Not that I think for one moment that it will achieve anything, but I have decided to E-mail my local M.P regarding my concerns about the feature on Jimmy's Food Factory the other night. I have pretty much summarised some of the points that I have made here regarding the mass waste of food and how shocking such a situation is when people in third world countries and indeed homeless people in our own country are starving! I don't expect much of a response and this is the first time I have ever felt compelled to write to my M.P but I am so apalled that I felt I had to do SOMETHING!
If anyone has any other sugestions about paths I could take, I would appreciate hearing from you. I am considering strongly writing to the local paper too as I feel this is something that really should be highlighted and addressed! I do not know the last time I felt so outraged and apalled!
Friday, 30 October 2009
Reasons to be angry...1,2,3...
Usually I find myself using this Blog to rant and rave about work as a means to let off steam and vent a little; which is unsurprising really seeing as I spend so much time there and so little time actually at home. But for this Blog entry, I have found something else to rant and rave about that takes a good, hard look at the bigger picture of the world at large.
First of all, I wish to mention something else that has happened to me in the last few days. My friend Kate has inadvertantly introduced me to a new Blog that I have begun to follow. I say inadvertantly because she posted about the Blog on her FB status and I decided to check it out for myself. The blog is http://whatneffydidnext.blogspot.com and is written by a friend of hers who has given up her everyday life to become a volunteer in Uganda! It is a very humbling experience reading this and it is so heartfelt and honestly written that it is difficult to read the Blog without feeling touched by it. This woman is so unselfish and genuine but at the same time so remarkably brave. How many of us would be so prepared to do something like this? I know I couldn't do it! Whenever she can, which depends on whether or not she can get an Internet conection or not, she uploads her latest experiences all about what she is up to and how she is helping the locals in whatever small ways that she can. It really opens your eyes and helps you to see what life is like on the other side of the world; something that so many of us are so unfortunately blind to. We live our lives here, blissfully unaware of what is going on in third world countries or even worse, choosing not to fully acknowledge it ~thinking about these things only when the usual aid requests come in every year or when fund-raising programmes such as Comic Relief are shown. But the fact is, the way people live their lives in these countries is shocking in this day and age that we live in where, here in the West, we throw things away willy nilly and are surrounded by modern technology and all manner of worthless gadgets that we use to enhance our lives but are really so unnesssecary to our existance and survival!
Which brings me neatly around to the reason for me choosing to write today's Blog entry! Watching Jimmy's Food Factory the other night on BBC1, there is a piece all about how we manage to get tomatoes in the supermarket all year round not just in season. Many of these are imported because it costs so much energy to heat the greenhouses in this country that would provide us with all-year-round tomatoes. One farmer however had found a solution by using thrown away fruit and vegetables from the local docks to make combustible energy to fuel his greenhouses. Jimmy took a look at this food that is needlessly thrown away and I was shocked at the sight of a mountain, and that is no exaggeration, of bananas that had been classed as unaccectpable in quality and were just going to be disposed of. There was nothing wrong with these bannanas but inspectors had claimed they were "too ripe" for supermarket shelves and had so rejected them. Jimy even picked one off the pile, peeled and ate a bit of one and there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!!!!!! Now bearing in mind everything I have just discussed, about us living in a disposable culture and one full of unnessecary goods that make our lives easier admittedly but are NOT ESSENTIAL TO OUR EVERYDAY LIVES, then the notion of all this food going to waste physically disgusted me! I already do not much like waste but I have never really seen or been aware of waste on this sort of scale before. Remember, this was just bananas. Think for a moment about how much other fruit and vegetables likewise is deemed unfit for us to eat when in fact there is nothing wrong with it and it simply fails to reach an unfairly high unacceptable standard! If there is a likewise quantity of other fruit and veg, added together that makes a hell of a lot of food. Which, when there are people starving in this world or living in squalor all around the globe, is utterly and totally disgraceful. Regardless of third world countries, what about all the homeless people begging for something to eat and starving in THIS country? Surely food shelters could make good use of this "unfit" produce at little cost to ourselves? It would be better than it just going to waste and alright, so the farmer is going to make use of this wasted food but only so that he can satisfy the law of supply and demand that we as consumers have put on supermarkets so we can get tomatoes all year round! Is that really that important when there are people who do not have even one iota of our comforts and luxuries living in this world today. It is the twenty-first century for fracks sake, surely we are intelligent enough or advanced enough to come up with some kind of solution to these problems aside from the obviously good work that charities such as Comic Relief perform. Wouldn't it be nice, for example, to live in a world where Comic Relief et al were NOT NESSECARY?
