Symbolic Forest

At the weekend: off we went to a vegetarian food event we’d seen advertised in The Spark, put on by vegan campaigning organisation Viva!. We were expecting it to be slightly biased, obviously, but even so the strength of the propaganda they gave was slightly surprising. They claim, according to a poster we saw there, that their “veggie roadshows” have saved the lives of 100 million animals so far, which sounds like, well, a rather large number. They claim that one person converting to the veganist religion will save “around 11,047 animals”. I love that figure, and, particularly, the “around” part. Around. A rough estimate: it might only be 11,046-and-a-half animal lives, or you might do well and manage a whole 11,047-and-an-eighth! Going by these numbers, that means they think they’ve converted 9,052.2314 people to veganism (don’t forget that almost-a-quarter of a person at the end there) – or about 650 a year, on average, since they started out. How they count those 11,000 – sorry, roughly 11,047 – animals, I’m not entirely sure. Do animals who will now not be born count as lives saved? Will all those 11,047 (roughly) animals live out their natural lives in some happy, predator-free elysium? Forever cute, as their propaganda posters show? Who knows?

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Keyword noise: additives, artificial flavouring, Bute, Bute Island Food, cheese, food, green, health, ingredients, propaganda, Rothesay, sheese, soya, statistics, vegan, vegetarian, Viva!.

Back in the days when I was a student, ten years or so ago,^* I would be quite experimental in the kitchen. I’d try things out, new recipes, experimental recipes. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t, but it made things nice and varied.

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Keyword noise: cheese, cooking, eggs, food, fritatta, mushroom, omelette, potato, recipe.

I am not a hero. I had always suspected as much, but now I know it’s true.

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Keyword noise: cheese, heroism, Hull, Sainsburys, shoplifting, supermarket, theft, witness, Yorkshire.

Ever since I moved back in with The Parents, The Mother has been insistant that I have a Proper Breakfast. Unfortunately for me, her idea of a Proper Breakfast was always a bowl of corn flakes. I’ve never been a fan of breakfast cereal,^* and tried to explain to her that there’s not that much justification for eating it. It was originally invented by an enema-obsessed nutritionist who was very concerned about bowel movements, and believed that masturbation was evil. His brother added salt and sugar to make it more palatable. If you think it doesn’t taste very good now, bear in mind that the current Managing Director of Kelloggs Europe has admitted that “if you take the salt out you might be better off eating the cardboard carton for taste”.

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Keyword noise: bacon, bacon rolls, breakfast, cereal, cheese, Corn Flakes, ham, John Harvey Kellogg, The Mother, toast.