June 6, 2011
Don't mention the "O" word
BBC News - E. coli outbreak: German farm in Uelzen 'likely source' ... the farm grows a wide variety of beansprouts from seeds imported from different countries. The beansprouts include adzuki, alfalfa, broccoli, peas, lentils and mung beans, all grown in the nursery for consumption in salads. .. the sprouts produced there are grown in temperatures of about 38C, "which is ideal for all bacteria".
No mention of the word "organic" in the BBC report. I wonder they don't mention that stewing beans in blood warm shit and then eating them raw ain't the best of ideas.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:43 AM
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April 13, 2011
Recipe of the Day
Shooting badgers to be legal under plans for 'big society cull' | Environment | The Guardian
Badger are at their best from October to November, being fat and succulent by then.
The flesh can be treated as young pig meat in every respect, it being just as rich and having the flavour of a young pig. It can be cured by salting, the hams being exceptionally good fare. Badger pies are even better than pork pies, hot or cold.
Badger Ham, To Bake
A badger ham will weigh 7 to 8 pounds and needs cooking very carefully. Soak the ham for at least 6 hours in cold water. Wash it after soaking in lukewarm water. Cover it with a rough paste made with 3 pounds of flour and 3 pounds of water; make sure to wrap it well. Bake in a moderate oven, pre-heat to 350 F for 21/2 to 3 hours.
Remove the paste and cover with bread raspings whilst still hot, if to be served cold. If to be served hot, serve with broad beans and fresh parsley sauce or cider sauce.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:41 PM
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Visitors Don't Go To Zoo After It Culls Piglets
Edinburgh Zoo blames wrong sort of weather for loss of 90,000 visitors - Scotsman.com News
Edinburgh Zoo has seen its visitor numbers slump by more than 90,000, despite a bumper year for rival leading attractions.
Maybe if they weren't so keen on culling the cute baby animals more people would go.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:38 PM
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April 6, 2011
Memo to Hacks - Not everyone is interested in you
Phone hacking: NoW journalists arrested | UK news | guardian.co.uk
This story seemed to lead all the bulletins I caught last night - the suggestion that journalists are unscrupulous slimeballs is not news and is not the top story.
We are drifting into another war, the euro is crashing, the Fenians continue to blow up people, those are stories.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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March 3, 2011
Pay The Council Or Bambi Gets It
Blood money deal to save Bambi - Scotsman.com News
A FURIOUS row has erupted over a council's "blood money" ultimatum - raise £225,000 within ten weeks to prevent a major deer cull.
Aberdeen City Council was condemned by animal welfare groups after councillors voted to press ahead with controversial plans to shoot roe deer on a prominent hill overlooking the city.
Now that is how to fill the council coffers! And why are the bunny huggers unhappy at being asked to pay for their pleasures?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM
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February 1, 2011
How The Market Self Corrects
Milk prices to rise - Telegraph
The increase in a pint of milk is likely to happen because of significantly higher animal feed costs, which have forced farmers to switch to a cheaper but less efficient feed, reducing milk yields and supply, according to the latest research.
The Grocer, the trade magazine, said that in a bid to reduce their overheads, some dairy farmers have started to buy less feed made from grains and more forage material such as grass and silage.
Dairy farmers are under significant pressure after supermarkets waged a price war over milk during 2010, driving down the price to 127p for a four-pint bottle, or 31.7p a pint, in a bid to attract customers.
Farmers have argued these low prices are completely unsustainable and that they were losing money on each pint sold at this price.
A lot of consultants will be advising farmers to scale back if possible.
Gosh amazing innit! Price drops, cut back on production, price rises. Obviously this is a new concept and The Grocer hasn't quite worked out that feed costs are variables not overheads but I think they have a glimmer of an idea about how the market works. I wonder if anyone else has ever discovered this?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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January 31, 2011
In Whose Interest?
On one side of the argument are those who see the future in terms of US-style factory farms, enormous mechanised food production centres where tens of thousands of animals live under the same roof. The sales pitch is pretty basic: cheap food. For the organic lobby and farming traditionalists, such plans provoke horror.
It almost sounds as though smaller scale, less efficient farmers have a horror of the competition offering cheaper food and that is the reason they object.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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December 6, 2010
Where Does The Telegraph Get Its News From
Hill walker endured a two-hour attack by a reindeer - Telegraph
Bit late to the story - Mark Wadsworth had it on 3rd Dec after I had tipped him off about a November 23 story in the Caledonian Mercury.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:26 AM
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November 23, 2010
Guido Forcefully Split From Gay Partner
Gays protest | The Times (£)
Members of Germany’s gay community are outraged after a homosexual couple were forcibly parted and made to mate with females.
Guido and Detlef have become the poster boys for protests against intolerance, even though they are both predatory males.
Guido, transferred 650km (400 miles) east to a zoo in Ostrava, in the Czech Republic, is also reportedly not too enamoured with the heterosexual lifestyle that is being forced upon him.
...the Roman Catholic Church in the arch conservative area of Münsterland is jubilant. There has been one protest near the zoo gates by a small group of homosexuals standing beneath a rainbow flag, while the German blogosphere is buzzing. “This is like in the Dark Middle Ages, forcibly making a creature sexually reorient itself by tearing its partner from its side,” wrote one campaigner.
The griffon vultures, Gyps fulvus, showed no interest in female company. They were happy in their own world, grooming one another with tender sweeps of their savage beaks between rearranging the sticks that made up their nest.
"Live and let live" obviously hasn't fully caught on yet in The Fatherland
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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November 7, 2010
Hospital Food For Local Farmers Sake
This Friday, a private member's bill will be debated in Parliament that would introduce health and sustainability standards for food in public institutions such as hospitals and care homes.
The bill offers a lifeline to British farming, sustainable fishing, the environment and the health of some of the most vulnerable people in the UK. It is the very least that government can do – to commit to buy food whose production meets the basic health and sustainability standards that we all expect. But shockingly, even this "very least" of commitments is proving immensely difficult to achieve. Such is the current mood to resist legislation, it seems that government may not support a bill that would put food and farming at the heart of economic revival.
So the bill isn't about improving hospital food at all, that might just be a side effect of a bill to protect local food producer interests.
So what do the poor buggers in Norwich Hospital get to eat all winter, local turnip hand hewn from the frozen soil by a peasant in a woollen smock? That is what local sustainability means. They might fancy a couple of New Zealand chops with fresh Kenyan Mange-tout and Cyprus New potatoes, and quick medicinal gargle of Rioja but that fails Rosie's "sustainability" test so gruel is what it will have to be.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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October 29, 2010
O Best Beloved, How The Telegraph Failed
Baby elephant attacked by crocodile - Telegraph
The final irrefutable proof that the Telegraph has gone to the dogs. Not once, not even a hint, not a scintilla of a suspicion of a mention of Kipling in the reportage.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
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October 23, 2010
The Other White Meat
Tough old bird like that would need some marinading, one for the stew pot rather than a roast I think.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:56 AM
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October 21, 2010
Edinburgh Zoo Hog Roast
Staff in cull as Edinburgh Zoo faces crisis - Scotsman.com
The zoo today said its current staff numbers were "no longer sustainable"
Zoo culls 'surplus' hogs - Scotsman.com News
BOSSES at Edinburgh Zoo have culled two Red River Hog piglets – because there is a "surplus" of the species.
Despite successfully breeding a pair last August for the first time in the zoo's history, the organisation was ordered by a worldwide breeding programme to kill little Sammi and Becca as they were "surplus to requirement".
I guess the staff will be a little nervous then. But I have no sympathy for the Zoo, if it has surplus animals why not sell them or fatten them up rather than expensively follow the orders of some European Genetic Purity Enforcer..
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
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October 20, 2010
Those Cuts in the Countryside - Careful Dr Spooner!
CSR settlements show some good sense but ‘devil in detail’, says CLA
Posted by The Englishman at 5:53 PM
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October 7, 2010
Wildlife News from the Telegraph
'Charlie the Smoking Chimp' dies from old age - Telegraph
A chimpanzee which became addicted to smoking cigarettes has died from old age having managed to live at least 10 years longer than most chimps.
Obviously he didn't read the warnings on the packets
Penguins had feathers and scales - Telegraph
Paleontologists say new light has been shed on the evolution of the animal following the discovery of a fossil in Peru.
And what have penguins got now, feathers and scales, marvellous!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 AM
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September 16, 2010
Brian May Culling to go ahead
Brian May cull plans for England unveiled | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The cull could start in May 2011 and as many as 6,000 Brian May look alikes would be shot in the first year, according to officials who devised the proposals. A cull is certain to be controversial and the farming minister, Jim Paice, said he expected to face legal challenges and "some aggravation" during the culls, adding he had been in contact with the Home Office over policing of the culls. In July, legal action by the Brian May Trust halted a planned cull in Wales.
"This is a very, very nasty ...and since the 1970s it has spread dramatically," said Paice, adding it had a devastating impact on farmers. "We can't go on like this, it's as simple as that."
It has died out in urban areas but the hairstyle is still devastating rural areas, I'm afraid culling is the only answer. Though not with a Golf Club, even if it has a Mars Bar in its mouth...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
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August 5, 2010
Russet Burbank Clones Flood Food Chain - Won't Anyone Think of The Children?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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August 4, 2010
Our Daily Bread
Britons to pay more for a loaf of bread as wheat prices jump - Telegraph
As I was saying seven years ago - this is bollocks: ...the price of wheat is still lower than it was twenty years ago. So I started to look on the web for what is going on. I came across this snippet from Italy: "The price of bread depends almost entirely on items other than the cost of wheat, and it is totally unjustified to say that there could be price rises due to the drought. About 1 kg of wheat (800 gr. of flour) is needed to make 1 kg of bread. Wheat costs 16-18 cents per kilo, whereas bread costs 1.50 euro per kilo, with wheat representing only 12 pct of the finished product price. Hence, an improbable 20 pct increase in the price of wheat would lead to a 2.4 pct price rise of bread.
Similar situation for many other products such as pasta, fruit juices, wine, milk, cheeses, meat, fruit and vegetables: the price paid by customers is from 2 to 10 times greater than the one paid by producers for the raw material, and is often due to industrial processing, packaging and transport. "
In a local churchyard Wiltshire folk record the price of bread:
1800 bread was 3s 4d per gallon; 1801 bread was 3s 10d per gallon; 1904 bread was 10d per gallon; 1920 bread was 2s 8d per gallon after the Great War; 1946-48 bread was rationed – subsidised price 2s 1d per gallon; 1963 bread was 5s 4d per gallon; 1971 bread was 8s per gallon – decimal currency; 1984 bread was £1.80 per gallon.
2000 bread was £3.72 per gallon.
A gallon measured the dry ingredients to make eight standard loaves so I make the 2010 price £10:40 (according to The Telegraph's pricing).
My 1982 copy of Nix has milling wheat at £121.50/Tonne - The record high recorded yesterday was £148/t.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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August 1, 2010
On Rape Knives, CCTV and Environmentalism
For your agricultural edification the vertical cutting bar this side of the combine is a "Rape Knife" used to cut through the leaning stems of Oilseed Rape, or other crop, to enable a clean edge to the harvested area. The CCTV camera on the other side of the combine watches the edge from the previous pass and steers the combine to inch accuracy to ensure the whole width of the combine is actually cutting the crop and not missing any. No more human inefficiency in modern agriculture!