These are important issues and ones that too often get swept under the carpet. I wish I knew if there was anything I could do to change things but I fear mine would be just be one lone voice in a wilderness of silence! Still I wonder that there must be some way to bring such issues to a wider audience. I canot be the only person who saw that programme and thought it was an utter disgrace.....
This world in which we live is a cruel and vicious one sometimes.....but it does put things into perspective! The next time I am pissed off and feel like moaning about trivial things like my job or the people I work with, I am going to upload Neffy's Blog or think about that programme the other night and remind myself of what is more important in life! That there are many others in this world who do not have the luxuries or the comfort that so many of us take for granted and that we are exceptionally fortunate to live our lives the way we do!
First of all, I wish to mention something else that has happened to me in the last few days. My friend Kate has inadvertantly introduced me to a new Blog that I have begun to follow. I say inadvertantly because she posted about the Blog on her FB status and I decided to check it out for myself. The blog is http://whatneffydidnext.blogspot.com and is written by a friend of hers who has given up her everyday life to become a volunteer in Uganda! It is a very humbling experience reading this and it is so heartfelt and honestly written that it is difficult to read the Blog without feeling touched by it. This woman is so unselfish and genuine but at the same time so remarkably brave. How many of us would be so prepared to do something like this? I know I couldn't do it! Whenever she can, which depends on whether or not she can get an Internet conection or not, she uploads her latest experiences all about what she is up to and how she is helping the locals in whatever small ways that she can. It really opens your eyes and helps you to see what life is like on the other side of the world; something that so many of us are so unfortunately blind to. We live our lives here, blissfully unaware of what is going on in third world countries or even worse, choosing not to fully acknowledge it ~thinking about these things only when the usual aid requests come in every year or when fund-raising programmes such as Comic Relief are shown. But the fact is, the way people live their lives in these countries is shocking in this day and age that we live in where, here in the West, we throw things away willy nilly and are surrounded by modern technology and all manner of worthless gadgets that we use to enhance our lives but are really so unnesssecary to our existance and survival!
Which brings me neatly around to the reason for me choosing to write today's Blog entry! Watching Jimmy's Food Factory the other night on BBC1, there is a piece all about how we manage to get tomatoes in the supermarket all year round not just in season. Many of these are imported because it costs so much energy to heat the greenhouses in this country that would provide us with all-year-round tomatoes. One farmer however had found a solution by using thrown away fruit and vegetables from the local docks to make combustible energy to fuel his greenhouses. Jimmy took a look at this food that is needlessly thrown away and I was shocked at the sight of a mountain, and that is no exaggeration, of bananas that had been classed as unaccectpable in quality and were just going to be disposed of. There was nothing wrong with these bannanas but inspectors had claimed they were "too ripe" for supermarket shelves and had so rejected them. Jimy even picked one off the pile, peeled and ate a bit of one and there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!!!!!! Now bearing in mind everything I have just discussed, about us living in a disposable culture and one full of unnessecary goods that make our lives easier admittedly but are NOT ESSENTIAL TO OUR EVERYDAY LIVES, then the notion of all this food going to waste physically disgusted me! I already do not much like waste but I have never really seen or been aware of waste on this sort of scale before. Remember, this was just bananas. Think for a moment about how much other fruit and vegetables likewise is deemed unfit for us to eat when in fact there is nothing wrong with it and it simply fails to reach an unfairly high unacceptable standard! If there is a likewise quantity of other fruit and veg, added together that makes a hell of a lot of food. Which, when there are people starving in this world or living in squalor all around the globe, is utterly and totally disgraceful. Regardless of third world countries, what about all the homeless people begging for something to eat and starving in THIS country? Surely food shelters could make good use of this "unfit" produce at little cost to ourselves? It would be better than it just going to waste and alright, so the farmer is going to make use of this wasted food but only so that he can satisfy the law of supply and demand that we as consumers have put on supermarkets so we can get tomatoes all year round! Is that really that important when there are people who do not have even one iota of our comforts and luxuries living in this world today. It is the twenty-first century for fracks sake, surely we are intelligent enough or advanced enough to come up with some kind of solution to these problems aside from the obviously good work that charities such as Comic Relief perform. Wouldn't it be nice, for example, to live in a world where Comic Relief et al were NOT NESSECARY?
These are important issues and ones that too often get swept under the carpet. I wish I knew if there was anything I could do to change things but I fear mine would be just be one lone voice in a wilderness of silence! Still I wonder that there must be some way to bring such issues to a wider audience. I canot be the only person who saw that programme and thought it was an utter disgrace.....
