I saw him, some sixty feet from our back door,
The sun russeting his fur.
Completely at ease in a world of men who,
Though admiring his beauty, would surely kill him
As a pest and common thief.
He chose a spot, a sun-warmed nest of grass
And, wrapping close his brush,
He lay down and curled contentedly, ready
To soak in his selected pool of sunlight and
Dream easy on a balmy day.
I watched and felt a peace spread within me,
His total relaxation,
Far from the hunters who would have him dead.
We shared that peace and, later, as the air cooled,
He stole silently away.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Lucky
I noticed through the modern day oracle that is Facebook that at least two new bar/restaurants are to open in Ramsbottom in the near future. One, while not (so far at least) proclaiming any particular 'theme' in terms of cuisine, is looking to provide community facilities: space for mother-toddler groups, space for book clubs or discussion groups to meet and so forth. The other is apparently going to incorporate a vegan restaurant. Broadly, I am very much in the "Yay!" camp on these developments, not least because empty shops (which one of them is and in a very prime spot to boot) do not look good in terms of selling the town to tourists as a thriving community. Having these units occupied and providing good food and service to townsfolk and tourists alike is a good thing. I do have a little reservation about the 'bar' aspect of both developments, though. More of this later.
When we first moved to Rammy almost 23 years ago, the places to eat (as in restaurants rather than take aways) were much more limited than today. At the top end of the scale, there was the Village Restaurant (later to become Ramsons although not at that time quite as 'fine dining' as it later became). Then there were The China Cottage (good then, good now), the Eastern Eye (ditto), an Italian (been through several owners - variable quality but, overall, a little generic) and another Indian (again, has been through several owners and is currently pretty good). I think there may also have been a restaurant attached to the hotel side of the Grants Arms but I never tried it and it seemed to come and go. Some of the pubs in the centre did food but, generally, it was not much beyond things that go 'Ding!' in the microwave. But, talking of pubs, Rammy had shedloads! The Rammy Mile, the pub crawl traditionally attempted following the Good Friday service up at Peel Tower above the town, consisted of a pint in each pub starting from the Hare & Hounds in Holcombe Brook and continuing via The Brook, The Fusilier, The Masons Arms, The Old Dun Horse, The Major, The Old Grey Mare, The Clarence, The Rose & Crown, The Grants Arms, The Royal Oak, The Railway and, finally, The Good Samaritan. That was 13 pints and a fair old walk!
Today, The Old Dun Horse is flats, The Good Sam is an excellent (still not verified this!) restaurant, The Hearth of the Ram, and The Clarence is an Indian Restaurant yet there are actually more places to have a pint than ever before! The lost watering holes have been replaced by several eating places which can also be treated as a bar for drinks only: the Lounge, Bar XLII, the First Chop, the Venetian Hideaway and Levanter. In addition, there is the Irwell Works microbrewery in the centre of town that has its own bar. There is definitely no shortage of beer in Rammy! However, just as some pubs have gone or have changed, so too have the options for eating. Ramsons may be no more, but the food served at its successor, the Venetian Hideaway, is superb in its own way; Levanter's tapas are praised far and wide; the Spice Garden offers excellent Thai food; the Hearth, as I have mentioned, is supposedly very good and, in addition, pubs are now upping their game with The Eagle & Child and The Major both offering excellent homecooked food, the former a little more 'cheffy', the latter more down-to-earth and excellent value. In addition, whereas Bailey's Tearoom offered the only afternoon tea option when we moved here, there are now several places offering light snacks and a pot of tea.
Two things seem to have arisen out of the new 'eating/bar' culture in Rammy. The first is an extension of something that was already started when we moved here: the inverted snobbery. There is an attitude that seems to suggest that Rammy is a working town for working people and we can do without 'incomers' blocking up the roads and drinking in their chi-chi bars. Well, the facts of the matter are, there are no longer cotton mills in Rammy, fewer and fewer people work in manual industries and the demographic of the town is changing becoming younger and more affluent. A town that was dying as the mills shut down has been regenrated and is thriving once more. And if that means there are going to be some restaurants that charge a bit more for food, so be it. There are still plenty of places offering down-to-earth, good value food that is not cook-chill microwave shit. What we have here is choice and we should be thankful rather than pining for those not-so-long-ago days when the food was, in the main, not so great. It's not about 'us' and 'them', it's about having a thriving, viable town.