The crop yield is monitored continually and mapped using GPS and next year the field will have its fertilizer tailored according to the output with the applicator altering rates as it travels across the field. Ensuring optimum usage and no waste.
Progress cuts inputs and maximizes outputs. Real environmentalism rather than muck and mystery.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:47 PM
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June 21, 2010
...with some fava beans and a nice Chianti
Shallots and Beans would have been a better choice...
Posted by The Englishman at 1:52 PM
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May 19, 2010
Giving Organic Food the Bird
Garden birds prefer non-organic food to organic, study finds - Telegraph
When offered both varieties of wheat seed, they were able to discern between the two and ate up to 20 per cent more of the conventional grown variety than the organic.
Dr Ailsa McKenzie, lead researcher based at Newcastle University's School of Biology, said the findings are likely to add to the debate over the relative merits of consuming organic food.
"Our results suggest that the current dogma that organic food is preferred to conventional food may not always be true," she said.
"We have long lost our instinctive ability to know which food is the most nutritious for us but birds have not. They instinctively chose the non-organic food."
Posted by The Englishman at 2:34 PM
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May 14, 2010
Sweet Farm Subsidies
Farm Subsidy by Constituency tells us which UK area gets the most farm subsidy.
Which bucolic Tory shire would you guess?
The answer: East Ham
Yes, East Ham in London tops the list with twice as much as the next ones, the Berwicks, a total of €763,726,965.82
And it all went to Tate & Lyle.
C Czarnikow Sugar Ltd only got €99,316,783.17 but then they are based in Islington where the soil isn't so fertile.
Guido points out that This week Cameron appointed Caroline Spelman to be the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Spelman spent her days before becoming an MP in the agri-business, with a lobbying focus mainly on sugar beet, one of the most heavily subsidised crops in Europe. She was the Sugar Beet Commodity Secretary for the NFU in the early eighties before becoming Deputy Director of the International Confederation of European Beet Growers. Seemingly well connected in the field, Caroline and her husband Mark went on to set up “Spelman, Cormack & Associates” in 1989 as a food and bio-technology lobbying company.
For over ten years the new Secretary of State, along with her husband, lobbied the very department she now runs. Caroline resigned as a director less than a year ago and conveniently transferred her share of the company to her husband.
Big business sugar. Big subsidies. We are lucky to have someone who understands them representing the taxpayer when they come up for discussion.
(An explanation as to how these subsidies keep us yeomen, rather than the Mr Tate or Mr Lyle, in Ferraris is here at Tim's)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:21 PM
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May 7, 2010
Outlawing Non-Free-Range Eggs would Kill Babies
The things you never knew about poultry production - Phil Clarke’s Agribusiness Blog
• A significant market for eggs is the pharmaceutical sector. Novartis alone takes about 200 million eggs a year into its Liverpool site for the cultivation of vaccines. These have to be barn-reared, fertile eggs and are inoculated, then incubated for 12 days before the vaccine is drawn off for human use.
Not a lot of people know that...
Posted by The Englishman at 11:29 PM
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April 3, 2010
Milking it
UK - Dairy UK have announced a new £7.5m campaign for liquid milk.
The "Make Mine Milk" campaign will promote liquid milk to families with a focus on young people aged 15-24 years old. Work is being driven by the dairy industry's Milk Marketing Forum supported by Dairy UK. The European Commission have awarded a promotional grant of €3m to the project.
302 views after three days and a full page advert in the Farmers Weekly...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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March 18, 2010
Troughers Licensed To Walk in Westminster
Video: Micro pig turns heads in London - Telegraph
Pig breeder, Jane Croft takes her three-month-old micro pig, Manuka on a sight-seeing trip around London.
I hope she applied for and was granted a Pet Pig Walking Licence.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:38 AM
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March 16, 2010
Keep Turkey Mating Local
Turkey bans trips abroad for artificial insemination - Telegraph
Turkey Information Sheet
They are unable to mate naturally so artificial insemination (AI) is routine. This procedure involves the male breeding turkeys being repeatedly ‘milked’ for semen collection, whilst females (hens) have to endure the process of being caught and inseminated by tube/syringe. AI completely frustrates the natural mating instincts of turkeys and is distressing for both stags and hens.
Especially I guess if they have been whisked abroad on the promise of a romantic break; keep them in Norfolk and they won't know any different.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:56 AM
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February 27, 2010
French Lessons For Sale
From’ Girls très glamour pour défendre les fromages du terroir français !
Provocative dairymaids or a hint of more serious matters, the From'Girls Calendar appears for its 4th year. It is fulfilling a civic duty: to inform the public of the vital need to protect what is left of the unique national heritage of French cheese, and to promote life's pleasures. New for 2009: l'Association Fromages de Terroirs (non-profit making organisation) asked one of the remaining producers of Munster from unpasteurised milk to pose for the calendar. Virginie Haxaire, cheese maker with sex appeal, appears as Barbara Munster. Gruyère received its "Appellation Controlée" this year and appears in the calendar as Jeanne Gruyère.
Appreciating life's pleasures, its refinement and beauty is very French but is under threat. Our food has lost the human touch. "Nutrition" has become the watchword while flavours are becoming uniformly insipid. The From'Girls Calendar opens our eyes and stimulates our taste buds reminding us that to eat good locally produced cheese is the surest way to find happiness...
For Surrender Monkeys they don't half look tasty....
Posted by The Englishman at 11:39 AM
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January 29, 2010
Pork Please
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork.
"I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry.
She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."
See what our pork avoiding friends miss out on, time for a bacon sandwich I think and to dream of some greasy crackling.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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December 4, 2009
Poor Bloody Farmers
One in four farmers is living in poverty
Government statistics show that 25 per cent of farming households are below the official poverty line, defined in rural areas as having an income of less than £14,700 per year.
The numbers have risen by seven per cent since last year as the recession has taken a toll on the rural economy.
Yes, just whining farmers again, never seen a poor one...but it is true (as true as any Government statistic). I meet hundreds of farmers every month and some of them are living in absolute poverty.
But surely they get subsidies?
Quite, they are subsidised to the roof, they have advisers and regulators and compliance officers, they have schemes and targets and directives; they are a nationalised industry. Farmers sold their independent soul in return for suckling on the Government teat fifty years ago.
And what have they reaped? All the restrictions and regulations of working for the State without the salary to compensate.
So is the answer more State intervention, more subsidies, more feather bedding? It hasn't worked for the last fifty years so to the politician that must mean there hasn't been enough of it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:34 AM
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November 13, 2009
Telegraph Gun Crime
Collecting: vintage shotguns - Telegraph
Top-quality old British shotguns can be beautiful, valuable and practical.
To my untutored eyes that gun looks neither old nor British; it looks a bit like my Benelli Auto, maybe you know better?
Posted by The Englishman at 1:02 PM
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September 25, 2009
We plough the fields and scatter
Farmers told to stop ploughing land to protect soil
“Precision farming” is already widely used by the traditional “barley barons” who in recent years have invested in machines that do not churn up the earth. Instead the equipment merely turns over the top layer and new seed is planted on soil that includes stubble from the previous crop. Ministers want the technique to become standard practice.
The Soil Association, which champions organic farming, criticised the Government’s plan...
One of the main purposes of ploughing is bury weed seeds, if you don't bury them you need to spray them off. Organic farming demands ploughing, an interesting clash of greeneries...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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September 21, 2009
Troughing Pigs Cleaned Up Better Then State Employees
WHEN the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring – in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu – it was warned Cairo would be overwhelmed with refuse. And it is.
The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and rotting food piles up on middle-class and poor streets alike.
Cairo's rubbish garbage collection belonged to the informal sector of the economy. The government hired multinational companies to collect the refuse, and the companies decided to place bins around the city. But they failed to understand the ethos of the community. People do not take their garbage out. They are accustomed to someone collecting it from the door.
For more than half a century, those collectors were the Zabaleen, a community of Egyptian Christians who live on the cliffs on the eastern edge of the city. They collected the rubbish , sold the recyclables and fed the organic waste to their pigs – which they then slaughtered and ate.
"They killed the pigs, let them clean the city," said Moussa Rateb, a former rubbish collector and pig owner who lives in the Zabaleen community. "Everything used to go to the pigs. Now there are no pigs, so it goes to the administration."
I'm sure there is a moral to that story somewhere.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
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September 16, 2009
Calling Isaac Hayes
Meat-flavoured chocolate 'a hit with men' - Telegraph
...venison chocolate truffles, made from a blend of dark chocolate and ground-up salty dried meat....There's this smoky taste to start, then a strong chocolate flavour comes in, and at the end you have this wonderful taste of salami.. the snack, which will be served as a starter to 150 people at New Zealand's Meat Industry Association conference, had proven a hit with men "who can't get enough of it", but admitted women had been markedly "quieter" in expressing approval.
"Women tend to love their chocolate more fruity, more feminine, and I guess meat doesn't have that feel to it."
Need I say anything apart from I want some...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:54 PM
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September 15, 2009
раскулачивание plans
Can you Dig it? New Local Government Network
The Government is urged to dramatically expand the number of public allotments by building on brownfield sites and encouraging landowners to donate unused holdings to their local community.
Currently the Royal Family owns 677,000 acres of land and although some of it is already used for farming, NLGN claims that more of its unused last(sic - land?) could be turned into allotments for the benefit of local citizens.
The think tank also suggests that should a voluntary system not work, the Government should consider a Large Private Estates Commission which could have the power to temporarily transfer unused plots of private land to the local community for agricultural use.
Nice dig at the monarchy there - I'm not sure where they get the acreage from as The Crown Estate is only 267,000 acres, and The Duchy of Cornwal about 130,000, but whatever, the land is nearly all let to private farmers or foresters and the rest is managed for wildlife. There is no spare land the selfish old bag is keeping just to spite the peasantry.
And of course under the 1908 Allotment Act local councils have the power to compulsory purchase or lease land if there is a demand for allotments. What other power is needed? Something to so with self appointed Community Groups I expect. If councils don't use the powers they already have then that is a different matter.
This nonsense is just Stalinist planning:
Dekulakization - Wikipedia
The stated purpose of the campaign was to fight the counter-revolution and build socialism in the countryside. This policy was accomplished simultaneously with collectivization in the USSR and effectively brought all agriculture and peasants in the Soviet Russia under state control.
The "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" was announced by Stalin on 27 December 1929....A Stalin crony and OGPU secret police chief, Efim Georgievich Evdokimov, (1891-1939) organized and supervised the roundup of peasants and the mass executions.
A combination of dekulakization, collectivization, and other repressive policies led to mass starvation in many parts of the Soviet Union and the death of at least 14.5 million peasants in 1930-1937, including 5 million who died in Ukraine during Holodomor.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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July 17, 2009
Swine Flu - Pig PR Disaster
Pigs 'have nothing to do with swine flu' according to the WorldAnimal Health Organisation (OIE).
Pigs were not responsible for the start or spead of swine flu, and culling herds would not help protect the public or livestock from the virus, it said.