This world in which we live is a cruel and vicious one sometimes.....but it does put things into perspective! The next time I am pissed off and feel like moaning about trivial things like my job or the people I work with, I am going to upload Neffy's Blog or think about that programme the other night and remind myself of what is more important in life! That there are many others in this world who do not have the luxuries or the comfort that so many of us take for granted and that we are exceptionally fortunate to live our lives the way we do!
Friday, 23 October 2009
Yaay I finally finished it....
Also, just thought I had better say I have finally finished reading the epic that was Mao, The Unknown Story after 10 months of reading! I really enjoyed it but found it very hard-going and uncomfortable reading at times! Still Mao's was a compelling story and some of the historical facts revealed in this definitive biography left me shocked and breathless with their sheer brutality and inhumanity. Over 70 million ppl died during Mao's reign of fear and many of them in peacetime in his futile struggles to make China a Super-power to be reckoned with alongside America and Russia! When his own people were dying of famine and starvation, Mao was giving millions of U.S dollars worth of aid to other countries to curry technological favours and armaments. His obsession with developing and being able to launch a nucleur bomb blinded him to the fate of those around him and, reading this, one is given the true defenition of meglomania! At one point, Mao is quoted as saying that if there was a nucleur war then the worst that could happen would be that millions would die and Communism could take over! People like this in power are just plain scary and it makes you wonder just what else is happening across the globe now that we don't know about! Somewhere out there, somewhere, right now is there sure to be another man like Mao or Hitler or Stalin dreaming dreams of world supremacy ~ not like the bad guys do in the movies but at the expense of hundreds of millions of innocent lives? It is a scary and very sobering thought and there is so much that goes on in this world of ours that we either don't know about or just turn a blind eye to!
And that is why books like this are important!
Because by examining the mistakes made by men such as this in the past, maybe just maybe there is hope for all of our futures.....
And that is why books like this are important!
Because by examining the mistakes made by men such as this in the past, maybe just maybe there is hope for all of our futures.....
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo......
Just a short update to let you all know that I haven't yet given up on my Blog. This despite the fact that many of the others I follow have temporarily fallen by the wayside. I guess everyone else is just too busy at mo actually living their lives rather than writing about them but thats no bad thing I suppose.
Work is still shit and there is a lot of politics etc flying around as well as generous doses of paranoia and caution but we are almost back up to strength in the kitchen with two new chefs; David and Bon Jovi Roy. I call him Bon Jovi Roy both because his name is Roy (not Earl) and he is a Bon Jovi obsessive. Now I like Bon Jovi but not too the extent of this guy! Still we have similar tastes in films, music etc so looks like we are going to get on pretty well. The other chef, David Fox, seems okay as well so thats all good!
Yesterday we went to Colchester zoo (pics to follow) with Mrs.Sparky's best friend Bex, her husband Sean, their two boys and Bex mum and dad. Almost the same crowd we went to LegoLand with. It was a good day out and lots of fun and was a real shame when we had to come home. As usual the worst part of it all was the journey ~ though it took the same time approx to get home as it did to get there, I was driving on way home and it always seems to take longer when it starts to get dark! Emilie was made up and didn't stop smiling all day and took a real shine to Bex ~ constantly wanting to hold her hand! It will be good when we move back to Norwich next year and are closer to them all!
As always, leaving in the morning to get there yesterday was the usual circus it always ends up being! Mrs.Sparky always says we will leave by such and such a time but always takes longer in the bathroom than she intends to. I say "I thought we were leaving by such and such a time" so she always says "yes, but I told you that so that we could leave at so and so a time instead because you are never ready when I want you to be." She then proceeds to moan that I am not ready and haven't got my shoes on yet! To which I normally reply "Well, there was no point in my getting ready as I didn't know how long you were going to be." I then have to rush around, getting myself ready and we end up leaving later not just than when we said we would but also than the time Mrs.Sparky had intended which was twenty minutes later than what she originally said! Yesterday, we had an added complication because Mrs.Sparky didn't want to use the SATNAV with its annoying female voice so had printed off directions that didn't seem to make any sense and didn't seem to start from our house. I was then blamed even though she was driving and should've familiarised herself with where we had to go before we set off because I was supposed to be the navigator. I had an idea how to get to Colchester from ours but was so busy trying to sort out the directions that I am sure we ended up on the correct road via the long way round! Still we got there in the end and thats all that matters even if we did miss one turning because we were both too busy talking and had to cut back on ourselves. Its a good job we never have to go on an Artic expedition!! We'd probably end up in the Antartic instead....
And that would probably be my fault too!