Which brings me to my second consequence of the changes I have noted. There is a danger in the town swinging too far to the bar/restaurant side of things. Such venues largely cater for an evening trade. If a shop shuts, I think we need to be careful about another bar opening in its place. This is apparently a new trend on the high street because the conversion of a shop to a bar is fairly cheap and licenses are easy to obtain. We need to ensure diversity is a feature of the town, that we have a daytime economy as well as good places to eat and drink in the evening. I think we still have that balance right and the two new ventures I started with show that, hopefully, that diversity is still there. As long as we have that, I think we are very lucky to live where we do.
When we first moved to Rammy almost 23 years ago, the places to eat (as in restaurants rather than take aways) were much more limited than today. At the top end of the scale, there was the Village Restaurant (later to become Ramsons although not at that time quite as 'fine dining' as it later became). Then there were The China Cottage (good then, good now), the Eastern Eye (ditto), an Italian (been through several owners - variable quality but, overall, a little generic) and another Indian (again, has been through several owners and is currently pretty good). I think there may also have been a restaurant attached to the hotel side of the Grants Arms but I never tried it and it seemed to come and go. Some of the pubs in the centre did food but, generally, it was not much beyond things that go 'Ding!' in the microwave. But, talking of pubs, Rammy had shedloads! The Rammy Mile, the pub crawl traditionally attempted following the Good Friday service up at Peel Tower above the town, consisted of a pint in each pub starting from the Hare & Hounds in Holcombe Brook and continuing via The Brook, The Fusilier, The Masons Arms, The Old Dun Horse, The Major, The Old Grey Mare, The Clarence, The Rose & Crown, The Grants Arms, The Royal Oak, The Railway and, finally, The Good Samaritan. That was 13 pints and a fair old walk!
Today, The Old Dun Horse is flats, The Good Sam is an excellent (still not verified this!) restaurant, The Hearth of the Ram, and The Clarence is an Indian Restaurant yet there are actually more places to have a pint than ever before! The lost watering holes have been replaced by several eating places which can also be treated as a bar for drinks only: the Lounge, Bar XLII, the First Chop, the Venetian Hideaway and Levanter. In addition, there is the Irwell Works microbrewery in the centre of town that has its own bar. There is definitely no shortage of beer in Rammy! However, just as some pubs have gone or have changed, so too have the options for eating. Ramsons may be no more, but the food served at its successor, the Venetian Hideaway, is superb in its own way; Levanter's tapas are praised far and wide; the Spice Garden offers excellent Thai food; the Hearth, as I have mentioned, is supposedly very good and, in addition, pubs are now upping their game with The Eagle & Child and The Major both offering excellent homecooked food, the former a little more 'cheffy', the latter more down-to-earth and excellent value. In addition, whereas Bailey's Tearoom offered the only afternoon tea option when we moved here, there are now several places offering light snacks and a pot of tea.
Two things seem to have arisen out of the new 'eating/bar' culture in Rammy. The first is an extension of something that was already started when we moved here: the inverted snobbery. There is an attitude that seems to suggest that Rammy is a working town for working people and we can do without 'incomers' blocking up the roads and drinking in their chi-chi bars. Well, the facts of the matter are, there are no longer cotton mills in Rammy, fewer and fewer people work in manual industries and the demographic of the town is changing becoming younger and more affluent. A town that was dying as the mills shut down has been regenrated and is thriving once more. And if that means there are going to be some restaurants that charge a bit more for food, so be it. There are still plenty of places offering down-to-earth, good value food that is not cook-chill microwave shit. What we have here is choice and we should be thankful rather than pining for those not-so-long-ago days when the food was, in the main, not so great. It's not about 'us' and 'them', it's about having a thriving, viable town.