Moving to allay fears that intensive pig farming was responsible for the global pandemic, the OIE said there was little scientific reason to maintain restrictions placed on pigs and pork products.
You think you have got the message through and then Cheri Blair gets it....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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September 16, 2008
Canine Racists - Will the BBC ban them?
Kennel Club threatens to end 42-year contract with BBC - Telegraph
Shown last month, Pedigree Dogs Exposed showed how some of Britain's most popular dogs are plagued with health problems, ranging from cancer, epilepsy and heart disease, after decades of inbreeding.
The documentary said that some dog owners desperate to win rosettes at shows such as Crufts were deliberately breeding in deformities.
From what I have seen of the Dog breeders themselves they also have suffered from years of inbreeding and their bizarre obsessions with "breed standards" surpass any nose measuring Nazi or colour chart matching Boer for sheer nasty racism. Give me a dog with a bid of hybrid vigour anyday; a working sheepdog, a Jack Russell, a Fox Hound... and you can keep your flat faced wheezing balls of fluff for you to dream of breeding a master race with.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:58 PM
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July 14, 2008
To me it's all about skill, baby, know what I mean?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 PM
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Preserving the countryside from the wild life
Landowners and hunt join forces in legal battle to ban saboteurs - Times Online
A group of 84 landowners is backing a hunt’s attempt to ban saboteurs from almost every piece of open land and countryside in West Sussex.Their aim is to win a common law injunction against trespassing and harassment by activists from the West Sussex Wildlife Protection Group and its two main organisers, Simon and Jaine Wilde, under the Protection and Harassment Act 1997.
If an injunction is awarded at the High Court this week, the activists will be banned from 10,000 acres of land, nearly the whole of the county, except for large public estates, footpaths and public highways.
Mr Sandeman said: “We can’t and won’t stop legitimate monitoring of the hunt from the public highways and rights of way. What we are seeking is a ban to stop the filming of hunt supporters, children and old people, who follow us on foot. There has been considerable intimidation of these people in an attempt to stop them supporting the hunt. Some of the children get very disturbed when cameras are put in front of them.”
He said that harassment on this scale was tiresome and that it also wasted police time, with nine or ten officers turning out to police the hunt opponents.
You may remember Simon Wild(e) as the whining little shit who filmed Fatty Soames heinous law breaking, banning his annoying nasal noises and appalling polyester apparel would without doubt be a boon and a blessing to the countryside.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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June 21, 2008
News From the Divorce Courts
Beavers ‘to carve out £2m fortune’ - Scotsman.com News
Posted by The Englishman at 6:30 AM
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June 13, 2008
Drive by shooting
Naughty boys down Pewsey way - don't they know you don't go for a head shot.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:20 PM
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May 4, 2008
Lazy Sunday
I'm down with man flu so I will leave you with this picture of Max the Boar helping me mend his water trough yesterday.
And to remind you that tomorrow there is an:
Open Wood Fire Hog Roast
King’s Arms, All Cannings - 5th May 2008
Free Range Hog roast in a bun, apple sauce and crackling
Or
Mr Angus Beef cooked Argentinean style (£3.50 supplement)
Ensalada mixta
Ensalada de espinacas con nueces
Ensalada apetitosa
Ensalada chilena
Papas a la pobre
De postre
Arroz con leche
£12.95 per person (With dessert £14.95 per person)
Bookings taken on 01380 860 328 or turn up from midday. Food finishes at 4pm
(I haven't told Max yet, but don't worry he can carry on smiling as he is quite safe, this year... )
Posted by The Englishman at 11:21 AM
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February 23, 2008
A Pig Farmer writes
High price of wheat threatens pig farms - Telegraph
Desperate UK pig farmers have doubled the usual number of breeding sows they are sending to slaughter to 7,000 a week because they can no longer afford to feed them following a doubling of wheat prices since last summer.
The high number of animals being culled lays bare a crisis that is devastating the pig industry. Wheat is the main constituent of pig feed, and, on average, farmers are losing £27 per pig due to the massive increase in overheads.
When you buy your bacon for the weekend, buy British. It's as easy as
checking the pack. Then the people who produce it might just get a few
pence of that. If you want to be sure that it is being passed on, then
you are safer buying your bacon from Waitrose, where all pork products
and 95 per cent of the bacon is British.
British pig farms have some of the highest welfare standards in
the world, and British pork and bacon tastes wonderful. Yet we continue
to choose cheaper imports for what – around 10p less per packet? –
almost guaranteeing a future in which British bacon becomes a luxury
food item from a niche specialist, and we have no choice at all. It
doesn't make sense.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM
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February 20, 2008
Toothpicking Boars
Wild boar under fire and on the menu - Times Online
Boar hunting is to return to pockets of English woodland in an attempt to keep down their numbers.
A selective cull was sanctioned yesterday, 400 years after the last native wild boar reputedly met its end on the hunting lance of King James I....
Some boar hunting or stalking is already taking place on private land. Shooting experts believe that farmers will start to charge individuals to hunt on their land.
Three years after the ban on hunting with hounds in England and Wales, boar hunting will help to boost the rural economy. Charlie Jacoby, the editor of Sporting Rifleman, said he believed that boar hunting would take off. ...
— No licence is required to hunt boar in Britain. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation recommends using a minimum .270 calibre rifle and advises marksmen to aim for the heart and lungs
Poofs - all you need is a decent knife and a couple of dogs.
(Unfortunately because of the old war wound I can't join in, so I will be off to get a firearm variation...)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM
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February 18, 2008
Spliffy answer to the food "crises"
The Press Association: Cameron warns of 'global food crunch'
David Cameron is to warn of Britain's vulnerability to a "global food crunch" as he sets out a package of measures to support home-grown farming.
With increasing competition for farm produce from the growing economies of China and India, the growing market for biofuels to provide "green" energy and the threat of global warming, the Tory leader will say that the era of abundant food supplies may be drawing to an end....
And he will say that British farmers must "reconnect with their customers" by wooing them away from the supermarkets with organic box delivery schemes, farmers' markets and local shops.
"These three things, I believe, will help us face down the ever-growing threat to our food security," he will say.
Dave, why do you come out with such tosh? Organic food boxes, ruddy faced yeoman selling misshapened carrots and the corner shop are all jolly nice but in the scheme of the global food business are so insignificant it is insulting to mention them as "cures" for a the "problem".
Though as you are talking to my trade union we don't see it as a problem, as NFU president Peter Kendall will argue that Britain has a "moral duty" to the rest of the world to step up its production of food and biofuels. Keeps the prices up and land prices have soared so trebles all round.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM
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February 1, 2008
School Dinners
Mad boar shot dead at primary school - Telegraph
A wild boar has been shot dead at a school after it became aggressive while children were being dropped off at the gates.
The adult male, which had entered the primary's fenced off conservation area, began stomping its feet and charging after a Forestry Commission ranger was called to assess the situation...
Peter Knight, the head teacher of the primary, said: "No child was present when the animal was destroyed and we will be holding a special assembly this afternoon to explain to all the children what happened.
"We did try to avoid this situation, but the safety of our pupils, staff and parents has to be priority."
What the kids would really like is not a soppy explanation but a raging fire with the boar slowly turning on the spit above it.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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January 26, 2008
My Kind of Bear
The hero bear who went to war (and loved a smoke and a beer) | the Daily Mail
Like any soldier, he loved to relax with a cigarette and a bottle of beer when out of the firing line.
But in the heat of battle, he became an inspiring figure - bravely passing ammunition along to supply the guns.
All the men in the Second Polish Transport Company agreed that the recruit they called Voytek was the perfect comrade.
As for Voytek, he was just happy to be part of the unit... ever ready to lend a helping paw.
The 250lb brown bear, standing more than 6ft tall, was possibly the most remarkable combatant of the Second World War, seeing action amid the hell of Monte Cassino in Italy.
After the war, he and his fellow troops were billeted in Scotland and he lived out his days in Edinburgh Zoo, dying in 1963. ....
Teacher Garry Paulin has written a book Voytek -The Soldier Bear, which will be published next month.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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January 23, 2008
Offensive Pigs
BBC NEWS | Education | Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'
A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency's annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims.
The digital book, re-telling the classic fairy tale, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues".
The awards which rejected the book are run by Becta, the government's educational technology agency.
The judging panel also attacked the book's stereotyping of builders.
...The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize winner at the recent Education Resource Award - but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly were turned down by the Bett Award panel, run the government's technology agency.
The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-Rom highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".
They also warned that the story might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)".
The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?"
The book's creative director Ms Price said that rather than preventing the spread of racism, such an attitude was likely to inflame ill-feeling. As another example, she says would that mean that secondary schools could not teach Animal Farm because it features pigs?
Judge for yourself - unlike the BBC I can provide a link that works - it is the unique way I'm funded...
Posted by The Englishman at 2:36 PM
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January 1, 2008
Geeky New Year
Today, the first of January, 01/01, is the earliest "binary" day of the year (there are nine days to the next, on the 10th of this month, then nine months to the one after that on 01/10, and then the last on November 11)....2008 is certain to be an unusually cheerful year: for if you work on the sum of the squares of its component figures (2, 0, 0 and 8), you get 2[squared] + 0[squared] + 0[squared] + 8² = 68; then continuing, 6² + 8² = 100; and finally 1² + 0[squared] + 0² = 1.
This means that 2008 is what mathematicians call a "happy number
Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM
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December 6, 2007
Deer suffering on the League Against Cruel Sports' (LACS) "sanctuary" on Baronsdown on Exmoor
BBC Southwest recently screened an exposé showing deer suffering on the League Against Cruel Sports' (LACS) "sanctuary" on Baronsdown on Exmoor.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 PM
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November 15, 2007
I am the man, the very fat man,
Poor British harvest may raise pint prices 15p - Telegraph
Barley prices have increased by nearly 40 per cent compared to last year
I can't find out how much barley is used per pint but it is the square root of bugger all. The total malting barley requirement for the UK is 1,850,000 tonnes which includes producing whisky, vinegar, and even lager. At £200 a tonne that means the whole market is worth £370 million
The UK beer market was worth £20.14bn in 2005 - and prices have gone up 15% since then. So if we estimate that beer takes half the malted barley, and that imported beer takes 15% of the market than we are left with £20 billion of beer using £200 million worth of barley.
Hoping I have got my decimal points in the right place I make that to be 1% of the value - in other words 2.5 pence, a tanner's worth in a £2.50 pint. So don't come the price of Barley as the price increases.
All together now...
I am the man, the very fat man,
That waters the workers' beer
I am the man, the very fat man,
That waters the workers' beer
And what do I care if it makes them ill,
If it makes them terribly queer
I've a car, a yacht, and an aeroplane,
And I waters the workers' beer
I am the man, the very fat man,
That waters the workers' beer
I am the man, the very fat man,
That waters the workers' beer
And what do I care if it makes them ill,
If it makes them terribly queer
I've a car, a yacht, and an aeroplane,
And I waters the workers' beer
Now when I waters the workers' beer,
I puts in strychnine
Some methylated spirits,
And a can of kerosine
Ah, but such a brew so terribly strong,
It would make them terribly queer
So I reaches my hand for the watering-can
And I waters the workers' beer
Now a drop of good beer is good for a man
When he's tired, thirsty and hot
And I sometimes have a drop myself,
From a very special pot
For a strong and healthy working class
Is the thing that I most fear
So I reaches my hand for the watering-can
And I waters the workers' beer
Now ladies fair, beyond compare,
Be you maiden or wife
Spare a thought for such a man
Who leads such a lonely life
For the water rates are frightfully high,
And the meths is terribly dear
And there ain't the profit there used to be
In watering the workers' beer
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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October 23, 2007
If you go down to the woods tonight
Badger are at their best from October to November, being fat and succulent by then.
