Kazy, Shuzhuk, Karta – and Findus Beefburgers.

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…’

Snow good…..

We awoke to a white world, with the snow still falling. It wasn’t forecast until tomorrow, I thought. By late morning it was sleeting, and finally it turned to drizzle. There’s very little snow left now – just a line at the bottom of the car windscreen where it had gathered more thickly. From the kitchen window I could see the bushes decorated with sparkles of melted snow.

??????????

It’s about 2c out there, but it’s a ‘wet cold’ which gets through to your bones – (the sort of day my Ma always called ‘raw’) – and I am disinclined to go out and take my daily walk. But I should really. Maybe if I put on the heating (which I had only just returned to its usual ‘morning and evening only’ setting) and know I can come back to a warm house, I may then be less disinclined?

Hands up those who are planning to put in a picture or a short story…. closing date on 15th.

See links at right hand corner of the page.

Dart Attack

Just caught the end of the darts Premier League on the Evil Empire. Phil Taylor was playing somebody called Michael van Gerwen. Darts is one of those sports that I don’t watch yet I forced myself to watch the conclusion of this. It ended 6-6 for those that are interested.
What did catch my eye was at the end of the game it looked as if MVG (that’s what the commentators call him) was going to throw his darts into the crowd. Was this customary at darts? You know, just like the golfers that throw the golf ball to the spectators at the end of the Open. I waited for the carnage. Thankfully, for the punters, he was just kind of a punching the air with his darts.
If you ask me I’d say chucking missiles at the audience would make the sport a lot more exciting.

National pride

Our boys dunn good on Wembly nite
And gev them uvver lads wot for.
O cors they neely spoild the game
Wi’ all that silens just befor.

Oo wonts to fink about Man U,
An sum ole plane crash years ago?
Or niteclub deaths or Bobby Mor?
We came ere for the game – dint you?

Our Jack and Theo shode the way –
The Gunners – we noe oo we are!
So stuff them Chelsea mob and Spurs.
Av you got sumfin els to say?

Prideful Poems Please

Scarcely a week left and only one from each Janus so far.

Here’s something to encourage your muse, it’s a Gene Weingarten sonnet again from The Washington Post (you should be able to do better than this).  Do so now and post it here.

Pride – the Blonde and the Jigsaw

I knew one time a yellow-headed bawd
And gave to her a puzzle made of wood.
The pieces were in shapes both small and odd
For her to reassemble (if she could).

Set she right down to solve it true and fast
But days of work did no solution bring
Soon fortnights, months and seasons also passed!
And still she labored with the blasted thing.

It took twelve months, but fin’lly it was done
She seemed unbowed — discouraged not, nor sick
I asked her if the puzzle’d brought her fun
She said it had! She felt she’d done it quick.

With pride, she smiled and toss’d her golden locks:
“See – four to six years‚ says it on the box!”

The Beaten Track

The cacophony of passing strangers was wearing me down. Their random snippets of speech jarring my ears as they stride past me. The random fragments of their stories that will be forever unknown to me, unfinished Schubert conversations

“Tomasz Wrzesiński wins Gold for Britain,” howls the newspaper vendor.

Living in an over-populated urban metropolis means that when outdoors there are very few moments for quiet reflection. The bustle of crowds and the usual noises emanating from a big city environment are contributory factors to the dearth of good pastoral poets in this neighbourhood. The only one that made an impact in the literary scene was B. Keeper but he was the exception. Continue reading “The Beaten Track”