Which brings me to my second consequence of the changes I have noted. There is a danger in the town swinging too far to the bar/restaurant side of things. Such venues largely cater for an evening trade. If a shop shuts, I think we need to be careful about another bar opening in its place. This is apparently a new trend on the high street because the conversion of a shop to a bar is fairly cheap and licenses are easy to obtain. We need to ensure diversity is a feature of the town, that we have a daytime economy as well as good places to eat and drink in the evening. I think we still have that balance right and the two new ventures I started with show that, hopefully, that diversity is still there. As long as we have that, I think we are very lucky to live where we do.
Monday, 23 March 2015
The Blank Page
I have contemplated the empty screen for some considerable time. My thoughts swirl restlessly but fail to coalesce, my fingers remain poised in anticipation above the keyboard and the page remains stubbornly blank. I look up at the clock: three minutes have elapsed since I last looked, three minutes that might have been an hour or a day or a week but all filled with...nothing. It seems the harder I will a subject to appear and the inspiration to strike, the further that sweet release recedes. And the page remains blank and, seemingly, getting blanker.
I decide to look at my social media feeds - purely for the purposes of inspiration, you understand - even though I know that this is the worst possible direction to choose. Instead of finding a the piece of grit that I can use to build into a literary pearl, I know I will only find a way to waste a bit of time and avoid the blank sheet for an hour or two longer. Ninety minutes of humorous cat videos and depressing tweets from right-wing nutters later, the guilt finally gets he better of me and I return to the (still) blank page. I look a it a while longer: pristine, virgin, awaiting my words, my wisdom to anoint its snowy field. I sigh and suddenly realise that I really need to make a cup of tea. Perhaps dehydration has been the problem all along! I make the tea, drink it slowly, wash up my cup, straighten the kitchen and take the bin out. As I walk back into the living room, the laptop seems to glower at me. "You're avoiding me!" it chides. "This page isn't going to fill itself you know. You have to write the words!", Shamed by the voices in my head, I touch the mouse to activate the screen. As the brilliant whiteness of the blank page momentarily shocks my eyes, I find that the word pixies have not visited me and filled the page while I procrastinated in the kitchen. Damn!
"Right!" I say with exaggerated force as I stretch my fingers and crack my knuckles over the keyboard, a gesture of resolve that, while it might look and sound good to the casual observer, actually has no effect whatsoever on my creative output over the next thirty minutes. Five times over the course of that painful half hour I type a single word, contemplate it and, finding there is no work that springs to mind to follow it, I backspace it back into the ether from whence it came. Eventually, I close the laptop and admit defeat for the day. All I can hope now is that the evening radio or TV might provide a starting point on tomorrow's blank page or, failing that, I not only dream the contents of the page but I wake up remembering every golden word!
For this evening, however, the page will remain blank and I will thank God that I am only doing this for 'fun' and not working to a deadline where my salary depends upon my timely output. I can live with the blank page better than I can live with a blank current account.
I decide to look at my social media feeds - purely for the purposes of inspiration, you understand - even though I know that this is the worst possible direction to choose. Instead of finding a the piece of grit that I can use to build into a literary pearl, I know I will only find a way to waste a bit of time and avoid the blank sheet for an hour or two longer. Ninety minutes of humorous cat videos and depressing tweets from right-wing nutters later, the guilt finally gets he better of me and I return to the (still) blank page. I look a it a while longer: pristine, virgin, awaiting my words, my wisdom to anoint its snowy field. I sigh and suddenly realise that I really need to make a cup of tea. Perhaps dehydration has been the problem all along! I make the tea, drink it slowly, wash up my cup, straighten the kitchen and take the bin out. As I walk back into the living room, the laptop seems to glower at me. "You're avoiding me!" it chides. "This page isn't going to fill itself you know. You have to write the words!", Shamed by the voices in my head, I touch the mouse to activate the screen. As the brilliant whiteness of the blank page momentarily shocks my eyes, I find that the word pixies have not visited me and filled the page while I procrastinated in the kitchen. Damn!