The flesh can be treated as young pig meat in every respect, it being just as rich and having the flavor of a young pig. It can be cured by salting, the hams being exceptionally good fare. Badger pies are even better than pork pies, hot or cold.
Badger Ham, To Bake
A badger ham will weigh 7 to 8 pounds and needs cooking very carefully. Soak the ham for at least 6 hours in cold water. Wash it after soaking in lukewarm water. Cover it with a rough paste made with 3 pounds of flour and 3 pounds of water; make sure to wrap it well. Bake in a moderate oven, pre-heat to 350 F for 21/2 to 3 hours.
Remove the paste and cover with bread raspings whilst still hot, if to be served cold. If to be served hot, serve with broad beans and fresh parsley sauce or cider sauce.
Recipe Excerpt From
The Master Book of Poultry and Game
By Henry Smith
Spring Books
Circa 1950
Posted by The Englishman at 8:09 PM
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October 16, 2007
Lost in Wiltshire
Posted by The Englishman at 8:30 PM
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October 9, 2007
Benn's Silencing of The Lambs
Healthy lambs will be slaughtered and burnt - Times Online
Hundreds of thousands of healthy lambs on Scottish hill farms are to be slaughtered and incinerated as a result of an export ban imposed by foot-and-mouth restrictions.
Up to 400,000 light lambs will be disposed of under a “welfare” initiative, first reported in The Times 11 days ago. Because of the movement restrictions the animals have been starving as grazing diminishes.
The lambs, which weigh under 25kg, were specially bred for the European market, where they are eaten whole. But because of the lack of decent grazing, they are now regarded as too small to be processed for butcher meat. The situation is so desperate that many of the lambs have been eating grass reserved to fatten ewes.
Plans to can the meat and send it to Malawi, rather than simply render it, were blocked by the EU export ban...
Eaten whole? Is Mr Creosote alive and well? I think Booker and Eu Referendum provide a better coverage of this literal shambles.
Last night Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Farming, announced a £12.5 million support package for livestock farmers in England hit by the foot-and-mouth restrictions, with separate arrangements for farmers in Scotland and Wales; however it was not clear if the payments would cover the cost of the cull in Scotland.
As Mr Benn announced the details of the support package he acknowledged that the most likely source of the outbreak was faulty drains at premises in Pirbright, Surrey.
Oh that is good of him to admit to the possibility it is bloody Defra's fault, what are the chances that he will eventually tell the truth in the end?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM
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September 28, 2007
Bacon Heaven
Australia has more wild pigs than humans - Telegraph
Pig hunting has been popular with rural Australians for decades. The sport even has its own magazines. Bacon Busters has a regular 'Babes and Boars' page, featuring photographs of bikini-clad young women sitting astride dead pigs.
'Babes and Boars' - my subscription is in the post, does it get much better?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:13 AM
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May 27, 2007
Huntin' Hawgs
Tim Worstall meditates on Hog Hunting and the skill in photographing trophies...
For real Hog hunting stories try sites like Affordable Hog Hunts where you can hunt Boars across Texan farm land armed only with a knife, even if you are a cripple
Posted by The Englishman at 8:13 PM
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April 19, 2007
Old Banger Fuel
BBC NEWS | Business | Pig fat to be turned into diesel
While animal diesel may be an environmentally friendly alternative, there are fears it may not be to everybody's tastes or ethics.
Mr Webster admitted that they were yet to discuss this new product with vegetarian and religious groups.
Ummm - lets think what they will say... there sure are a lot of people out there who don't like frying pigs.
My only hope is that they keep the smell, imagine buses smelling of bacon cooking, heaven!
Posted by The Englishman at 11:07 PM
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January 28, 2007
A tale of pigs and rampant rabbits...
There is another old country skill being lost to mechanisation, old Jed and his knarled old fingers and little rub of Boar taint behind his ears will soon be out of work, you can't expect a machine to bring a sow on heat as well as a skilled artisan, can you?
Posted by The Englishman at 10:47 PM
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January 6, 2007
Don't mess with Grandma
Telegraph | News | Grandmother beats off wild boars to save dog
A grandmother described yesterday how she fended off three wild boar with a dog lead to prevent them attacking her dachshund.
Rosemarie Hamilton-Meikle, 80, was walking her four-year-old, 14-inch tall pet, Bosun, in woodland on the edge of Dartmoor when the dog darted into the undergrowth.
She followed him and found him lying on the ground surrounded by the boars. She swung the lead at them and the two females fled. But the male boar stood his ground three feet away.
Mrs Hamilton-Meikle had another swing and struck the male boar on the nose, sending him fleeing into the undergrowth at Buckland Monachorum, Devon.
Oh so that is all I need for my walk round this weekend, the sort of Granny we can all be proud of!
Posted by The Englishman at 8:06 AM
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January 3, 2007
And a Happy New Year to Mr Miliband
Telegraph | News | No further aid for food, minister to tell farmers
Farmers in the future will not be given any support for food production, the Environment Secretary, David Miliband, will say today. Instead they will be helped to maintain landscapes and tackle climate change....
He is likely to face a hostile reception because the latest Government figures show that the green farming schemes that he believes will continue to be key to the reform of European farm policy have been hit by a version of the late payment fiasco that happened to English farmers' subsidy cheques last year.
Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show that more than 28 per cent of the farmers who should have been paid in November for carrying out work such as installing skylark plots and planting hedges have not yet....
Farmers enter into a 10-year contract with the Government,...Payment was due on Nov 15 ...
The scheme is administered by the Rural Development Service, which comes under the new agency Natural England. But the RDS has similar problems with its Genesis software to those that plagued the Rural Payments Agency and its mapping system.
Officials at Natural England were unable to explain where the IT problem lay because those responsible were not working between Christmas and New Year.
Lucky them sat at home stuffing themselves with cheap turkey and sprouts on their extensive annual holidays while the poor bloody farmers are trying to balance their books having had their contrat with the government welched on yet again, the bank doesn't stop charging interest, nor the suppliers demanding payment because it is the twelve bloody days of Christmas. If they have cocked up they should stay at their desks until it is put right - and that includes the smiling boy wonder Mr Miliband.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM
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December 2, 2006
To the first approximation...
The success of the human race, and also some of its uglier deeds can be traced to our highly developed sense of what is true to the first approximation.
"to a first approximation" definition
1. to a first approximation - When one is doing certain numerical computations, an approximate solution may be computed by any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a final value. By using the starting point of a first approximation of the answer, one can write an algorithm that converges more quickly to the correct result.
2. to a first approximation - In jargon, a preface to any comment that indicates that the comment is only approximately true
Leaving aside the dark side of racism and bigotry this technique frees us from slow tedious calculations for every new situation we meet. For example simple rules about fungi or berries can save your life, and if you miss out on the delights of a rare delicacy then that is a small price to pay.
And in general life I find it increasingly useful to draw up such rules, and I want to hear yours, we need to build a common knowledge base.
My rules:
All timeshares are cons.
If you don't understand the deal, don't do it.
Nothing is too complicated to be explained on more than one side of one sheet of paper.
Americans can be trusted.
Politicians can't.
Anyone who claims to be a funny, crazy guy isn't.
Modern Jazz isn't worth listening to.
Old men in pubs are.
Young people's opinions aren't worth spit.
Young people should be listened to with respect and patience.
Nobody cooks breakfast like your mum did.
No bed is as comfortable as your own.
Trusting your first instincts is rarely wrong.
Stupid haircut equals stupid person.
Anyone one wearing stacks or a syrup can't be trusted.
...
So what have I missed?
Posted by The Englishman at 12:50 AM
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October 27, 2006
Final Paddy Update
First Published 25 October 2005:
This blog likes to be inclusive and celebrates diversity so for the pig lovers amongst us here is an update on Patrick the Glos Old Spot trainee Boar.
He has been growing at a couple of pounds a day and seems to have done the dirty deed. Expect news of piglets in Dec.
Here he is choosing a warm place to sleep (unwisely?) and also his Churchillian pose.
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:16
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:16
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:22
I sorry to say no piglets ever arrived and Paddy developed a name as the "Gay Boar", call me a homophobic speciest but with his arthritis getting worse (maybe he just had a bad back) I'm afraid he went off to the kennels today to feed the hounds. I'll miss the old bugger, but young Max is looking like a promising replacement.
Off to the pub with Mr NBC, Mr FM and Old Don to drown my sorrows - and no Pork Scratchings for me thanks..
Posted by The Englishman at 5:37 PM
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April 26, 2006
What a waste
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that tallow, a by-product of meat processing, is a waste, not a product, and cannot be burned as a fuel in rendering plants.
Defra's interpretation of the EU Waste Incineration Directive, which came into force at the end of last year, is not shared by regulators in Ireland, France and Holland, where tallow continues to be burned.
British renderers, however, were told that they should stop burning tallow and switch to another fuel by yesterday's deadline.
The United Kingdom Renderers Association has said it would have to pass on the added costs of disposal to meat and livestock businesses even though "there are serious doubts as to their ability to meet them."
It has told Mrs Beckett that banning the burning of tallow, which is a renewable, carbon-neutral fuel, will cause the burning of 70,000 worth of fossil fuels per plant and increase Britain's rising carbon dioxide emissions by 750,000 tons a year....
"Mrs Beckett is constantly wagging her fingers at the Bush administration for using too much fossil fuel. This decision means we will actually be burning more fossil fuels. A softer interpretation would be to the benefit of everyone - and the environment."
A Defra spokesman said: "Defra's view is that the legal position is clear - tallow when incinerated is a waste and the renderers must comply with the directive.
"Defra is aware of the EC's study on the environmental impact of burning tallow, which is expected later this year. We shall review the position in the light of the commission's conclusions."
And there you have it - the whole EU/ Defra madness, have they all been eating too many hamburgers?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM
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March 20, 2006
Celebrate the fat of the land
Bonhams sale of Naive Art -Times Online
Rosettes at agricultural shows in the 19th century were given to the largest and bulkiest cattle, pigs and sheep. For their owners, the size of the beast plus the fattiness and marbling of the meat were important. The phenomenon produced its own genre of naive art as farmers commissioned portraits of their prime animals....
I'm pleased that here at the castle we have some examples of this type of picture - here are a couple of examples of the fattier Porkers...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:41 AM
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February 27, 2006
One for the carnivores
Meat Identification Test
Strange American cuts though - whereas some of us want our meat " burnt like St. Joan, served with Calvins horseradish and mustards to pierce the tongue like Cardigans lances".
Posted by The Englishman at 9:07 PM
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February 3, 2006
Baa
BBC NEWS | UK | Prince Charles backs 'revival' of mutton
The jokes are too obvious and besides I have great deal of respect for Camilla so instead let me point you to the excellent Adopt a Sheep For Meat idea!
