[school lunches] let them eat crisps

Bloggers are often accused of being derivative and the peerless Oliver Kamm is the High Priest of the Anti-Blogger League but Liz appears to have also raised the question.

I'm very proud to claim that I hardly ever use the MSM - I try not to feed off it like a leech and pass off comment as my own writing. Instead, I feed off other bloggers as a leech, tap into their accumulated wisdom and pass it off as my own writing.

Thus it is here with the School Lunches Issue. The Fake Consultant [why fake?] draws attention to the Calloway County School District, Kentucky, which has seen fit to punish recalcitrant parents who don't pay for their children's school lunches by giving their children sandwiches instead of the full lunch.

To a point I'm appalled - punishing the child, publicly in fact, for something the parent did. Sins of the father visited on ... etc. Equally appalling, surely, is that a system is in operation where school lunches are paid separately to the other fees [tuition, uniform etc.]. Surely there's a once a term payment in advance which covers these things.

Then we come to the issue of school lunches themselves and as a former head, I feel strongly about this. It's a long tradition in Britain to provide the kids with a sit-down hot meal a day. Basically the child gets a main course, a dessert [such as roly-poly], tea and bread and a piece of fruit as a minimum.

The fact that that hot meal is usually the lowest common denominator, using sub-standard cuts, swimming in fat and penny-pinching here, there and everywhere is another issue again.

Supplementary snacks are another matter. If a school bans supplements, then we get the "passed-through-the-barbed-wire-from outside" situation. If we allow them, then they're usually garbage food - crisps, sweets and sugar water and is it the school's business to interfere in this or not?

Compare this to the Thai situation in the images in this post. Click on the link and read about their situation over there. And another thing - I really like the way the children give thanks before it. The process of being thankful, rather than arguing over whom to be thankful to, is surely the issue here.

Pink Floyd sang "The Wall" but I wonder - if there were no lunches at all, no aggro, no "if you don't eat yer meat, how can yer have any pudding?", nothing provided for the kids whatsoever - would that be better?

[veges in season] twenty four seven, seven fifty two

Let me say upfront that I find all this government carbon footprinting bigfooting yeti stuff both too hard to fathom and slightly ludicrous. So that was the attitude with which I approached the subject matter dealt with by Richard Havers, as he draws attention to the Low Food Miles phenomenon:

The UK's Soil Association [may be] labelling airfreighted products so that they effectively lost their organic status due to their 'food miles.' It's been suggested that this could destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of smallholders across Africa.

Organic produce is the fastest growth area of Africa's horticultural industry, together with cut flowers and other high-value products like dried herbs and essential oils.

Then Richard cut straight to the chase:

Our 24/7 mentality is what is diving this seemingly insatiable demand for every fruit and vegetable to be available every hour of every day. Where's the fun in that. If only we lived a little more by the seasons then there would be less of a problem. Not less of a problem though for the supermarkets.

Now isn't that interesting because that's precisely what my mate and I were discussing yesterday. I asked when the produce was actually "in season" - watermelons, strawberries, apples, cauliflowers and so on and the upshot was that we both realized how far from the earth we were.

"Vegetables in season" has absolutely no meaning anymore and I, for one, wish to go back to enjoying them in their season, thank you and delaying my gratification when the season concludes, until the next season.

I love seasons and their endless variety.

It's a small fight back against the frenetic forces of faster, more-more-more, 24/7 and the other mad scrambles which society is currently involved in.

[laura norda] gordogangsta addresses parliament

When Gordogangsta was asked in parliament about his thoughts on terrorism, security, freedom, citizens rights and a written constitution, his band started their signature slow groove, Gordo leapt onto the crossbenches and delivered one of his finest performances to date.

Immediately cut to disk, this classic recording will be released Friday of next week. In the mean time, here are the lyrics, before they're copyrighted:

Hey, commentators say I'm more honest than Tone

You gotta be high, man, cause that I ain't shown

I'm callin' a ‘culture war’ to defeat terrorism

Stringent security go ter fri-g-n prison

Winning ‘hearts and minds’ of young Muslims - some joke

We got some badass laws to invoke

Western values worth arguing the toss

We're undermining 'em, jack and that's just your loss

It's by the power of argument, debate

And dialogue we conceal the truth of yer fate

A global battle for yer heart and yer mind

Or so we tell yer, yer the cretinous kind

[All the wimmin' 'ere sing the chorus to Sting's tune]

Every breath you take

Every move you make

Every step you take

Every bond I break

Ill be watching you

Every single day

Every word you say

Recorded every way

We're gonna get ya, yey!

Ill be watching you

[Back to the rappin', mthrf----s]

No longer the ‘old methods of censorship’ Jack

With the Anti-Terrorism Bill it's a knife in yer back

That'll mean discussion through media and arts

Through culture, literature and sittin round bars

Yo ain't that funny cause I'm Gordo the Louse

Everfink's debated by MPs in the House

Back to the old values - that's where we're goin

Hangins on Tyburn 'n drawn gizzards showin'

Treasury's become a ‘department of security’

Like it shouldda, yo, torture, impurity

I‘ve found myself deeply immersed in these measures

Designed to cut off the terrorists' pleasures

[Wimmin', where's the fr---in chorus?]