"Right!" I say with exaggerated force as I stretch my fingers and crack my knuckles over the keyboard, a gesture of resolve that, while it might look and sound good to the casual observer, actually has no effect whatsoever on my creative output over the next thirty minutes. Five times over the course of that painful half hour I type a single word, contemplate it and, finding there is no work that springs to mind to follow it, I backspace it back into the ether from whence it came. Eventually, I close the laptop and admit defeat for the day. All I can hope now is that the evening radio or TV might provide a starting point on tomorrow's blank page or, failing that, I not only dream the contents of the page but I wake up remembering every golden word!
For this evening, however, the page will remain blank and I will thank God that I am only doing this for 'fun' and not working to a deadline where my salary depends upon my timely output. I can live with the blank page better than I can live with a blank current account.
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
You've let Paddington down...
A long time ago, the BBC used to have a show about cars called 'Top Gear'. It was a magazine format programme that covered many different subjects that might be of interest to the average motorist - changes to motoring legislation, reviews of new cars, and so forth. In short, it was primarily concerned with cars, the driving of said cars and all things motoring-related. Fairly straightforward. Somewhere along the way, however, this motoring show morphed into an 'entertainment' brand. The focus became less about seeing the motorist as a consumer and more about entertaining the public with items that were often, at best, fairly tangentially-linked to motoring. In this new model of 'Top Gear, when a car was 'reviewed', it would invariably be a £100K and upwards sports car that was being chucked around twisty roads or photograhed against clouded skies to create an image of brooding power, the curves of wheel arches and sharp creases along the flanks highlighted to emphasise the sexiness of these unattainable beasts. Basically, these 'reviews' became petrolhead porn items. Along with this, the three presenters became hugely successful at (in their own words) being paid lots of money for cocking about. They went on trips to exotic lands to drive cars and 'cock about', not really informative about the cars or the countries, but 'entertaining'. To top it all off, 'Top Gear' was loved abroad even more than it is here in the UK being sold to over 200 television territories around the world and making the BBC a tidy penny or two.
However, this sunny picture is not without dark clouds. Over the years, the main presenter of 'Top Gear', Jeremy Clarkson, has managed to insert his foot in his mouth on numerous occasions and has earned himself several reprimands. The most recent examples were characterising lorry drivers as prostitute murderers and Mexicans as feckless, work-shy poncho-wearers, slyly using the term 'slope' when referring to an Asian person and the one that earned him (supposedly) a final warning, the use of the 'n' word caught on tape. Hence, when Jeremy was reportedly involved in a 'fracas' with his producer, the BBC was left with pretty much no option but to suspend him while they investigate the matter and, presumably, contemplate his future. As the news of his suspension leaked out, the Twittersphere predictably split into two camps: "Thank God, he may finally be going! Deserves everything he gets" and "No! Bring back Jezza! The only decent programme on TV. It's just PC gone mad!". The split seemed (in the main) to follow party political lines with UKIP/libertarians championing Jeremy as a bastion of free speech and common sense while the liberal/left see him as an unreconstructed dinosaur, a boorish oaf spouting views from the 1970s.
Okay, full disclosure here. I am not a fan of 'Top Gear" and I am certainly not a fan of Mr Clarkson. I used to like the programme back in the day when it told me something about cars rather than telling me rather too much about its presenters. Rather like there had to be a cull of the old Radio 1 DJs like DLT because they were deemed to have got too cosy and spent most of their air time telling us about life on their farms or the fetes they had opened, so 'Top Gear' is now mainly about the presenters. We learn more about their preferences and prejudices than we ever learn about Ford's latest release or what the best buy is for under £15K. I see the need for a programme to be entertaining but where has the 'informing' element gone? Make a programme called 'Middle-aged Guys Cock About' and sell that to the world, but give us some journalism related to cars, please! Mr Clarkson, I have never particularly liked. I cannot say with absolute certainty, but I suspect his politics lie somewhere to the right of mine (if not to the right of Ghengis Khan's). His attitude that everything the goverment does in relation to motoring is invariably about taking the fun out of motoring may have some value but I think he overplays it. I realise he is a columnist in a couple of newspapers and is paid to be a little outrageous and to be provocative, so some of what he does is about playing to the gallery although I think he really is pretty old-school in his views. All my dislikes aside, they are not the reason why it is a good thing that the BBC has finally taken some action.