Posted by The Englishman at 12:09 PM
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January 19, 2006
Ovine Proclivities
I'm glad to see The Times maintains the old standards of erudition:
Rachel Campbell-Johnston Arts Notebook Times Online
FOR MANY, mention of sheep summons ribald jokes and not romantic fantasies. They too have their roots in Theocritus. His homoerotic imaginings added spice to his poems. But I was amused to come across a scientific report into homosexual proclivities among ovines. They appeared to have a biological basis in rams. But how will we ever know for ewes? The female, apparently, when she wants to elicit interest, stands perfectly still. Who knows how many ewes are out there waiting patiently for a same-sex partner?
So horny ewes just stand there looking blank - that explains a lot about the Welsh...
Posted by The Englishman at 4:59 PM
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January 5, 2006
Boar hunting with a Bowie
With Wild Boar in the news a lot I thought it worthwhile reposting this - come on you Devon lads, show us that Drake's spirit isn't dead!
Just in case you missed it the comments to Be careful out there! are worth reading. Especially when we started talking about hunting boars with a knife.
Thanks to George for this:
The photo below shows a 12 year old kid with 2 wild boars that he took with a Bowie. Each boar weighed 225 lbs. Three catch dogs were used.
This was at a place called Buck and Boar in South Carolina.
http://community.webshots.com/photo/105987163/105988017iMZJhS
That is one hell of a kid - and a hell of a great place to be brought up.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:27 PM
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October 25, 2005
Paddy Update
This blog likes to be inclusive and celebrates diversity so for the pig lovers amongst us here is an update on Patrick the Glos Old Spot trainee Boar.
He has been growing at a couple of pounds a day and seems to have done the dirty deed. Expect news of piglets in Dec.
Here he is choosing a warm place to sleep (unwisely?) and also his Churchillian pose.
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:16
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:16
Image taken on 10/10/2005 19:22
Posted by The Englishman at 5:15 PM
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October 17, 2005
Infidel Press Release
I have been asked to publish a Press Release - so without comment ...
New Ball Point pen is a powerful physchological deterrent to terror and holds the promise of ending suicide bombings
Las Vegas, Nevada -- October 15, 2005 With global suicide bombings on the rise, more and more innocent lives are being destroyed. In response, Susblood Labs, LLC is introducing a quality writing instrument that contains a potent formulation including a non-toxic, cryogenically frozen porcine plasma (pigs blood) as a key component.
The ancient Islamic "Doctrine of Jihad" promises homicide bombers an eternity in paradise accompanied by 72 virgins in exchange for committing their deadly acts of suicidal terror. However, this same doctrine states that Muslim terrorists defiled by pig's blood will not enter paradise, but will instead spend eternity in hell, alone. Knowing that a fine mist of pig's blood will be sprinkled all over his body after his bomb explodes may well cause an Islamic terrorist to think twice before following through with his heinous act. says Dr. James Susblood, founder of Susblood Labs, LLC.
Just last year, pig's blood and other pork by-products were approved for use in Israel by the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court in an effort to dissuade homicide bombings.
"Our intent is to overcome the threat of terror with the promise of eternal damnation," says Dr. Susblood.
Susblood Labs, LLC is today announcing the release of a new ergonomic and completely functional ball point pen called "Infidel's Revenge." This pen is a high quality writing instrument and incorporates the same technology used in the Companys industrial product line. The Infidels Revenge ball point pen resembles a hypodermic needle and is encased in a sealed plastic cylinder that contains the patent-pending formula. The formula is non-toxic and completely safe. This pen can now be purchased by any consumer, and provides a simple and effective way for everyone to fight terrorism.
Finally, there is something we can all do to prevent terror attacks. Using the new Susblood pens for your everyday writing needs means that terror prevention technology will be resident in every drawer, every purse, every pocket everywhere, thereby eliminating the terrorists' primary motivation for homicide bombing," states Dr. Susblood. Suicide bombers contemplating terror must now decide between completing their mission and spending eternity in hell.
Susblood Labs, LLC is a privately held research and development company headquartered in Las Vegas, NV and engaged in the production and deployment of terror prevention technologies designed to save innocent men, women and children from suicide terrorist acts. Susblood Labs products are safe and, when properly used, pose no health hazards. At the same time these products provide a powerful and frightful psychological deterrent to the would-be-terrorists of the Jihad.
For more information or an interview, please contact John Murphy, by phone at (408) 239-6642 or email at: jmurphy@susbloodlabs.com
Web site address: http://www.susbloodlabs.com
Web log: terrorstopper@blogspot.com
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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October 2, 2005
Piglet ban
Express & Star News for the West Midlands & Staffordshire
Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned by bosses at Dudley Council in case Muslim staff are offended.
Workers in the council's benefits department have been told to remove or cover up all pig products including toys, porcelain, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.
Patrick, Primrose and Dolly will be most offended that they are thought to be objectional - who do I complain to?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:27 PM
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September 20, 2005
George and 'Pollo recommend
You may have noticed the advert over there on the right - so splashing out far more than I will ever earn from the advert I bought some Dog Treats - I was particularly interested in discovering the mixes that your children bake and cut out (with the supplied bone shaped cutter) for your hound.
Ordered yesterday - here today - happy dogs this evening. You know it's what your best friend wants.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 PM
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August 20, 2005
Milko!
Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's long winter will just fly by for a herd of Russian cows which, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, will be fed confiscated marijuana over the cold months.
Drug workers said they adopted the unusual form of animal husbandry after they were forced to destroy the sunflowers and maize crops that the 40 tonnes of marijuana had been planted among, Novye Izvestia daily reported.
An extra pinta a day for my Wheetybangs is called for I believe, nothing a like a good breakfast to get you set up for the day.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:35 AM
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August 9, 2005
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
Image taken on 8/8/2005 19:07
The Hippopotamus Song
Words by Michael Flanders
Music by Donald Swann and Michael Flanders
A bold Hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar.
He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star.
Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair Hippopotamine maid.
The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
The fair Hippopotamus he aimed to entice,
From here seen on the hilltop above,
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice,
Came tip-toeing down to her love.
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang as they met.
His enamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
Now more Hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide.
I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
That ensued by the Shalimar side?
They dived all at once with an ear-splitting splash,
Then rose to the surface again,
A regular army of Hippopotami
All singing this haunting refrain.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:43 AM
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July 15, 2005
The adventures of Paddy continue
Paddy literally frothing at the mouth at the prospects of the Girls coming to visit
Oh here's one of them - she has heard me coming!
>
Hello M'Dear! How good of you to come, pleasant journey I hope, have you had a drink?
Posted by The Englishman at 4:01 PM
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July 13, 2005
Yum Yum
Forman & Field Fine Food - specialising in fine foods from traditional producers, producers whose philosophy is quality through and through, using artisan skills, age-old recipes and the finest fresh ingredients.
Looks great - my mouth is watering! 100 years in Marshgate Lane in the East End of London - but not for much longer as the Ken and his Olympics will bulldoze them out - sign their petition against it please.
As The Times put it:What Paula Radcliffe paused to do in the streets of London, bid organisers are doing to the locals.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:58 PM
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July 12, 2005
Update on advice for Paddy
The Straight Dope: Does the pig have a corkscrew-shaped penis?
Yes - and I hope he is righthand thread, otherwise it won't be "lock and load" but bacon time!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:25 AM
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July 11, 2005
Paddy Update
Image taken on 11/7/2005 16:17
Paddy is growing up fast - next week he is going to go and meet the girls for the first time. Off to earn his keep. He is full of teenage testosterone and getting uppity to any males who go and see him. Pigs react to the same pheromones as humans. I recall going round a Wild Boar farm where the pen of young male Boars all came over Terry Thomas like to the female owner, one sniff of me and it was - "Hey you, this is my bitch, get your arse out of my sight", whereas the female Boars (Wild Boar is the breed name) all simpered through the fence at me...
Oh well, I suppose I will have to have "that" little chat with him before he goes to work - the birds and the bees probably won't cut it with him, any suggestions?
Posted by The Englishman at 4:28 PM
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June 12, 2005
Draw A Pig - Personality test
http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/gallery/2005/6/12/468960.jpg
Posted by The Englishman at 9:30 PM
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June 7, 2005
Slaughterhouse Blues
GETTING CHILDREN onto farms and into abattoirs is a top priority for the Danish pigmeat industry, with the government also backing efforts to educate the public about the realities of food production.
Danish agriculture minister Hans Christian Schmidt stressing the importance of showing young people where their food comes from.
"People must realise that when they settle down in the countryside, sometimes they will come across animals,"
Mr Schmidt believes it is right to show children around the country's abattoirs too.
One company doing just that is Danish Crown with its new slaughtering facility at Horsens in east Jutland.
The largest factory in Denmark, killing one pig every four seconds, the plant also has a special viewing gallery.
Danish Crown GB - Facts about the new slaughterhouse
Weekly slaughterings: approx. 78,000
Employees: approx. 1,360
Ground area: approx. 37 hectares
Automatic evisceration
Slaughter robots
Group housing and stunning (with gas)
Heating with lard possible....
I am happy to rear my own pigs, take them to the local Slaughterhouse and then eat them, but there is something vaguely all too Teutonic in this facility for me to be happy...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:53 PM
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May 27, 2005
Never tasted Pork..
Telegraph | News | Royal priest in row over anti-semitic jibe about Howard
One of the Prince of Wales's favourite clerics was at the centre of a storm ..after an anti-semitic remark in a Cotswold pub.
The Rev Christopher Mulholland, 60, is in charge of several churches near the prince's Highgrove home and has regularly hunted with him and his sons with the Beaufort Hunt.
He is a colourful and outspoken character and has the reputation for politically incorrect opinions, but friends said he would have spoken with "self-mocking humour" and he was not a racist.
...When a waitress asked who had ordered a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, the vicar said: "Well it's certainly not for Michael Howard! I always say I couldn't trust a man who has not tasted pork."
I know this is an old story now, but it has only just struck me that of course the old boy wasn't being racist.
(If there is any basis for racism it is the belief in some sort of genetic superiority and inferiority of different races, it is the sort of belief you need as a socialist because you are concerned with ruling "a society" and therefore need to draw boundaries of who is in and who is out of it. Us vile free marketeers believe in dealing, and being friends, with anyone on the basis of what they offer and their individual characteristics, and to discriminate against a bunch of people of fatuous grounds is against logic and self-interest. Racism is based on genetic discrimination, an unalterable part of a person's being, which alone makes it obviously unfair. Discrimation based on people's lifestyle choices is something everyone does and is quite logical.)
"Not eating Pork" is a lifestyle choice, based on your choice of religion, no different to your choice in hats or shoes. And if saying "I could never trust someone wearing a "hoody"," is acceptable - as it seems to be now, then so is saying I don't trust a man who has denied himself the glorious joys of Bacon, Sausages, Gammon, Roast Pork, Crackling, Faggots, Pork Scratching, BBQ ribs etc. simply because of his choice of imaginary friend.
