Got a beef with the supermarkets?
I like a nice bit of beef. No, that’s not a euphemism. I love a proper joint of beef, matured for a good few weeks. For a real treat I’d always order fillet steak, cooked just medium. But apparently the great British public likes nothing better than a good mince (and no, that’s not a euphemism either!).
According to the National Beef Association, we’re not eating as much beef as we used to and what we do it is the cheaper (but for the supermarkets, more profitable) mince. It’s not just that these hard economic times leave us unable to afford steak or a rib joint. We just don’t seem to know how to cook the more unusual cuts. Of course mince is useful to have around for a quick lasagne, bolognese or chilli. Home-made burgers taste much nicer than shop bought (unless you buy yours from my local butcher, Simon East). But what’s wrong with flavoursome braising steak, slow cooked brisket, beautifully rich shin or even oxtail? Cheap, tasty and nourishing.
Anecdotally I see three issues. Firstly people don’t cook like they used to. I’m a keen cook, but I often struggle to find the time for a stir fry, let alone a slow cooked beef casserole. Of course the benefits of a casseole or stew is that it goes on when you have time and is ready when you want it (so long as you leave at least two hours). I wonder if many people have ever tasted some of these cuts, let alone seen how to prepare and cook them.
Secondly beef can be expensive. But the cheaper cuts are reasonably priced and as cheap as chickn – but far tastier.
Which leads me on to my third point. Beef is tasty. Unlike chickn is has a taste and a texture. And in my anecdotal experience, children and young people aren’t so keen on food that tastes meaty or needs chewing.
So if you hadn’t thought of using a cheap cut of beef to make a good meal, try my recipe for Beef Bourguinon.
The delusion of UKIP
I have just heard UKIP’s interim leader Jeremy Titford on the Radio 4′s Today programme, desperately trying to keep the party relevant. UKIP must be very disappointed with their performance in the General Election, as not only did they fail to take a seat, but there were no ‘Jimmy Goldsmith’ moments.
So with UKIP’s influence at Westminster at a low, I was surprised to hear Titford claim that UKIP’s policies were at the heart of the coalition government. This seemed to be based on the fact that the Lib Dems had taken UKIP’s idea of raising the tax thresholds to take more people out of tax and that the Tories had pinched their idea of localism.
Oh please, Mr Titford. UKIP was and remains an irrelevance in Westminster politics and long may it remain so.
I don’t need sexual seasoning, thanks
Yesterday I wrote about my sympathy for Ffion and William Hague amidst the media storm and the Hagues’ later statement. As I said at the time of David Laws’ outing earlier this year, I neither know nor care if Hague is gay or bisexual. If he had been unfaithful, then I would be sorry for Ffion, but I still don’t see that it’s any of our business. I simply don’t go with the mantra that if someone is unfaithful to their partner, they will let down their employer or their country.
Last night I was called ‘naive’ by a political journalist and many other names by others. Maybe I will end up looking stupid if it all comes out that the rumours are true. But I think we need to start drawing lines about the sort of intrusion people face from the media.
Of course if an MP were hiding something which might make them open to blackmail, that would be different. But as society has changed and become more socially liberal over the past decade, the days of someone being open to blackmail simply for being gay or pregnant outside marriage have gone. What we now have is blackmail by media, all in the name of transparency, but seasoned with prurience. If an MP is fiddling his expenses or employing an under-qualified friend, then report it. Don’t add on stories of gay lovers, sexy girlfriends or a minor celebrity or criminal who happened to be in the same restaurant or club as them the previous week. Some newspapers seem to have forgotten that they are in the buiness of providing information, not salivation.
This morning many people have been telling any media outlet that will listen to them that Hague made a mistake going public. Even John Redwood has decided to weigh in and question the Foreign Secretary’s judgement. Redwood is a fine one to talk; at least Hague had the judgement and respect to learn the words to the Welsh national anthem when he succeeded Redwood as Secretary of State for Wales, rather than make an undignified show of himself miming gibberish as his predecessor had done.
Of course many people have shared rooms with people they are not related to by blood or marriage. My widowed mother often holidays with friends and they sometimes share for reasons of cost of availability. In my youth I shared rooms and occasionally beds with young Lib Dems male, female, gay, bi, straight or disinterested without any form of sexual contact. Sports players are always sharing rooms when on tour, yet no-one dares to question the appropriateness of the relationships of Beckham, Pietersen or Wilkinson with their colleagues.
It’s probably inviting all sorts of comments to finish with as quote from former Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik. But I couldn’t beat his remark this morning on Nicky Campbell’s radio show. He said, “If all it takes to become gay is to share a room with a mate, then I’ve never met a straight man in my life“.
Is Blair a very naughty boy?
The headline on today’s Guardian letters page says, ‘Tony Blair was’t Labour’s messiah’. Was he a very naughty boy, then?
I was also surprised to see the self=description of the author. He signed himself as ‘Frank Jackson, Political education officer, Harlow Labour Party’. A local party with someone dedicated to political education? It sounds like something out of revolutionary China or 1984. What is it? Does every local Labour Party have one?
Big boys’ fantasies and the land of make-believe
I am more than a little underwhelmed about the fuss surrounding the identification of the Stig. I’m quite cross that the BBC seem to have wasted some of the licence fee pursuing this through the courts, but I can’t really see the fundamental problem.