Yo all departments from transport to economy

Energy, immigration to soshal suckurity

We used to think security was a Home Office order

Yeah well now every ministry's a fri-g-n' informer

We're protectin' the nation from terrorists, Jack

And bringin' back the old values so get off me back

Security officials keep one eye on the floor

And report on the sheep who come in through that door

You fink it was bad the way Tone was down hittin

Yeah - now watch the militarization of Britain

Suspicion'll be sewn into British life, son

'N state officials don't like it - go to Room 101

[Wimmin', do yer stuff; I need a quick toke]

Yo, for dodgy identities and now that means all of yer

Clampdowns on liberty we'll get a fair haul of yer

Let us be clear: we face enemies that hate

We pushed 'em to do this so there ain't no debate

Between justice and humanity, barbarism and evil

No one should be impartial or disengaged, yer weasel

But engaged, resolute and solid for justice

Remaking British society the fastest

Silence the terrorists their job is done now

People o' Brittin there ain't no more fun now

ID cards'll get yer; yer thought yer could hide

Welcome to Brittin youse f---ers inside

Yo, hit it, Jack!

Gordo leaps on the speaker's chair as the band goes beserk, kicks him in the head, tarzans onto the polished wood part of the table, break dancin' and scattering tomes. Wimmin' start the chorus again but the Men in Black drag 'em away for a good rape and pillage - the old values - return to the old values, you unnerstan.

[na avoice] russian word for shoddy work

Not my dining room, I hasten to add.

I look around my "new" flat and see the tiny splashes of paint over the bath, the taps on an angle and white chalk from the ceiling ground into every crevice in the parquet floor - impossible to remove except professionally.

Sure the overall feel is better and everyone says how light and breezy the flat now is, how much space there is and then the eyes [usually female] fall on the defects.

They can't believe I "allowed" this.

I suppose it's trusting a workman to be a good workman, almost willing it. Of course I'd been warned that there were certain people who operated на авось - without caring in the least about the result. I'd heard there were people who really quite seriously believed that the money was the only thing and that any sort of job was OK as long as you got the money.

I seriously expected that in a room where painting was going on and the only phone point in the flat was on the skirting board of that room, that the paperers and painters would place something over the phone when they got close to it.

Not a bit of it.

I came back in the room, having gone down for some things from the shop and not only were the phone and all the electrical points clogged in white but the receiver had been knocked off its perch.

I can't believe that a person, even a workman, would have a brain so wired that she would completely ignore that it was there, even having been warned about it.

Or how she could rat-a-tat-tap on a thin pane of glass one metre square with a metal tool to attract her co-worker or would pick up my metal-legged stool and swing it around without noticing how close to the glass panelled living room doors it was.

I also can't believe why I didn't get angry - there's something British in this methinks - wanting to avoid a "scene" perhaps. Shocked to the core by the cavalier and jaunty way the woman continued and when I did mention it, she said it wasn't her who had done it, I didn't know how to counter this.

Plus there is a complicated arrangement with this apartment and it means I have to accept the workmen who are sent and there again I trusted my partner in this matter. When she, after it was all too late, agreed that it had been shoddy and they were going to be docked a certain proportion to cover the clean up, it still didn't make things better.

I don't want those two back in my flat. I'll do it myself. I was never brought up like this. Both my "fathers" were meticulous workmen and I would have challenged anyone to find a speck of dust in my mother's house.

Once, after I'd built a box-fence at my own house, my father came over and cast an eye up and down a job I was proud of and then spotted the defect in the line and how the concrete pouring hadn't been smoothed over in places.

Once after a screen-printing job, my later "father" cast an eye over it and immediately saw the slight run of colour from the stencil. It wasn't the defect, it was whether it was spotted and corrected that counted.

In his final years, I saw my original father painting a cabinet and the job was, quite frankly, like something I would have done. He saw it too and I never recall him painting again.

So every time I see these splashes which we've even tried to gouge out but which have gone into the enamel, it's very, very upsetting.

I can't believe people can be shoddy. I can't believe it.

Do I sound a bit like John McEnroe?

[losing streak] the americans do it big time

You don't see much American pro-ball on this site but this must take the biscuit as an amazing record:

Bad starting pitching, brutal relief and hardly any hitting. Oh, and lots of booing. Loss No. 10,000 came Sunday night when Albert Pujols hit two of the St. Louis Cardinals' six homers in a 10-2 rout of Philadelphia.

By the ninth inning, fans in the sellout crowd of 44,872 were thumbing their noses at the dubious mark, standing and cheering. One fan held up a sign that read:

"10,000 'N Proud."

"It's just another one as far as I'm concerned," said 81-year-old fan Ty Ayars, of Swedesboro, N.J. "They need pitching and until they get good pitching, they're not going to win a World Series any time soon."

What sort of a person supports a team like this? What is his psychological makeup? Then again, I was a Crazy Gang supporter and still watch Vinnie with affection in his pro-film career.

In Australia, there is a team named St.Kilda which operates much the same way and St Kilda supporters are generally greeted with both a smile and admiration of their fortitude.

They did well in recent years but have now dropped back again, as usual.

Also, what sort of team takes the name of their home city and contorts it into a moniker? Imagine Man U as "the Mannies" or Real Madrid as the "Maddies".

Suppose it takes all sorts.

[criticism] and how the blogger handles it

Regular readers will know this blog doesn't give a damn about reputations - hence Blogpower. On the other hand, some of the major blogs are major blogs because of their quality.

To go further, the way the blogger handles criticism, consistently presents his material day after day in a cheerful way and acts like a gentleman counts very highly in my estimation. That's why the comments by the moronic king cnut over at Iain Dale's are interesting.

Iain's reply was:

Yes, I do delight in criticising the LibDems too and I make no apology for it. This is after all a Tory leaning blog. I make no pretention about impartiality and never have. There's nothing hypocriticial about my stance whatsoever. If you don't like what I do, no one is forcing you to return.

Can't help feeling I would have been considerably more cutting in my remarks but that always was a great problem for me in dealing with others. Blogging is a great leveller and can transmogrify an arrogant, opinionated prat into a [generally] tolerable blogger.

Hope so.