Oh, and I wish we had this sort of man as our local vicar!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:45 AM
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May 5, 2005
Veggie News
Telegraph | Money | Eating Quorn can damage your health, says US protest group
A US lobby group has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturers of Quorn, claiming the meat alternative is not "healthy and delicious" as the makers contend, but can in fact cause life threatening allergies.
Just the idea of it makes me nauseous - can I sue?
And this is what happens if you turn veggie...
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Killer dino 'turned vegetarian'
The "mass graveyard" of a bird-like dinosaur has been uncovered in Utah, US, Nature magazine reports this week.
Scientists believe the previously unknown species was in the process of converting to vegetarianism from a rather more bloodthirsty diet.
You end up extinct!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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March 31, 2005
Ahhh Bacon!
BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | 'Smelly' bacon butties off menu
A sandwich shop has been banned from selling bacon butties after a vegetarian complained about the smell.
There is something about the smell of a Bacon Sandwich which tempts even the hardest Veggie - I would contribute to a Hog roast on the street outside just to annoy him further!
Posted by The Englishman at 8:43 PM
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February 22, 2005
Last call for Pork Futures
The pork is coming back on Thursday in half pig packs - properly butchered and wrapped, no head or extremities - just oven ready pork I'm pricing it at 2 a kg as I haven't got a freezer to take it and Mrs Englishman doesn't want it in the house.
Are you interested in a half? - I could send it out by courier if needed at your risk and cost.
The Bacon will be along later after it has been cured.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:50 PM
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February 9, 2005
Yum Yum - Pork and Bacon for sale
I have a litter of GOS/Lop pigs off to the slaughter house next week and am arranging for some of them to go onto Sandridge Farm to be turned into Bacon etc.
I'm in the middle of Wiltshire near Devizes, if anyone fancies a side of pork or bacon, which will be all packaged up nicely, then give me a shout.
The piggies have been running around outside all the time so should be tasty.
Price will be basically what I would have earnt from selling them on the hook plus the butchery costs.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:15 AM
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October 30, 2004
Pigs strike back
Guardian Unlimited Sport | Columnists | Fore! Wild pigs on worldwide attack . . .
...the situation worldwide hints at a wider porcine motive: though national intelligence agencies are reluctant to confront the fact, it is plain that wild boar are waging a guerrilla war against golf.
Incensed by the insidious spread of the game and the way it distributes its fussy playing areas over the surface of the planet like a seaside landlady depositing doilies about the parlour before the arrival of a coach-party of priests, the pigs are striking back. It is like Hitchcock's The Birds, only smellier and with brighter coloured knitwear.....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:28 PM
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October 14, 2004
How to measure an elephant's height
"Apparently, a good way to estimate the height of an elephant is to measure the diameter of its foot and then multiply by 2pi. For this calculation the value of 3 (often used in the ancient world) should give sufficient accuracy." If not http://3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.com/ may be able to help.....
Posted by The Englishman at 8:48 PM
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October 6, 2004
Margaritas ante Porcos
Ananova - Hairdressers help drive away wild boar
Hairdressers in a German town have started collecting their customers' hair to drive away wild boar.
The spa town of Bad Saarow, between Berlin and Frankfurt on the Oder, has been plagued by boar roaming the town.
The animals have already destroyed a park and a sports ground, and weren't scared away by shots.
Now health and safety chief Juergen Knuth is now turning to a traditional way of keeping boar away - human hair.
Now isn't that much more civilised and European than those butch Texans at HUNTING TACTICS FOR WILD BOAR who recommend a hand loaded, lubricated, hard cast bullet in their revolver....
In my Google research I cam across this picture with the caption:
Call Randy at 740-745-2911
Semen Shipped Daily
VISA, COD and Approved Direct Billing
You have to be English to giggle at that...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:59 PM
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September 30, 2004
We are family
We are pleased to announce the birth of our first six piglets:
Huge version
Mrs Englishman is not keen on the idea of them turniong into bacon as they are so cute, - now all we have to do is name them.
Posted by The Englishman at 2:06 PM
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September 21, 2004
The Pigs have landed..
Two Gloucestershire Old Spots Pigs arrived at The Castle yesterday - it has been a few years since I had them around so I'm deeply gruntled to have them back.
So combined with the new business (interviews on Local Radio kept me away from The Adam Smith Institute and lunch with Mr Free Market - my liver is grateful) blogging may be light. Contemplating the idiocacy of politicians, greens and Bogusmongers is less appealing when the alternative is go and give a sow a stroke behind the ears.
"The actual lines of a pig (I mean a really fat pig) are among the loveliest and most luxuriant in nature; the pig has the same great cureves, swift and yet heavy, which we see in rushing water and in rolling clouds."
G.K. Chesterton, in his 1920 book The Uses of Diversity."
Oh and they are due to farrow in the next month, weaners available for Christmas...
Posted by The Englishman at 1:27 PM
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September 6, 2004
The Worlds longest running experiment yields good news.
The Guardian reports on an experimenty I remember studying when I was at college (of course it hadn't been running for so many years then!)
One field at Rothamsted, Broadbalk, has been growing wheat for 161 years and soil samples are taken annually, in what was one of the original experiments, Prof Goulding said. "Broadbalk shows that our agriculture is sustainable because yields keep going up." What we are getting is more food for the same amounts of fertiliser year after year, by better agronomy, better agricultural practice."
Posted by The Englishman at 2:05 PM
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July 16, 2004
Pig News
Please excuse me - I have been lax in not posting any pig news for a while, to make up for it here is an item from Japan.
Mainichi Interactive - Top News
KOBE -- A 70-year-old lawyer lost her finger and a 56-year-old housewife sustained minor injuries to her buttocks after they were attacked by a rampaging wild boar here, police said.
The boar suddenly appeared out of the woods near a housing estate in Higashinada-ku, Kobe, and attacked the women as they walked home from a shopping trip.
It bit the finger off the older woman, slammed its head into the buttocks of the housewife, then rushed back into the forest area from which it had come.
The incident occurred on Wednesday night. (Mainichi Shimbun, July 15, 2004)
Posted by The Englishman at 9:22 AM
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July 8, 2004
Pig Victory
I covered this story when it first came out so here is an update:
this is derbyshire - news, entertainment, jobs, homes and cars
An historic statue of a wild boar is to be reinstated in a Derby park in a move that has been hailed a "victory for people power".
The decision to put the Florentine Boar statue back into Arboretum Park follows months of public outcry.
Controversy was sparked after it was suggested by a Derby City Council committee that the statue should be put elsewhere for fear of upsetting Muslims, who regard pigs as unclean.
The council had always hoped, as part of a 5.6m heritage lottery- funded project to restore the park to its former glory, to replace the statue with a replica.
But in March the council's minority ethnic communities advisory committee, chaired by Liberal Democrat council leader Maurice Burgess, instead recommended putting in a statue of the park's architect, John Loudon.
This prompted a tide of anger from residents in the area and from those who regard the boar as an integral part of Derby's history.
More than 2,000 people signed petitions to retain the boar, which had stood in the park from 1840 until it was damaged in a Second World War air raid in 1942.
And the groundswell of public opinion has now forced the council to decide that the boar should be returned%2
Posted by The Englishman at 9:46 PM
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June 23, 2004
What have I done?
A wet afternoon at home so I took the elder Englishette down to Porton Down to look at the fish and birds at the excellent PetShop there - I'm not quite sure why but I came back with a couple of Greylag goose goslings. They are installed in the pond area, but they can get out through the pig netting by squeezing really hard, so they have spent the last couple of hours doing so, and meeting up with the Jack Russels who fancy a tasty morsel. Chaos reigns. Tomorrow I hope they start to learn some manners or they might not make it through the day.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:08 PM
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April 10, 2004
"stuck with cloves and roasted or baked"
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Bustards brought back to Britain
In the next few weeks, 40 great bustard chicks will be taken from their nests near the Volga river in Russia, driven to Moscow, put on a night flight to Heathrow, rushed through Customs and, while still dark, taken to a pen on land rented from the army on Salisbury plain.
The two-week-old birds will wake to a motherless world of unlimited food, high wire fences and nearby artillery practice. Most confusing of all, however, the only people they will be allowed to see for many months will be dressed in Ku Klux Klan-type "dehumanisation" suits, without visible arms or legs, who will train them to survive in the the wild by poking at them stuffed foxes on the end of sticks.
The birds are by any standards extraordinary - a cross between a turkey and an eagle with whiskers, weighing up to 22kg (50lb) and practically needing a runway to take off.
All within Mr Free Market's and my locality - it is going to need a Goose load I think...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
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April 9, 2004
Schweine News
Kalle, Oskar and Willy,and Luise, Berta and Sophie, romp naked for your pleasure in the woods. These continentals, no shame.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:27 AM
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March 30, 2004
Pig Statue
Well I could hardly ignore the story about the Pig statue in Derby. Many others - Dhimmiwatch, The Edge of England's Sword etc. have covered it better than I could.
(Quickly - old statue of Wild Boar used to be in Public Park, lost his head to a Hun Bomb in the last unpleasantness, Park now restored, Muslim population now lives in area, threats to statue etc. about racist plan to restore it.)
Of course I am biased and favour Pig statues everywhere - this one is in Calne, the little Wiltshire town where Oxygen, Photosynthesis and most importantly the Wiltshire cure for Bacon were discovered. And of course only the latter has a statue.
The arguments are so obvious and are well put in the article I link to below. And they can be summarised by "Get a life!"
Posted by The Englishman at 11:06 AM
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March 22, 2004
Too many Guinea Pigs?
RSPCA Centre overrun with guinea pigs - I think I have the solution....(they are known as Cuy in the Andes..)
Cuy as Food
it is always eaten with the hands and fingers never a fork and knife. This practice leaves a tell-tale sweet smell on the fingers of the eater called tufo, making it difficult to explain a night of cuy eating and beer drinking with the boys to a waiting wife. Cuy is almost always accompanied by beer and potatoes, but of course each restaurant and region prides itself on its own special means of cooking the cuy itself: La Namorina in Peru is famous for fried cuy; Chola Flora in Bolivia serves boiled cuy; and in Ecuador many restaurants astound guests with broiled cuy turned on a spit. Ceremonially, cuy is treated as a food marking special occasions or transitions from one stage of life to the next. Examples of household or community cuy feasts include marriages, christenings, a boys first haircut, to request a favor, and to negotiate courtships and marriages between two families. Of late, gatherings centered around cuy have been extended to incorporation into street fairs or fundraising for non-profit organizations.
So they could raise money as well as free up some space...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:00 AM
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March 12, 2004
Scottish Boars
A shadowy group in Scotland, the Wild Beasts Trust, would like to see all the extinct native mammals re-introduced in Scotland starting with Lynx.
Peter Clarke, a member of the trust, said that if the lynx prospers, other species could be re-introduced: "Our shopping list includes the walrus, brown bear, lemming, wolf, elk, boar, wolverine and bison. Restored to our mountains, they will change the soul of Scotland's wilderness areas.
And now the boar are being got ready...
Scotsman.com News - Opinion - My boar babies - born to be free in the land of their birth
WE ARE a grandfather. Unto me are born seven enchanting baby wild boar.
All baby mammals are ench-anting. Even baby Scotsmen. I adored my quota of kittens, puppies, guinea pigs, hamsters and polecats, but infant pigs have extra loveability.