I can choose not to listen to Mr Clarkson's views on 'anti-motorist' legislation, choose not to watch him and his chums 'cock about' in foreign climes, choose not to see another review of a supercar I will never own. I can do this by not watching 'Top Gear'. However, expressing your libertarian views on motoring laws is very different to using racist language on the show: that has no place on our screens in 2015 just as scrapping with a colleague is not an acceptable way to behave when one is at work. Mr Clarkson's apologists might like to believe that he has been singled out because he is the antithesis of the 'lefty' BBC and the PC brigade have been looking for an excuse to cut him down for some time. The fact is, however, that Jezza, like the employees of any other company, has to follow his employer's rules if he want to carry on being so handsomely remunerated. And that is his problem: he seems to believe that the income generated by 'Top Gear' makes him untouchable. Well, the news is, JC, it doesn't. Schoolboy sniggering at racial epithets among your pals in the pub is crass: doing it on national TV is unacceptable. It's not about being 'PC', it's about being a decent, human being and respecting other races, other people. Similarly, you may be the star of the show, but physically abusing fellow workers for whatever reason is never right. Again, it's not about the politics or what Jezza believes, it's just straightforward decency. Or common sense as Jeremy himself might say.
However, this sunny picture is not without dark clouds. Over the years, the main presenter of 'Top Gear', Jeremy Clarkson, has managed to insert his foot in his mouth on numerous occasions and has earned himself several reprimands. The most recent examples were characterising lorry drivers as prostitute murderers and Mexicans as feckless, work-shy poncho-wearers, slyly using the term 'slope' when referring to an Asian person and the one that earned him (supposedly) a final warning, the use of the 'n' word caught on tape. Hence, when Jeremy was reportedly involved in a 'fracas' with his producer, the BBC was left with pretty much no option but to suspend him while they investigate the matter and, presumably, contemplate his future. As the news of his suspension leaked out, the Twittersphere predictably split into two camps: "Thank God, he may finally be going! Deserves everything he gets" and "No! Bring back Jezza! The only decent programme on TV. It's just PC gone mad!". The split seemed (in the main) to follow party political lines with UKIP/libertarians championing Jeremy as a bastion of free speech and common sense while the liberal/left see him as an unreconstructed dinosaur, a boorish oaf spouting views from the 1970s.
Okay, full disclosure here. I am not a fan of 'Top Gear" and I am certainly not a fan of Mr Clarkson. I used to like the programme back in the day when it told me something about cars rather than telling me rather too much about its presenters. Rather like there had to be a cull of the old Radio 1 DJs like DLT because they were deemed to have got too cosy and spent most of their air time telling us about life on their farms or the fetes they had opened, so 'Top Gear' is now mainly about the presenters. We learn more about their preferences and prejudices than we ever learn about Ford's latest release or what the best buy is for under £15K. I see the need for a programme to be entertaining but where has the 'informing' element gone? Make a programme called 'Middle-aged Guys Cock About' and sell that to the world, but give us some journalism related to cars, please! Mr Clarkson, I have never particularly liked. I cannot say with absolute certainty, but I suspect his politics lie somewhere to the right of mine (if not to the right of Ghengis Khan's). His attitude that everything the goverment does in relation to motoring is invariably about taking the fun out of motoring may have some value but I think he overplays it. I realise he is a columnist in a couple of newspapers and is paid to be a little outrageous and to be provocative, so some of what he does is about playing to the gallery although I think he really is pretty old-school in his views. All my dislikes aside, they are not the reason why it is a good thing that the BBC has finally taken some action.
