Author: bravo22c

What, you may be wondering, do all of the above have in common? Well, it turns out that they are all made with horse meat.

I have been shaking my head over the extensive coverage of the horse meat in beef products ‘scandal’ and wondering what, perzackly, the fuss is all about. I ate kazy, shuzhuk and karta, (all types of horse meat sausage,) while I was in Kazakhstan, where horse meat is very popular, as well as horse meat steaks, stews, casseroles and pasties, and very tasty they were too – even if I did find out, after ingesting it, that karta is, in fact, made from the upper rectum of the horse…hey, it’s all meat and after some of the things I had to eat in China, horse rectum only reaches about a 2.5 on the e-e-e-ewmometer. Let’s face it, a horse is just a cow that can run fast…

There is a serious point to criticism of the coverage of the ‘scandal,’ or perhaps I mean to the reaction to the coverage. First of all, the media use the wrong word to describe what has happened – the beef burgers, lasagna and whatnot are not ‘contaminated,’ the ingredients are ‘adulterated.’ It is entirely legal to sell and consume horse meat in the United Kingdom, but it is not legal to mis-label goods for sale.

Secondly, Findus, et all are the victims here, not the perpetrators. The perpetrators of any offence are the companies who supplied the adulterated product.

A simple solution therefore presents itself. The French were quick to ban imports of British Beef – payback time… ban all beef and beef product imports from lee continong until it can be demonstrated that such products are unadulterated.

Seemples.

PS. I see Findus are changing the name of the dish to ‘Spaghetti Bollogneighs…’

…delivered by JM Esq in another place prompts me to explain why i have been AOL for a while.

Things have not been all sweetness and light of the last few months chez Bravo. My son’s engagement went South, triggering a relapse in his condition, which has not been fun. You probably all recall that I was quite optimistic about his development last time, but this latest setback has been quite grim. The boy was actually led to the point of contemplating suicide at one point – going so far as to climb the stairs to the top of the building where he, (thankfully, still,) works here in London and looking over the edge…

I am grateful that, through it all, we have still managed to keep talking, even about that incident, but it has not been easy. The need to concentrate on providing the support the boy needs has, erm, how should I put this… rather upset my own plans, so I am still here in London rather than Jakarta or Cape Town, both places where I have had offers of contracts, or in Cyprus working on my book project and playing with my grandchildren.

I hope that does not sound grudging – it is meant to be merely descriptive as I have no hesitation at all in making whatever effort is needed to give the boy the support he needs But it’s hard. The problem is twofold. First, it is impossible to understand what he is going through. I have read as much as I can, and talked to as many people as I can, but, I think, it remains impossible to fully understand, and therefore empathise with, what he is suffering – I’m sure we have all been ‘depressed,’ at times, but clinical depression is another thing entirely. The second problem derives from that lack of understanding, because one is permanently walking on eggshells; what to say, what to do, what advice to give, when to stroke and when, if ever, to kick Rse a little bit.

Anyway, enough of my problems. The bottom line is that I have not felt myself to be fit for civilised company over the last months – I don’t count the pages of the DT blogs, where JM administered the afore-mentioned gentle encouragement – as civilised, but a place where I could vent a little on the AGW whackos who attempt to shut down dissent from their ridiculous religion there.

The good news – apart from England retaining the Calcutta Cup yesterday, having handed a right shellacking to the All Blacks in the Autumn – is that we seem to be making our way, if slowly, out of the slough of despond. We have engineered a complete image makeover for the boy, haircut, lose the beard, new wardrobe, and the fortuitous arrival of his childhood best friend from Hong Kong and a conscious determination on the boy’s part to escape his prison seem to be pointing to a new strength. He’s going out more often, making new friends and generally beginning to behave like a ‘normal’ 30 year-old in London with all its opportunities and challenges, for which I am truly grateful.

So, there it is. I’m going to be here in London for at least the next twelve months – I’m in the process of negotiating a contract here, admittedly below the level i would usually consider, but I need the distraction 🙂 Anhyhoo, Bravo’s back…

… All Cyprus have to do is:

Win European Nations Cup Division 2C – the win against Slovenia put them top with two wins from two.
Beat the winner of European Nations Cup Division 2D in a straight knock-out – likely to be Norway or Greece.
Beat the winner of European Nations Cup Division 2B in a straight knock-out – Israel are favourites to win that
Beat the winner of European Nations Cup Division 2A in a straight knock-out – Netherlands currently lead the way
Beat the winner of European Nations Cup Division 1B in a straight knock-out – Germany, Ukraine and Poland are possible opponents
Beat the third-place team from European Nations Cup Division 1A in a straight knock-out – Georgia, Romania, Russia and Spain are among the Division 1A sides.
ONLY THEN WOULD CYPRUS QUALIFY FOR THE REPECHAGE COMPETITION
Win a repechage semi-final against a team from Africa, the Americas or Asia.
Win a two-legged final against the other semi-final winner.