The thrill of my cluster of babies is in mapping out their careers. I reckon my seven boar will be 27 next spring and 100 by 2006. Compound interest is very much like pig fertility. Within a decade, my furry children will outnumber the Scottish Conservative Party.....
And they will be out and about for all of us to enjoy.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:25 PM
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March 10, 2004
Boar shooting advice..
From Pigeon Watch UK Forums -> Boar shooting
Do you think a .177 airgun at 30ft/lb's could stop them? (my uncle wants to know)
Only if it choked on it..
Posted by The Englishman at 12:03 PM
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March 8, 2004
Pig Sticking
Here is a fine old essay to take you back to days of yore...
Chapter III. Sport.
Pig-Sticking
Source: From Baden-Powell
Lessons from the Varsity of Life
THE BOAR
I once adjured Mr. Rudyard Kipling to add to his jungle yarns some notice of the two greatest characters of the wild, who felt that so far their existence was rather ignored in his jungle books these were the Boar and the Mallard, both of them creatures of character.
The Boar, who deserves a big B whenever he is mentioned, is the King of the Jungle. He is the one beast that no other, except possibly the blundering old rhino, will face. When he comes down to drink at the water-hole all other people, including tiger and buffalo and elephant (especially elephant), sneak away, and believe that after all they are not very thirsty or think they will try for a drink somewhere else.
It isn't that he smells or slobbers, but he is so nasty with his tusks. He is the only animal that will go for you without being first roused, because he is the only beast that is habitually crusty.
An old African buffalo, or a Canadian bison, has, of course, his spells of crustiness, and is then unpleasant, but the boar is always peeved about something or other.
He is plucky and tough, as fast as a horse, and can jump where a horse cannot. He stands as high as a table, is long in the leg, and very muscular. He doesn't hesitate to swim a river, even when it is inhabited by crocodiles; he seems to think that the crops which the natives raise of melons, sugar cane' grain, etc., are meant for him to devour, which he does extensively, and if a native objects he knocks him down and tries to disembowel him with his murderous tusks.
Well, that is the fellow we hunt in India on horseback with spears, and there is no sport can touch hog-hunting for excitement or valuable training.
THE HUNT
Three or four riders form a " party." Beaters drive the pig out of his lair in the jungle, and the party then race after him, but for the first three-quarters of a mile he can generally outpace them.
The honours then go to the man who can first come up with and spear him. But so soon as- the boar finds himself in danger of being overtaken he either " jinks," that is, darts off sideways, or else turns round and charges his pursuer.
A spear-thrust, unless delivered in a vital spot, has little effect beyond making him more angry, and then follows a good deal of charging on both sides, and it is not always the boar that comes off second best.
He has a wonderful power of quick and effective use of his tusks and many a good horse has been fatally gashed by the animal he was hunting.
Among the Indian Princes and cavalry leaders are a number of good pig-stickers, and it is on this common ground of sportsmanship that our officers of both British and Indian Regiments are on such good terms of friendship.
A great man after pig was Lord William Beresford, at that time Military Secretary to the Viceroy. And I remember him taking a toss, which would have killed any ordinary man, when riding after a pig at the Stud Farm at Saharunpur.
Here the paddocks were divided by stout post and rail fences with wooden gates. His pig instead of jumping the fence charged through the gate, smashing the bottom bar, lifting the gate off the latch, so that as Beresford's horse rose to jump it the gate swung open under him and landing on the top of it he came a heavy crumpler on the hard roadway.
But Beresford was an Irishman and no harm resulted.
TESTED IN PIG-STICKING
I did most of my hog-hunting when with my Regiment, during three glorious years at Muttra. I never took the usual leave to the hills in hot weather because I could not tear myself away from the sport.
Some fourteen years later, after service in South Africa and at home, I returned to India to take command of the 5th Dragoon Guards.
A few days after I had joined the Regiment I was politely asked by the officers whether we might not have a day's pig-sticking I felt in my bones that there was something underlying this question, and that these young men were anxious to put their new Colonel to the test in the hunting held to see what he was made of.
It was an anxious moment for me. I wasn't sure whether my nerve for the game had survived the years of abstinence from the sport which had intervened. (And it requires some nerve.)
However, once a pig was afoot I forgot all my doubts. We had a great run in which the boar eventually got into a big isolated strip of bushy jungle.
I galloped to the far end to see whether he came out while others watched the sides. Knowing he was in there we called up the beaters and they went through the covert from end to end. Not a sign of him, so I got of f my horse and went in myself with the beaters, carrying my spear with me, to make sure that the place was thoroughly searched. As we advanced through the jungle for the third time I noticed that the beaters in the centre of the line edged outwards as they came to one particularly thick bush.
I pushed forwards towards it, urging them to close in and drive the old beggar out. But there was little need for my exhortation, for he came out of his own accord, not only willingly but with eagerness, and straight at me.
I had just time to lower my spear as he rushed on to it and it went deep into his chest. But the shock of the impact threw me over on my back and, while I held tight to the spear-shaft, he was there just over me, trying to reach me with his tusks but held off sufficiently by the spear stuck in him.
The natives, stout fellows, immediately cleared out of the jungle with loud cries to the horsemen outside, railing in Hindustani: " It's all right, the pig was there; he has killed the Colonel Sahib ! "
In a few moments they were off their horses and dashing in to my rescue. One small officer in his impetuosity dashed at the pig with his spear, missed him clean, and fell over on the top of him. However, better efforts prevailed, and the pig was promptly dispatched.
Then came the awed question: " Do you always go in on foot, sir ? " and in self-defence I had to say: "Of course, why not?"
But this involved me in frequent repetitions of the feat, and in the end we adopted it as a habit, as adding to the excitement of the chase. It certainly gave it an added flavour.
THE KADIR CUP
Every year a hog-hunting competition is held in the Kadir Jungle near Meerut. Sportsmen from all parts of India congregate here to run off the eliminating heats after pig, till the final heat, which decides who is to hold the Cup.
This race is known as the Hog-hunters' Cup.
The Prince of Wales, during his visit to India, came to the camp to witness the final run for the Kadir Cup and then said he would like to ride for the Hog-hunters' Cup. But as this was limited to those who had ridden in the Kadir Cup he was told that it was impossible, and this was urged upon him because nobody wanted to see him ride over that country where falls are the rule and often very bad falls at that.
However, His Royal Highness insisted on starting, on the understanding that he would be disqualified. He was one of the very few that did not fall and though a total stranger to that kind of country he won the race and was disqualified. A great performance.
Being keen on pig-sticking it was only natural that I should enter such horses as I had for the Kadir Cup and this I did on three different occasions. The last was when I was in the 5th Dragoon Guards. The other two men drawn in my heat happened also to be in my Regiment.
We had a ding-dong gallop after a pig. Shortly after starting one of them fell, and the race lay between the other man and myself. We were going all out, neck and neck, when suddenly my rival collapsed, head over heels, and I was left with a tired pig just in front of me.
I had only to push on, stick him and win. BUT-I glanced back to see how my fallen rival, Dunbar, was faring, and I saw that both horse and man were stunned and that he was lying with his head too near to the horse's hoofs to be safe. So saying goodbye to the pig I went back and lugged the lad clear. After giving him a rest the umpire started us anew after another pig, when Dunbar, most ungraciously I consider, streaked past me and speared the pig right away, and so won the heat. This put him into the final which he eventually won, bringing the Cup at all events to the Regiment. And that was all that mattered.
On the two previous occasions on which I had entered I had managed to get placed in the final heat, and one of them brought me one of the bombshells of my life, in the shape of the Kadir Cup.
I had won all the preliminary heats with the two horses I had entered, namely Hagarene and Patience; thus both had to run in the final heat against a shirt competitor.
I rode Hagarene, my favorite, and Ding MacDougall, a brother officer in the 13th rode Patience for me. Hagarene quickly outstripped her rivals and was leading by many lengths when the pig dived through a thick hedge-like line of bush.
As Hagarene jumped it I realised that there was no landing on the other side but a fall into the river. Here we soused under almost on top of the pig, who turned and crawled out again where he had entered, and while I was getting out on one side and Hagarene on the other, the pig met MacDougall coming up on Patience and was promptly speared.
Thus I won the Cup at the hands of MacDougall.
A BRUTAL SPORT
You who sit at home will naturally condemn it. But again I say, like the drunkard to the parson, try it before you judge.
See how the horse enjoys it, see how the boar himself, mad with rage, rushes wholeheartedly into the scrap, see how you, with your temper thoroughly roused, enjoy the opportunity of wreaking it to the full
Yes, hog-hunting is a brutal sport--and yet I loved it, as I loved also the fine old fellow I fought against. I cannot pretend that I am not inconsistent. But are many of us entirely consistent ? Do what we will and say what we like, although we have a veneer of civilisation, the primitive man's instincts are still not far below the surface. Murder will out. Did we not see it in all its horridness in the War ?
But apparently the Churches recognised the fact; at any rate one does not remember that they made any attempt to stop us killing our fellow-men, our fellow-Christians.
Until we get our education upon a more spiritual foundation instead of being content with mere academical scholarship, more of character training than standard of knowledge, we shell only have the veneer.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:57 AM
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March 2, 2004
What I need for above the Fireplace
The Victorian Taxidermy Company Limited - Boar head trophy
A relic from the heady days of the British Empire. Wild Boar's head trophy, superbly modelled, mouth open, snarling, with tusks beared, on polished oak shield by the much acclaimed London Taxidermist Edward Gerrard & Sons.
Additionally in gold leaf to the front of the shield is the legend "MUTTRA, UNITED PROVINCE, INDIA". One of a matched pair. Circa 1905.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:08 AM
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February 13, 2004
Tapir
I was wondering what's a tapir? I imagined they were a tropical relative of my beloved pigs but they aren't.
"Tapirs are often mistaken for pigs and anteaters, they're in the odd-toed hooved animal family (perissodactyls), as are the horse and rinocerous. All four species of tapir are endangered."
See you can learn something everyday.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:32 PM
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A different Penguin game
I didn't bother to link to the last game that did the rounds but as a favour here is a new one for a friday morning.
Coole Games - Hit the pinguin (HOT!)
OK you've seen it now - get on with your work!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
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February 12, 2004
Pig Fat to the rescue.
NEWS.com.au | Pig lard to stop terror attacks (February 12, 2004)
ISRAELI police have come up with plans to place bags of pig lard on buses in a bid to deter Palestinian militants from carrying out suicide attacks, the Maariv daily reported.
Rabbinical authorities have given the idea its approval on the grounds that it could be a life-saving measure even though pigs are also considered impure by Jews.
Authorities believe that the move could discourage Palestinians from carrying out attacks as pieces of their exploded body could come into contact with the pig fat, prejudicing their chances of entering into paradise.
The paper said that the rabbinical dispensation could mean that security forces also hang bags of lard in shopping malls and schools.
(Thanks to Tim Blair, they must have studied my Plans for Flying Pig Airlines)
Posted by The Englishman at 4:52 PM
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February 11, 2004
I'll come quietly
LOS BANOS, California (AP) -- A sea lion that apparently swam upriver from the ocean into the inland canals of central California was captured after motorists spotted it flopping along the roadway, 65 miles from the sea.
