May 24, 2013
First they come for the cheesemakers..
BBC News - Cheese maker warned against supplying Gloucester cheese rolling
A cheesemaker has been told by police she may be liable for legal action if she supplies Gloucester's famous annual cheese rolling.
The traditional event involves revellers chasing a 7lb (3kg) wheel of Double Gloucester down Cooper's Hill.
Diana Smart, who makes the cheese for the event at her Churcham farm, said she had been warned by police about her responsibilities as organiser.
She said: "It made me feel pretty angry... there's not a lot we can do,"
Mrs Smart, 86, who has made cheese for the event for 25 years, said police had warned her she could be regarded as responsible if anybody was injured.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
November 25, 2012
John Brignell: The Unbalance Sheet
John Brignell has had his excellent essay PDFed by the SPPI to produce a very readable booklet:
John Brignell: The Unbalance Sheet
Posted by The Englishman at 12:26 PM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
April 2, 2012
Plod On Personal Possession
Banning legal highs won’t work, say police | The Times
“From an early stage, the chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo) Drugs Committee was of the opinion that the solution to the particular challenge of legal highs did not lie in adding inexorably to the list of illicit substances”, the submission said.
The police also appear to question how far legislation is a realistic option to deal with the drugs and other substances taken by young people.
“A key question for the Government to determine is the extent to which legislation can realistically be used to address active choices being made by (predominantly young) people and to tackle the undoubted harms caused by the misuse of substances taken essentially for pleasure”, it added.
“The police will continue to focus their energies on serious criminality and take a less robust enforcement approach on matters relating to personal possession.”
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
March 25, 2012
Scotland's Lord Advocate Rules This Post Offensive
Frank Mullholland, Scotland’s most senior prosecutor, has warned singing or chanting songs which “glorify, celebrate or mock events involving the loss of life” should be viewed as offensive.
Bollocks to The Lord Advocate.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:02 AM
| Comments (3)
| TrackBack
March 24, 2012
I Didn't Vote For Dear Beer
Ignore the doctors – cheap beer is one of life’s few pleasures - Telegraph
Mr Cameron. He should realise that the cheapness of beer is one of the few perks left to make life bearable for his over-taxed, over-regulated, fed-up fellow citizens. Better the sticky heap of Gin Lane, than the joyless futility of government-controlled alcohol prices.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:14 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
March 14, 2012
Enjoy Your Steak - A Doctor Writes
Don’t worry, you won’t suffer death by T-bone steak | The Times
The latest “red meat is bad” scare starts with cancer, then throws in heart disease and premature death. Scarier still, it’s a big study by the Harvard School of Medicine and is likely to be “statistically significant” — or at least as significant as any epidemiological research is likely to be. Ninety-nine per cent of people involved in car crashes are wearing shoes. It doesn’t mean shoes cause car crashes.
The problem with studies of diet is that it’s very hard to do a gold-standard, randomised, double-blind controlled trial. ....
Most studies of diet are retrospective, asking people to remember when they last ate a sausage, or they concentrate on certain religious faiths that aren’t supposed to eat certain meats. In the latter case, it could be their religious faith or a love of nuts that’s keeping them alive, rather than a lack of sausages. It’s hard in a dietary study to control for one variable at a time, because of the sheer variety of things we put in our mouths and other habits we have that may affect our longevity.....
As for red meat, it’s a great source of iron, particularly for women, and you can lower the risk by trimming off the fat and not frying it in some disgusting transfatty gloop that’s been sitting on the stove for three months. Enjoy!
Dr Phil Hammond
Prof David Spiegelhalter (Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge) popped up on R4 this afternoon to put into context what this "20% increase in risk" meant. He said that a healthy 40-year-old who ate red meat every day might (if this study is correct) reduce their expected age at death by one year - from 80 to 79. If you're over 75 that probably equates to about 3 days.
Chris Miller
Posted by The Englishman at 7:38 AM
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
March 13, 2012
Bacon Sarnie Will Kill You And Cause Climate Change
Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths - Telegraph
It was found that for every serving of red meat - equivalent to 3 ounces (85 grams) - eaten each day there was an 18 per cent increased risk of dying from heart disease and a 10 per cent increased risk of dying from cancer.
For each serving of processed meat, equivalent to two slices of bacon or one hot dog, the risk of dying from heart disease rose by a 21 per cent and from cancer by 16 per cent.
Scientists added that people who eat a diet high in red meat were also likely to be generally unhealthier because they were more likely to smoke, be overweight and not exercise.
In an accompanying editorial Dr Dean Ornish, of the University of California, San Francisco, said that eating less red meat could also help tackle climate change.
Dr Carrie Ruxton, from the Meat Advisory Panel (MAP), a British group of doctors and scientists funded by the industry, cast doubt on the findings and said the conclusions were based on a "theoretical" model"
I think we know where to file this report, don't we.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:19 AM
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack
November 17, 2011
Warning! Salt is Salty!
Campaigners targeting gourmet salt | UK news | The Guardian
The report found that the sodium chloride content of gourmet salt products is nearly 100%, and is just as damaging to health as regular salt despite claims that they are "natural" and "contain minerals".
Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health, carried out the chemical research,
No shit Sherlock! Natural salt which contains minerals is natural salt that contains minerals. The only bit you haven't explained is how it is damages health in normal people.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:59 AM
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack