White Bait

I've never eaten much red meat. There's no moral stance to that I just prefer chicken (no jokes about cock, please). I am suspicious of beef pies and stews - I invariably find that the one bit of gristle in the whole ensemble ends up on my plate - and the thought of steak just does nothing for me. Burgers I had a brief affair with when I was a teenager but as soon as I became socially conscious they went over to the dark side under the rippling banners of McDonald's, at least in my mind anyway, and thus my palate railed against them.

But I eat mince regularly. Homemade bolognese and chili. I do a lot of that kind of thing.

It seems a foregone conclusion then, the more that horse-gate unravels, that I have partaken of equine flesh at some time or other. Porbably enough that I ought to set up a direct debit to Redwings horse sanctuary to attone for my glutinous sins.

I can't help wondering though how long this cutting-beef-products-with-horse-products has been going on (at least they're not cutting it with talcum powder or Ajax). Probably years.

And I can't help wondering if it warrants the furore that has been grinding on and on about it.

Don't get me wrong. I love horses. I really do. Though in this context I'd like to state that, by choice, I'd much rather not eat one.

I'd like to live in a world where food manufacturers were honest and open-handed and listed accurately the ingredients in their wares. I'd like to live in a world where the constituent ingredients in a beef pie were simply beef and pastry. Or the constituent ingredients of a pork sausage was simply pork. Because to slip other stuff in there and not declare it is fraud of the worst kind. It is lies and deceit and leaves the backdoor open to talcum powder and Ajax and perforated septums.

But then again, have we not long lived in a world where chicken is pumped with water and chemicals to make it look plumper on the supermarket shelves? Have our eyes not surveyed rank upon rank of pork sausages that strictly speaking do not contain pork at all but in fact contain breadcrumbs, pig lips, pig trotters, pig arseholes and the stuff the farmer has wiped off his boots? How many of us have bought fishfingers thinking it was cod when in fact we have been slathering our mushypeas over generic "white fish"?

Unless you go out, hunt it, kill it and gut it yourself you have no way of knowing if the food on your plate is actually the food the supermarket label says it is.

We, all of us, could as well have eaten camel, kangeroo or Great Dane over the last few years and merely commented that for once the beef was exquisitely tender.

But of course this fraud is not right.

But who to blame?

All to easy to blame the abbattoir owners and their ilk - they, after all, are literally at the sharp end of the food production chain. Sorry, I say "all to easy" like they're being blamed unfairly... they're not. The guilty ones have committed a criminal act and must be punished.

But ultimately I blame the supermarkets. I blame the competition of super food corporations that push and push for cheap meat and cheaper meat that, yes, is kind of great for the consumer, but inevitably squeezes the meat producers and the farmers to the point where it does not make economic sense for them to produce the meat that the supermarkets want to sell to us with their own labels stamped on top.

Cheap invariably means dodgy and adulterated.

You get what you pay for.

Now if the supermarket labels merely said "cheap meat" we'd probably all have a much better idea of what it was we were eating...

Every Little Helps My Arse

There should be a comma somewhere in the title but... oh, never mind.

I had every intention of writing a warm, sentimental, cosy-on-up type of blog post today, I really did. Something that would have had you all scooting up on the sofa just that little bit closer to your loved ones. Something that would have had you nuzzling up to each other like mewling kittens of Christmas love.

And then Tesco rained on my parade last night. Not hugely. Not diluvian by any means. But enough to make me feel like Mr Tesco himself was pissing down my neck.

The wife and I do our shopping on-line. Have done for years. Why spend 2 hours dragging the kids around a superstore at the weekend when 40 minutes on the computer can get it all done for you and then one of Mr Tesco's Little Helpers will deliver it all to your door on the day of your choice at a time you specify?

It's a wonder of the modern age.

Not that it is not without it's little foibles and foul-ups. The chief of these being the "substitute game". This is the one where your personal shopper in-store can't find the exact item you have requested and so substitutes if for something similar or approximating or something barely genetically linked.

This happens quite often. Sometimes we keep the substitutes; sometimes not. It all depends on the ability of our personal shopper to think inside the box and not come out with something so leftfield you wonder if he/she has had one half of their brain removed for medical experimentation.

But the point is, if Tesco haven't got what we want they have always done their best to offer us a consolation prize.

Until last night.

The night our Christmas shop was due to be delivered. The night our big Christmas chicken was being delivered ready for the big day tomorrow.

The delivery guys arrives at 8.00pm. He unloads. There is no chicken. There is no chicken at all. Anywhere. We check the print-out of what we have ordered - just in case the error was ours. But no. The chicken is listed. Along with the size we specified.

The print-out informs us it was not available. And no substitute has been provided.

None at all.

Nadda.

Even the delivery guy is amazed that Tesco have done this. Isn't it obvious that this is the main component of our Christmas meal? What if we were old, infirm and housebound? What would we do for our Christmas meal then? Make do with a couple of mouldy old Garibaldis from the back of the cupboard?

Thank you, Mr Tesco. That was really helpful. That has really warmed the Christmas cockles of our hearts.

I know, I know. They'd probably sold out. Had none left in the store. But we'd placed this order days ago. We'd put our dibs on a chicken and, as far as I'm concerned, had reserved one. I mean, we pay £5 on top of the food bill for this service after all.

The delivery guy recommended we ring up and complain. Assured us that Tesco would be taking deliveries tomorrow and more chickens would be in stock.

I'm sure he was right. But Karen and I had lost our faith in Tesco. We just wanted our chicken now - safely there in our fridge where we could see it's cute little parson's nose slowly defrosting. We didn't want to play Christmas chicken with our chicken and leave it until Christmas Eve when Tesco might let us down again. 'Cos plainly Tesco didn't give a fig(gy pudding) whether we had anything to eat on Christmas Day or not.

So Karen nipped out to Asda. They had a chicken. A big one. And they sold it to us.

It is now in our fridge and Christmas is saved.

No thanks to Tesco, though.

Tesco - Christmas or not - you can cock right off.

This Space Is Free

So, I’m immersed in the small scale mania of my first day back at work after a week off with the wife and kids. I won’t belabour the point but I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be picking up the phone, picking up the contracts, picking up the complaints, picking up the tab, picking up exactly where I left off and running in that big wide circle of dull employment that positions me back in this exact same position this time next Monday.

But I am and I will. The bills need paying. The kids need feeding. The wolves at the door need sating. This is life, right?

But there is one consolation. One undeniable fact that makes this reintroduction to the corporate grindstone a little more bearable this morning. Hell, it even makes me review my career path and makes me think that maybe I didn’t bum out after all.

And I have ASDA to thank for this joyous epiphany.

A quick walk to their store yesterday afternoon to pick up a packet of Bourbons and draw out money that I haven’t got from their ATM brought me into contact with a member of their staff who surely must have the most demeaning and soul destroying job on the planet.

Maybe this position has been around a while and I have merely missed it due to my infrequent visits to ASDA’s superstore? Maybe it’s not big news but it was certainly a new experience for me.

I’d grabbed my Bourbons. A double economy pack if you must know. I was heading down the aisle towards the checkout booths and that’s when I saw him. Or rather I saw it first.

It. The big green cardboard pointy hand held up on a big stick. The big green pointy hand with the words “space here” printed across the palm in ASDA’s jolly shopper script.

ASDA are employing someone to stand in front of the checkout area, moving along its length backwards and forwards like a crab in a force 10 gale, indicating which of the checkout booths has space on their conveyor belt of plenty to accept a new customer.

You poor sod.

Those were the exact words – pure and unadulterated – that entered my head when I saw him. He wasn’t even a young YTS-wannabe. Not a Hoodie serving community service. It was some poor middle aged fellow. Geez. Someone my age. He looked as fed up as such a job could make anyone. I could feel his depression emanating from him like the BO from his upheld arm. Space here. How he didn’t just dip that sign down so it was pointing to his own skull, I don’t know.

And then I thought: well, my job isn’t all that bad. I have a desk. I have a computer and a telephone. I have an In-try and an out-tray. Paperwork and emails. Budgets. And most important of all. I have a need to fill. My job is required. It is needed and, dare I say it, essential to the smooth running of the building. It’s important.

But then again it also has stress. And responsibility. And fall-out. And consequence. And complaints. And accountability. And capacity for foul-ups. And boredom and tediousness. And a sheer lack of personal engagement which quite frankly stultifies my brain for 5 days a week.

The only difference between me and that guy in ASDA is the stick.

And the BO.

*Sigh*

Space here. If anybody wants it.