The 300-pound animal, first reported Monday morning, basked in the sun on the back of a highway patrol cruiser while officers waited for a marine rescue team to fetch him.
So that is what to do when they book you - just chill out. I will remember that next week on I-70.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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February 9, 2004
Bos primigenius
BBC NEWS Appeal to protect 'unique' cattle
A multi-million pound appeal is under way to protect a unique herd of wild cattle.
The Chillingham herd is believed to be related to prehistoric auroch oxen, which once grazed across northern Europe.
The white longhorns have remained isolated and untouched next to Chillingham Castle in Northumberland since they were first penned into their park in 1260.
Click to enlarge
I wish it were true - it is on my list of things to see, this mysterious herd of wild beasts roaming free in the forest since time immemorial. The guide book written by Dowager Countess of Tankerville makes many claims for them and adds to the romance. But I think she overeggs it.
This research is probably nearer the mark. But whatever, they are magnificent beasts, and connect us back to England's feudal history. We must ensure their survival.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:25 PM
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January 30, 2004
Off to lunch
Unfortunatly it will be a plastic wrapped sandwich from the Petrol station not a Black Bacon Butty.
The combination of crisp rashers, tangy cheddar cheese, egg, avocado and mango chutney makes this 'butty' a cut above the rest!
2 thick slices of white bread
2 rashers of O'Doherty's Black Bacon
60g/2oz Cheddar cheese, crumbled or grated
an avocado, thinly sliced
1 egg
1 jar mango chutney
black pepper
a little milk
If you have the deluxe kind of Cheddar that crumbles, crumble it by hand. Otherwise resort to a coarse grater. Fry or grill the rashers of Black Bacon until just crisp, keep warm. Toast the bread slices, one side only, pile the cheese on an untoasted side, sprinkle a few drops of milk on top of the cheese and grill until the cheese bubbles.
Meanwhile fry or poach the egg (eggs poach fine, yolk pricked, in a ramekin in a domestic microwave).
Spread a generous layer of mango chutney on the cheese, then the rashers of Black Bacon, then the avocado, a twist of black pepper and top with the other slice of bread, toasted side up.
(where does the egg go?)
Posted by The Englishman at 1:32 PM
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The Full English
The full English Breakfast is one of our national treasures - sadly it is only in Hotels that most of us ever eat nowadays.
Munching my way through the sausage this morning under the eye of the feckwit Manager of the hotel I was reminded of my Vegetarian friend saying that he enjoyed a Full English with Quorn Sausages, Veggie Bacon etc. I queried whether it could taste as good as proper bacon and eggs.
"Probably not, but then I always have a line of Coke first so I don't really care."
I think I will stick to my rashers....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:31 AM
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January 29, 2004
Thar she blows!
From www.smh.com.au
A dead, 50-tonne sperm whale has exploded in a busy street in Taiwan, showering passers-by in blubber, blood and innards.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:08 AM
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January 26, 2004
Life on Mars
With his talk of "Life on Mars" Mr Free Market has set me singing all day..
From the wonderful Undertones.
Oh yes and she is wrapped in Bacon.....
Posted by The Englishman at 4:47 PM
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January 24, 2004
Lardy yum
Feet up! points me to Ben who points me to " meal consisting of hot toast, topped with chunks of softly melting spicy pig fat, which has been previously aged for six months in marble vats. Lardo di Colonnata. Food of the Man Gods, in my tummy right now."
I want some - now!
Posted by The Englishman at 5:14 PM
January 23, 2004
Bringing home the bacon
Looks easy - just got find a pigs belly now!
Posted by The Englishman at 1:19 PM
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January 21, 2004
Be careful out there!
Farmers warn of wild boar dangers
"They are impressively large creatures, very fast and aggressive. In my opinion they are dangerous things."
I wonder if they can be trained to chase ramblers in their ridiculous coloured cagoules, and look for food under caravans. What a boon to the countryside they will become!
Posted by The Englishman at 11:56 AM
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January 18, 2004
Reincarnation wishes
Many years ago I wandered up to the pig shed on a misty winter morning, the sunlight streaming in low and illuminating the straw bedding. The sows stayed snuggled down in the warm straw but the old boar awoke with my arrival and wandered around the ten sows who were in for a service, snortling and sniffing each one until he found the one that was right for that morning. The old snout soon got the sow up and ready for a lazy morning mount. As you know the Pig has a corkscrew penis and the old boy was like a mad sommelier until all was positioned perfectly. And then deep bliss - and according to some his orgasm would have lasted thirty minutes - I would guess a mere five, and then over to the freshly filled trough for a hearty breakfast. I thought I could put up with some of that.
Dubious facts
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes. (Bastards)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Still not over that pig thing!)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (And yet, there's that pig thing...)
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmm.....)
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming one-tenth of a calorie.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. (huh?)
Polar bears are left handed.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length, It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. (Honey, I'm home.. what the...)
Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (bastards)
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
A cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
Starfish haven't got brains.
After reading all these, all I can say is "Damn Pigs"
Posted by The Englishman at 3:47 PM
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January 17, 2004
A Wiltshire Girl
Cruel I know but Sarah Jane has her whole life on the net.
Now I don't want you think we are all like this down in Wiltshire - remember she is from the Cheese part of the county and I am from the Chalk part of the county. (Cheese being the dairying area and chalk being the wide open arable and downland area). So I guess the locals are as different as chalk and cheese.
She is particularly keen for you to know she is still a virgin, see the clickable letter to the left) and she includes pictures of Sarah Jane's Ex-boyfriends .
John, an accountant from Surrey.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:12 AM
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January 2, 2004
Flying Pig Wishes
I know what I want for 2004: A chance to use "Flying Pig Airlines" next time I cross the Pond.
Just imagine: a compulsory Sandridge Farm Wiltshire Cure Bacon Sandwich on check in.
On board a light meal of Nigella's Coca Cola Ham with Parsley Sauce and Mashed King Edwards, followed by a main meal of Roast Pork with Crackling.
Sit back on the pigskin seats with a glass of Pig's Nose whisky and a bowl of Pork Scratchings watching Babe for the tenth time.
I know I would love to fly on such an airline - I wonder who wouldn't?
Posted by The Englishman at 10:29 AM
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December 13, 2003
Attack Squirrel
This is worth reading !
CUAgain : Neighborhood Hazard (or: Why the Cops Won't Patrol Brice Street)
Posted by The Englishman at 4:23 PM
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December 9, 2003
"They also serve"
A British Army dog who found a hidden cache of arms, explosives and bomb-making equipment during the recent conflict in Iraq, has been awarded the Dickin Medal (the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross) at a special ceremony in London today.
Buster, a five-year-old Springer Spaniel, is believed to have saved the lives of countless civilians and military personnel by finding the guns, grenades and ammunition hidden behind a false wall during a search of Safwan town in Southern Iraq.
Click to enlarge.
Source Horse&Hound Online
Posted by The Englishman at 1:26 PM
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December 4, 2003
Faggots Update
Yum - Local Faggots with Onion Gravy and Mash last night.
Faggots from Boyton Farm: Pure English Meat - without sounding like an anti-globalisation Green you really can taste the difference by buying quality meat from small suppliers.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:21 PM
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November 28, 2003
Counting Sheep
Ain, Tain, Tethera, Methera, Mimp,
Ayta, Slayta, Laura, Dora, Dik,
Ain-a-dik, Tain-a-dik, Tethera-dik, Methera-dik, Mit,
Ain-a-mit, Tain-a-mit, Tethera-mit, Gethera-mit, Ghet.
(1 -20 in Wiltshire Sheep Counting System)
Over recent years a range of evidence - archaeological, genetic and linguistic - has been use by historians to throw doubt on the traditional view that the native Britons or Welsh were largely driven out of England. A less well-known strand of evidence that supports the theory of continuing `Welsh' presence throughout Britain - that of rural dialects.
I am sorry to say I have never heard a shepherd use this but it was apparently still used in my Father's lifetime. The final survival of these counting systems has usually been as children's rhymes rather than as working tools.
- a universal example is the rhyme that I learnt as a child
"Eeny, meeny, miney, moe; Catch a nigger tiger by his toe".
Source:
British Archaeology, no 46, July 1999: CBA update
Posted by The Englishman at 4:41 PM
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November 19, 2003
"pet pig walking licence"
If you take your pig for a walk, you must have a pet pig walking licence. Your local Animal Health Divisional Office issues these licences. A Defra veterinarian will visit you and inspect your proposed route. This is to ensure your pig does notcome into contact with disease or possibly spread disease. There is no charge for this licence.
-Is it me or is the whole world mad?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:55 PM
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November 14, 2003
Pigs today. you tomorrow
With all the excitement on ID cards you may be interested in seeing how the Gov is doing with tagging farm animals. FromPublicTechnology.net:
"Identifying the 25 million cattle, sheep and pigs in England and tracking their movements costs taxpayers and farming around 55 million a year equivalent to just over 2 an animal. "
Posted by The Englishman at 6:05 PM
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November 8, 2003
Pig Drawing Test
I was reminded that the Pig category was looking a bit empty so:
Get a sheet of blank white paper. Draw a picture of a pig on your sheet of paper. After you have completed your pig picture, click below.
The pig youve drawn can be used to identify your personality traits.
Match your drawing of a pig with the following interpretive details.
If your pig is drawn:
Toward the top of the page, you are positive and optimistic.
Toward the middle of the page, you are a realist.
Toward the bottom of the page, you are pessimistic and have a tendency to behave negatively.
Facing left, you believe in tradition, youre friendly, and you remember dates (bithdays, etc.).
Facing right, you are innovative and active, but you dont have a strong sense of family, and you have trouble remembering dates.
Facing front (looking at you), you are direct and enjoy playing devils advocate. You neither fear nor avoid discussions.
With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful.
With few details, you are emotional and naive. You care little for details and like to take risks.
With 4 legs showing, you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.
With less than 4 legs showing, you are insecure and living through a period of major change.
The size of your pigs ears indicates how good a listener you are - the bigger, the better.
The length of your pigs tail indicates the quality of your sex life - and again, longer is better. (OK, who didnt draw a tail?)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:07 PM
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October 29, 2003
Let loose the pigs of war!
Jewish settlers in the West Bank are being asked to trade in their guard dogs for pigs. The animals, considered unclean in Judaism for thousands of years, would help protect the settlements from attacks by Palestinians.
A company which supplies guard dogs to the settlements in the West Bank has asked senior rabbis for approval under Jewish law to train the pigs. The company says they are better than dogs because they have a stronger sense of smell. Because they are considered unclean by Islam as well, their presence could discourage Muslim attackers.
I feel a need to have a pig category of postings as I'm a great fan of all things porcine.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:43 PM
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October 28, 2003
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
Labour hypocrisy on Schools - again
Posted by The Englishman at 2:02 PM
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Faggot news.
Brain's Faggots maker calls in receiver
I hope someone buys the firm - life would be so much duller without packets of Brain's Faggots on the shelf. Luckily I have a couple of local faggots in the freezer that I bought at the Farmers Market on Sunday. Served with gravy and peas nothing could be better.
(and if you have to ask what is in a faggot you don't want to know.)
Posted by The Englishman at 12:38 PM
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