Work is still shit and there is a lot of politics etc flying around as well as generous doses of paranoia and caution but we are almost back up to strength in the kitchen with two new chefs; David and Bon Jovi Roy. I call him Bon Jovi Roy both because his name is Roy (not Earl) and he is a Bon Jovi obsessive. Now I like Bon Jovi but not too the extent of this guy! Still we have similar tastes in films, music etc so looks like we are going to get on pretty well. The other chef, David Fox, seems okay as well so thats all good!
Yesterday we went to Colchester zoo (pics to follow) with Mrs.Sparky's best friend Bex, her husband Sean, their two boys and Bex mum and dad. Almost the same crowd we went to LegoLand with. It was a good day out and lots of fun and was a real shame when we had to come home. As usual the worst part of it all was the journey ~ though it took the same time approx to get home as it did to get there, I was driving on way home and it always seems to take longer when it starts to get dark! Emilie was made up and didn't stop smiling all day and took a real shine to Bex ~ constantly wanting to hold her hand! It will be good when we move back to Norwich next year and are closer to them all!
As always, leaving in the morning to get there yesterday was the usual circus it always ends up being! Mrs.Sparky always says we will leave by such and such a time but always takes longer in the bathroom than she intends to. I say "I thought we were leaving by such and such a time" so she always says "yes, but I told you that so that we could leave at so and so a time instead because you are never ready when I want you to be." She then proceeds to moan that I am not ready and haven't got my shoes on yet! To which I normally reply "Well, there was no point in my getting ready as I didn't know how long you were going to be." I then have to rush around, getting myself ready and we end up leaving later not just than when we said we would but also than the time Mrs.Sparky had intended which was twenty minutes later than what she originally said! Yesterday, we had an added complication because Mrs.Sparky didn't want to use the SATNAV with its annoying female voice so had printed off directions that didn't seem to make any sense and didn't seem to start from our house. I was then blamed even though she was driving and should've familiarised herself with where we had to go before we set off because I was supposed to be the navigator. I had an idea how to get to Colchester from ours but was so busy trying to sort out the directions that I am sure we ended up on the correct road via the long way round! Still we got there in the end and thats all that matters even if we did miss one turning because we were both too busy talking and had to cut back on ourselves. Its a good job we never have to go on an Artic expedition!! We'd probably end up in the Antartic instead....
And that would probably be my fault too!
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Happy Birthday,....Happy Birthday....
Today is my birthday and I have reached the grand old age of...*ahem*.....36.
Not got much planned, am visiting the health visitor later for Emilie's 2 year check-up, but thought I had better check in here as well and give you a short update on my life and let you know that I am still about! Work is still the same though might have some more staff in the kitchen by the time I get back. Already had one commis started and he seems okay so far. I am now starting the second week of a 2-week holiday and have spent most of that so far just chillaxing and doing very little! Am reading lots of books, writing lots of Dooyoo reviews (and up to another £75 already!) and spending quality time with my daughter. At the hotel before I left, had 2 very hard weeks as HC was on his annual 2 weeks holiday; Geordie Ed quit in the middle of those and I got very, very stressed out. If hadn't been for all the bills needing paying, would've walked out the door it was so bad. That's one of the reasons I have not been on. There are so many Blog posts on here already about work and really wasn't in the mood to add to them or post anything really. Was a bit fed up and just needed some time away from the introspective eye of this Blog. But didn't want you guys to think I had forgotten you so....here I am!
Dooyoo is great but theres this one reviewer on there who seems to be dogging me at the mo! On three seperate reviews I have written recently she has left a disparaging comment offering advice or sent me a Private message in the same vein. I could block her so she can't send me messages but then I would worry about what she was trying to say to me. It's not like I'm a Fracking New Guy or FNG and have been writing reviews for some time now and also know she means no harm and is trying to be helpful but I just find her comments condescending and feel like telling her to frack off! Luckily I am too polite for that but honestly- if you read this, and you know who you are, please don't take offence but you are an interfering, pain-in-the-arse c*&%! Lol!
Managed to finally finish Saigon and what an epic read that was but very good all the same. Covering 50 years of Vietnam history through the eyes of one man and his family is no mean feat but the author really pulled it off with tremendous success! Since then some of the books I have read include Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith who wrote Gorky Park- an interesting thriller set around the legacy of Chernobyl; A Dozen Black Roses by Nancy Collins- a vampire novel featuring her anti-heroine Sonja Blue, herself a twisted new breed of vampire whom we first encountered in Sunglasses After Dark; and Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs. Am also still reading Mao but have only 300 pages left to go now so getting close to the end.
