaccessible to people
with perfume allergy. When asked politely to turn them off or remove
them, the response is often a curt refusal.
With about 2% of the population sensitised to perfume additives to some
degree, this is an aspect of 'accessibility' which deserves far more
attention.
--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Change 'offline' to 'online' to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk
Bella Jones
david....@no.spam.today.thanks.invalid wrote on 22/5/03 8:37 am:
>> My mum- who came to live in England in 1936 after spending the first part
>> of her life in Switzerland- always said that English food was bloody awful,
>> unimaginative and badly over cooked, when she arrived here. Long before the
>> war. It's a basic cultural thing.
>>
> But why ?
>
> Elizabethan cookery books etc. show an incredible variety of foods etc.
See http://renaissance.dm.net/compendium/38.html (also other pages).
(You probably know all this, David!).
I also have an Elizabethan cookery book here. Oyster/lamb stew! Oysters were
cheap and plentiful then. (as were mass poisonings from street-corner
barrels). A bunch of ecclesiastical types in Hampshire, out on a junket,
were all killed by oysters that had been feeding on sewage.
> Did we loose it because of the first war ? Is there another cause,
> perhaps the industrial revolution meant the peasants had no time to cook
> but surely somebody somewhere was eating OK......
I think the Ind Rev had a lot to do with it. Less agriculture / less time...
Mike Edwards
> > I am also 'allergic' (or at least badly sensitised) to many of the
> > ingredients of modern perfumes. *That* certainly does give the feeling
> > of being a persecuted minority.
>
>
I used to travel to Paris every week on business via EuroStar. The
frequent traveller lounge used to have bowls of peanuts spread about
the place and with my allergy I couldn't go near them.
I wrote to the head of their customer service group pointing out that I
had a reasonable chance of dying should I venture near the nuts and
would they consider changing them for some other snack.
The letters and phone calls went along the lines of:
- Would it be possible to consider replacing the nuts
- No, people like them
- But I could die
- No, people like them
- Would people complain if they were replaced with something else
- No, people like them
- But I could die
- No, people like them
- Yeah, whatever!
Needless to say I stopped using EuroStar every week after that!
Bella Jones
wrote on 22/5/03 9:00 am:
>> When they are mass-farmed, it can be in very cramped conditions, causing all
>> kinds of trauma and health problems/diseases being spread around. Think
>> battery chickens, but worse.
>
> Ah, OK. It is slightly hard to imagine a traumatised prawn, but I take your
> point about the health problems. Presumably they're swimming around in their
> own faeces, that kind of thing.
Yes, and mutating viruses, AIUI.
Even if you don't believe that prawns have feelings, :-), any living
creature (inc plants) can be traumatised by physical stress, affecting the
immune system.
WHOOPS! That was pop-immunology, I believe....