Piece of cake 😀 Go Moufflons!

Sack this dangerous idiot.

A trillion pounds of public debt, at least 100 billion more in the pipeline and this whacko – along with his dear leader – wants to waste another 2 billion quid’s-worth of taxpayers’ hard-earned for no return except that a few corrupt politicians and their criminal and business cronies in Africa and S America buy themselves a few new Mercedes, or Ferraris.

Building windmills in Africa is going to do absolutely SFA for the people who really need help. It’s not even better then doing nothing – in fact it’s worse then doing nothing because the wasted money could have been spent on something which would actually have helped African people – roads, for example or real power stations – coal, which is plentiful in large areas of Africa or a couple of Nukes.

Money for agriculture in Columbia? Narcotraffickers are estimated to control about 10 million acres of land, including about half of the most fertile and sought-after land in the country, and infiltrated the highest levels of institutions like the presidential intelligence service (DAS) and the Medellín branch of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, as well as controlling local politicians and elements of LEA. Where does he think that cash is going to go?

What we spend waste on foreign aid each year would build two nuclear power stations at home and keep the lights on – and the equipment working in our hospitals and schools.

Time to stop this nonsense once and for all.

Watching QI yesterday with my son, one of the panel was introduced as having been born ‘before there was television.’ I was born before there was television too… OK, television existed before I was born, but there really was no television – generally available – until I was, what, 5 or 6? The first time I aw a TV, and watched it, was HM’s coronation in 1953. We went across the road – St Andrews’ Road in Deal – to a neighbour’s house, along with 20, maybe, other neighbours to crowd into their tiny ‘front room,’ around a huge cabinet with a tiny screen, all of us dressed in our Sunday Best for the occasion, men in suits and ties and ladies in posh frocks.

One of my earliest memories is of waiting at a tram stop in Forest Gate in London when I was two +/-. There was what I now know to be a bombsite behind the stop which had become water-filled where there were always what I called ducks, which were probably seagulls, but to me, it wasn’t a bombsite, it was a magic place 🙂

I’d be interested to know what other charioteers earliest memories are?

…for the longest winning streak?

Well, what a weekend of sport it’s turning out to be so far.  England getting stuffed at cricket by India, losing the first of the Autumn matches against Australia with a woeful display for three-quarters of the match then,  Laura Trott leads the girls to a right thrashing of the Australians at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

Big furry surprise:

‘Expenses scandal: 27 MPs let one home and claim for another.’

And we thought the ‘new intake’ was going to be less money-grabbing and more solicitous of the tax-payers’ hard-earned in their care… didn’t we?

Yeah, right. Is it any wonder that many of us* think that our lords and masters are more interested in lining their nests and lining themselves up for lucrative jobs in the private sector – either while still sitting in the Hhouse, or on ‘retirement,’ on top of their fat ‘redundancy’ packages and gold-plated pensions? (Or, equally lucrative sinecures in the EUSSR kleptocracy.)

*translation: ‘I’ 🙂

No, it’s my Granddaughter in her ‘morph suit.’ Just thought I’d share 😀

This started of as a comment on the ‘Beyond Contempt’ post, but it got rather long, so I’m sticking it up as a stand-alone for whatever it’s worth.  I think a word about anachronistic assignment of moral values might be in order. Measuring the behaviour of Kings, Queens and Dictators in centuries with moral, religious, cultural and social outlooks and systems far removed from those of the 21st century might not be appropriate. Shouldn’t their behaviour be measured against the standards of their times?

When you come closer to our own times and behaviour, there might be value in measuring the ‘standards’ of the time to see how far we have come – or not. It is a salutary lesson to point out as Sipu has, that the British invented modern concentration camps – although history is littered with similar examples. I am sure our historians can probably bring some examples to mind better than I can, since I can’t think of any off-hand – mass murder, of course, is a different story, Carthago delenda erat, after all. Continue reading “Top of the Pops?”