I can choose not to listen to Mr Clarkson's views on 'anti-motorist' legislation, choose not to watch him and his chums 'cock about' in foreign climes, choose not to see another review of a supercar I will never own. I can do this by not watching 'Top Gear'. However, expressing your libertarian views on motoring laws is very different to using racist language on the show: that has no place on our screens in 2015 just as scrapping with a colleague is not an acceptable way to behave when one is at work. Mr Clarkson's apologists might like to believe that he has been singled out because he is the antithesis of the 'lefty' BBC and the PC brigade have been looking for an excuse to cut him down for some time. The fact is, however, that Jezza, like the employees of any other company, has to follow his employer's rules if he want to carry on being so handsomely remunerated. And that is his problem: he seems to believe that the income generated by 'Top Gear' makes him untouchable. Well, the news is, JC, it doesn't. Schoolboy sniggering at racial epithets among your pals in the pub is crass: doing it on national TV is unacceptable. It's not about being 'PC', it's about being a decent, human being and respecting other races, other people. Similarly, you may be the star of the show, but physically abusing fellow workers for whatever reason is never right. Again, it's not about the politics or what Jezza believes, it's just straightforward decency. Or common sense as Jeremy himself might say.
Monday, 9 March 2015
Unattractive
This weekend, Elaine and I had a few days in Amsterdam. We did several of the things that tourists to Amsterdam are supposed to do - sample the beers, sample the cheese, be amazed by the variety of tulips they grow, buy some cheese and tulips, go to the van Gough museum, visit Anne Frank's house, experience the trams and the bicycles and so forth. To explain - while we used the trams, we didn't try biking in the city, however, I can still say that bikes were a central part of our trip. They are everywhere! It is impossible to walk on the pavements at some points because of the volume of bikes parked up and crossing the road is a dangerous exercise, not because of cars, trams or lorries but because of the cyclists! Man, they take no prisoners! That said, it was nice to see a capital city where so many bikes are in use as each one represents a car journey saved. Especially cute were the bikes that appear to have a large box or small coffin projecting from the front. These represent one way to ferry small children around. Other ways (apart from the traditional child seat behind the adult rider) include a small seat on the crossbar ahead of the adult rider or a small child seat attached to the handlebars. Brilliant! Women riding side saddle on the parcel rack of bikes also reminded me of India where women passengers on scooters often ride side-saddle, looking serene as the driver weaves between huge lorries and overflowing buses.
What we didn't do in Amsterdam, however, was sample the hospitality of 'coffeeshops' or visit the Red Light District. Okay, the second half of that statement is not entirely true, but I'll get to that later. In terms of coffeeshops, these are pretty mainstream establishments now. Guidebooks will list the 'best', arranged, I suspect, in order of tourist-friendliness/least scary rather than in terms of the quality of the comestibles they sell. We had two a stone's throw from our hotel and, whilst neither was listed in the guidebooks we had, they didn't look scary places at all and seemed to be populated by a mix of young(-ish) locals and tourists. Looking at them in comparison to the myriad bars in the city, I got the feeling that I would rather meet someone who had spent a few hours in a coffeeshop rather than someone who had been drinking strong beers for the same amount of time. We had a few dicks staying in the room opposite ours who had been sampling the beer (definitely and in quantity) and (possibly) the weed available. Their drunken singing and swearing at the tops of their voices at one in the morning wasn't great but, hey ho: it's a party town, right? We saw several stag parties (no hen parties) presumably there to get as messed up as possible before visiting the Red Light District.