For my birthday, mostly got money as there is nothing I really wanted but also got the MIL to buy me Richard Dawkins book, The Greatest Show On Earth which supposedly offers the scientific theories behind why Evoloution MUST have happened beyond any doubt! Listening to the radio the other day as they discussed the new film which coincedentally has just beeen released about Darwin (who published the theory of Evoloution first) a guest commented that he could see no reason why Creationists and Evoloutionists had to be at odds as they are not exclusive to each other which I thought an interesting take. Know Dawkins is allegedly an Atheist but this other guy on the radio suggested that if you ignore the whole seven days of creation malarkey and treat it figuratively instead of literally, then there is no reason that you cannot accept that God, if he exists, could not have used Evoloution as his way of creating life. It's an interesting idea and it is good to see that science and faith do not have to be seperated and that there can be some common middle ground!
Going back to the topic of my birthday...why exactly DO we celebrate the day we were born? Is it some kind of ritual to make us glad that we are another year older and still alive...? It certainly feels no different to me than any other day except for the fact that I awoke this morning to my daughter opening all my cards! Maybe I should google the origins of the birthday celebration....anyway, 5 days to go till back to work so, for now, ciao ciao!
I have a very obscure translated-from-Russian seventies science-fiction novel to finish. And yes, it is very very good! :)
Not got much planned, am visiting the health visitor later for Emilie's 2 year check-up, but thought I had better check in here as well and give you a short update on my life and let you know that I am still about! Work is still the same though might have some more staff in the kitchen by the time I get back. Already had one commis started and he seems okay so far. I am now starting the second week of a 2-week holiday and have spent most of that so far just chillaxing and doing very little! Am reading lots of books, writing lots of Dooyoo reviews (and up to another £75 already!) and spending quality time with my daughter. At the hotel before I left, had 2 very hard weeks as HC was on his annual 2 weeks holiday; Geordie Ed quit in the middle of those and I got very, very stressed out. If hadn't been for all the bills needing paying, would've walked out the door it was so bad. That's one of the reasons I have not been on. There are so many Blog posts on here already about work and really wasn't in the mood to add to them or post anything really. Was a bit fed up and just needed some time away from the introspective eye of this Blog. But didn't want you guys to think I had forgotten you so....here I am!
Dooyoo is great but theres this one reviewer on there who seems to be dogging me at the mo! On three seperate reviews I have written recently she has left a disparaging comment offering advice or sent me a Private message in the same vein. I could block her so she can't send me messages but then I would worry about what she was trying to say to me. It's not like I'm a Fracking New Guy or FNG and have been writing reviews for some time now and also know she means no harm and is trying to be helpful but I just find her comments condescending and feel like telling her to frack off! Luckily I am too polite for that but honestly- if you read this, and you know who you are, please don't take offence but you are an interfering, pain-in-the-arse c*&%! Lol!
Managed to finally finish Saigon and what an epic read that was but very good all the same. Covering 50 years of Vietnam history through the eyes of one man and his family is no mean feat but the author really pulled it off with tremendous success! Since then some of the books I have read include Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith who wrote Gorky Park- an interesting thriller set around the legacy of Chernobyl; A Dozen Black Roses by Nancy Collins- a vampire novel featuring her anti-heroine Sonja Blue, herself a twisted new breed of vampire whom we first encountered in Sunglasses After Dark; and Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs. Am also still reading Mao but have only 300 pages left to go now so getting close to the end.
For my birthday, mostly got money as there is nothing I really wanted but also got the MIL to buy me Richard Dawkins book, The Greatest Show On Earth which supposedly offers the scientific theories behind why Evoloution MUST have happened beyond any doubt! Listening to the radio the other day as they discussed the new film which coincedentally has just beeen released about Darwin (who published the theory of Evoloution first) a guest commented that he could see no reason why Creationists and Evoloutionists had to be at odds as they are not exclusive to each other which I thought an interesting take. Know Dawkins is allegedly an Atheist but this other guy on the radio suggested that if you ignore the whole seven days of creation malarkey and treat it figuratively instead of literally, then there is no reason that you cannot accept that God, if he exists, could not have used Evoloution as his way of creating life. It's an interesting idea and it is good to see that science and faith do not have to be seperated and that there can be some common middle ground!
Going back to the topic of my birthday...why exactly DO we celebrate the day we were born? Is it some kind of ritual to make us glad that we are another year older and still alive...? It certainly feels no different to me than any other day except for the fact that I awoke this morning to my daughter opening all my cards! Maybe I should google the origins of the birthday celebration....anyway, 5 days to go till back to work so, for now, ciao ciao!
I have a very obscure translated-from-Russian seventies science-fiction novel to finish. And yes, it is very very good! :)
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