Ah, the Red Light District. Amsterdam makes no bones about the area: it is a bona fide tourist attraction as it is clearly marked on all the city maps alongside the Museum District for example. We hadn't intended to go there but, on the final day and wanting to kill some time, we decided to go to the Old Church which happens to border the Red Light District. Making our way there, we went through an area that was obviously the epicentre of the 'party' side of the city: bar after bar, the aroma of stale beer and hordes of people wandering the street. As much as I am not a fan of 'tacky', give me touristy, garish tat anytime over the seediness that we encountered as we moved closer to the Old Church. When we finally reached it, we found it was closed and the best we could manage was to walk around and look at the exterior. In street-level, floor-to-ceiling windows of buildings opposite the church, women in stockings and suspenders stood distractedly looking into the distance or openly bored, playing with mobile phones. All were women of colour - Thai, Philipino or Indonesian possibly. I heard one woman shouting to a colleague inside the building and she spoke in a language that was not Dutch. We found ourselves wondering what sort of man would come here, to a place that is the antithesis of 'sexy' to indulge in an act that, given the circumstances, would border on abuse. We got out as soon as possible.
Amsterdam offers tourists the opportunity to indulge in two activities that, in most other capital cities, are conducted away from the gaze of the public eye, let alone the eyes of the authorities. However, one - smoking cannabis - has been made less sleazy, more open to all-comers. It retains its hippy connections in brightly painted coffeeshops and it feels, frankly, blearily happy and non-threatening. The other - prostitution - remains seedy, an implied violence almost tangible, the very 'openness' only serving to somehow emphasise the dirty reality at the centre of the trade: it's about power and money and the abuse of women at the bottom of the pile. There is no way that you can dress it up and make it an attraction.
What we didn't do in Amsterdam, however, was sample the hospitality of 'coffeeshops' or visit the Red Light District. Okay, the second half of that statement is not entirely true, but I'll get to that later. In terms of coffeeshops, these are pretty mainstream establishments now. Guidebooks will list the 'best', arranged, I suspect, in order of tourist-friendliness/least scary rather than in terms of the quality of the comestibles they sell. We had two a stone's throw from our hotel and, whilst neither was listed in the guidebooks we had, they didn't look scary places at all and seemed to be populated by a mix of young(-ish) locals and tourists. Looking at them in comparison to the myriad bars in the city, I got the feeling that I would rather meet someone who had spent a few hours in a coffeeshop rather than someone who had been drinking strong beers for the same amount of time. We had a few dicks staying in the room opposite ours who had been sampling the beer (definitely and in quantity) and (possibly) the weed available. Their drunken singing and swearing at the tops of their voices at one in the morning wasn't great but, hey ho: it's a party town, right? We saw several stag parties (no hen parties) presumably there to get as messed up as possible before visiting the Red Light District.
Ah, the Red Light District. Amsterdam makes no bones about the area: it is a bona fide tourist attraction as it is clearly marked on all the city maps alongside the Museum District for example. We hadn't intended to go there but, on the final day and wanting to kill some time, we decided to go to the Old Church which happens to border the Red Light District. Making our way there, we went through an area that was obviously the epicentre of the 'party' side of the city: bar after bar, the aroma of stale beer and hordes of people wandering the street. As much as I am not a fan of 'tacky', give me touristy, garish tat anytime over the seediness that we encountered as we moved closer to the Old Church. When we finally reached it, we found it was closed and the best we could manage was to walk around and look at the exterior. In street-level, floor-to-ceiling windows of buildings opposite the church, women in stockings and suspenders stood distractedly looking into the distance or openly bored, playing with mobile phones. All were women of colour - Thai, Philipino or Indonesian possibly. I heard one woman shouting to a colleague inside the building and she spoke in a language that was not Dutch. We found ourselves wondering what sort of man would come here, to a place that is the antithesis of 'sexy' to indulge in an act that, given the circumstances, would border on abuse. We got out as soon as possible.
Amsterdam offers tourists the opportunity to indulge in two activities that, in most other capital cities, are conducted away from the gaze of the public eye, let alone the eyes of the authorities. However, one - smoking cannabis - has been made less sleazy, more open to all-comers. It retains its hippy connections in brightly painted coffeeshops and it feels, frankly, blearily happy and non-threatening. The other - prostitution - remains seedy, an implied violence almost tangible, the very 'openness' only serving to somehow emphasise the dirty reality at the centre of the trade: it's about power and money and the abuse of women at the bottom of the pile. There is no way that you can dress it up and make it an attraction.
Sunday, 1 March 2015
First, take some enzymes...
I have just listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4 and I can safely say that I am shocked. Although the ingredients that go into mass-produced food have long given food campaigners cause for concern, the programme demonstrated that labelling regulations, supposedly beefed-up to provide complete transparency for the consumer, are far from satisfactory now that the industry is trying to convince us that ingredients they use are 'natural'. An example included they used in the programme was the presence of "vegetable flavourings (radish)" in some bakewell tarts. Leaving aside the obvious question - what recipe from hell are they following that requires "vegetable flavourings" as well as five types of sugar and water as the fourth of fifth largest ingredient by proportion? - there is a requirement to explain exactly what an ingredient is doing in the food. Now, the industry will claim that they have done this - the radish is labelled as a flavouring. However, if we dig a little deeper, flavourings are often included so that the cheaper, unnatural ingredients that would cause the food to taste 'wrong' are masked. In effect, a plethora of extraneous ingredients may be included to produce a taste that could be achieved by merely making the product with the ingredients it is 'supposed' to contain. 'Orange flavour' may have absolutely nothing to do with an orange. There are many companies that analyse the make-up of flavours, identify the molecular component responsible and then use that to manufacture flavourings on an industrial scale. 'Orange flavour' sounds natural, 'mass-produced chemical that smells like orange' less so. The bottom line is cost: industrially-produced flavourings are cheaper.
Another eye-opener was the extensive use of enzymes in food production. These can be used in various areas of food production but, because they are technically not present in the final food product, they do not have to be declared on the label under current EU legislation. However, their effects on health are unknown and we, the consumers, are not generally aware of their use because of their non-appearance in the list of ingredients. However, if you can use an enzyme to make a fresh, young cheese taste like a mature, aged cheese, it saves the producer the expense of having to actually store the cheese and age it naturally.
The best quote, therefore, came when someone from the food industry said that the majority of consumers are not that interested in the minutiae of ingredients listings or knowing exactly why particular ingredients are in the food we eat and that we should just trust the food producers. Coming relatively soon after the 'horse meat in lasagne' scandal, I think that is a pretty bold statement to make! The bottom line is this: the need to keep production costs low means you and I get what you pay for. If the product is cheap, then more 'flavourings' will be have to be included and strange ingredients will appear on the label. People may scoff at the cost of artisanal foods, but the fact is, they are that price because they really do contain 'natural' ingredients and not some simulacrum of 'naturalness'. Pay for quality or, better still, make it yourself. Then you'll really know what's in your food.
Another eye-opener was the extensive use of enzymes in food production. These can be used in various areas of food production but, because they are technically not present in the final food product, they do not have to be declared on the label under current EU legislation. However, their effects on health are unknown and we, the consumers, are not generally aware of their use because of their non-appearance in the list of ingredients. However, if you can use an enzyme to make a fresh, young cheese taste like a mature, aged cheese, it saves the producer the expense of having to actually store the cheese and age it naturally.
The best quote, therefore, came when someone from the food industry said that the majority of consumers are not that interested in the minutiae of ingredients listings or knowing exactly why particular ingredients are in the food we eat and that we should just trust the food producers. Coming relatively soon after the 'horse meat in lasagne' scandal, I think that is a pretty bold statement to make! The bottom line is this: the need to keep production costs low means you and I get what you pay for. If the product is cheap, then more 'flavourings' will be have to be included and strange ingredients will appear on the label. People may scoff at the cost of artisanal foods, but the fact is, they are that price because they really do contain 'natural' ingredients and not some simulacrum of 'naturalness'. Pay for quality or, better still, make it yourself. Then you'll really know what's in your food.
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