Now I admit that I don’t watch either Top Gear or Dr. Who. In fact I actively avoid them, which isn’t easy when everyone else in my house loves them, except the dog. But surely knowing who plays the Stig is the same as knowing the name of the actor that plays the Doctor. Both of them play made-up characters. Neither of them are real, for goodness sake, any more than the soap actors who are attacked in the street because they play a wife-beater or a gay man.
If the success of the Stig and by extension Top Gear really depends on not knowing the identity of the C list racing driver who wears the white racing suit, then Clarkson and co might as well give up now. If only…
Hypocrisy, a prostitute and Simon Cowell
The other newspapers are slowly catching up on The Sun’s ‘exclusive‘ about the X Factor contestant who allegedly works as an escort girl or prostitute. The young woman called Chloe has apparently been spotted advertising her services online and was booked by the tabloid for an hour’s work at a hotel close to her Yorkshire home. She has denied the Sun’s story.
The Sun heaps scorn on Chloe’s ‘chav’ background, style of dress and single motherhood (I wonder how many of their own readership they have just identified?). But if the story is true, how did they identify her in the first place? Surely one of their staff must have been browsing online and then decided to call her up and enjoy her performance, before writing the nasty story?
But fair play to X Factor boss Simon Cowell. He said:
“We haven’t banned prostitutes. We can’t just take people off the show because they might do something that upsets some people. If a person applies to be on the X Factor it’s obvious to me that they want to do something better with their life.”
I don’t always agree with Simon Cowell, but I often enjoy his honesty. This is another occasion when he is right and the Sun is wrong. They are showing a different quality with a similar sound – hypocrisy.
Dish of the week: beef bourguignon
I don’t swear for the total authenticity of this recipe, but it tastes good!
- 1kg beef shin, cut into 5 cm cubes
- 400ml red wine
- 200ml beef stock
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 300g shallots
- 250g cubed pancetta or unsmoked streaky bacon
- 150g button mushrooms
- Pre-heat the oven to 140°C (Gas 1, 275°F).
- Lightly dust the beef in flour, then brown in a saute pan or overproof casserole with a little olive oil. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Add the bacon, garlic, shallots and mushrooms, braise for 6-8 minutes on a medium heat then add wine, stock,thyme, bay leaf and the seared meat. Season wtih salt and black pepper. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and place in the oven for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the casserole from the oven and take off the lid and if necessary reduce the sauce gently on the hob to a smooth consistency.
- Serve with mashed potato and ratatouille.
Why my heart goes out to the dignified Hagues
William Hague is in some ways a pretty strange guy. Think teenage speeches, baseball caps and 14 pints. He’s also an obviously highly talented man, with intelligence and wit. Many years ago, I met him in a work context and he was utterly charming. Had he been able to wait a few more years before challenging for the Conservative leadership, I think he would have made quite a good job of it and we might not have had a third term of Blair.
All the recent speculation over his private life has been unreasonable. It’s all ‘if he was having an affair’, ‘what if he’s put his boyfriend on the payroll’ and ‘look at his voting on gay rights’. Salacious rumour-mongering carried out for the pleasure of its perpetrators, dressed up as transparency has no part in our political life.
William Hague has tonight issued a personal statement that is full of more dignity than his detractors could manage put together in their lifetimes. He said:
“Ffion and I believe that everyone has a right to a private life. However, we now feel it necessary to give some background to our marriage because we have had enough of this continued and hurtful speculation about us.
“I have made no secret of the fact that Ffion and I would love to start a family. For many years this has been our goal. Sadly this has proved more difficult for us than for most couples. We have encountered many difficulties and suffered multiple miscarriages, and indeed are still grieving for the loss of a pregnancy this summer. We are aware that the stress of infertility can often strain a marriage, but in our case, thankfully, it has only brought us closer together. It has been an immensely traumatic and painful experience but our marriage is strong and we will face whatever the future brings together.
“Several years ago one Sunday paper reported that Ffion was three months pregnant, without ever checking the story with us. This made even more difficult the fact that we had only just experienced another disappointment.
“We have never made this information public because of the distress it would cause to our families and would not do so now were it not for the untrue rumours circulating which repeatedly call our marriage into question. We wish everyone to know that we are very happily married. It is very regrettable to have to make this personal statement, but we have often said to each other “’if only they knew the truth…’ “.
I know only too well what it it like to be in the position that the Hagues now find themselves. It is bad enough finding that you cannot conceive a much longed for child, or that you lose such a child before you have told most people that you are expecting. When it happens time after time, you do not know where you find the strength to go on with life, but you do. Having unsuccessful fertility treatment is in many ways even worse – the high of seeing all those beautiful embryos, then finding out that your body is not good enough to look after them.
Only those who have been there repeatedly know just what it feels like. The endless well-meaning comments, asking when you are going to start a family, with the warning not to leave it ‘too late’. And if you are lucky enough to have one child, the remarks about not allowing her to be an only child soon follow, with dire warning about what will happen to her if you fail to provide her with a sibling.
The pressure of living a life not being able to tell people why you are not taking part in a particular activity, or why you are feeling unwell or look a little pale, is immense. Just as I don’t think those who have had the family they desire without too many problems can understand the very real pain of infertility, so I cannot imagine what it must be like to go through all of this with uninformed sniping about your relationship and sexuality.
My heart goes out to William and Ffion and I hope that they will one day be able to celebrate their own miracle, just as we did 14 years ago.
How much is it worth to save a life?
It’s almost exactly 10 years since I lost my father to bowel cancer at the age of 73 and almost a year to the day that Matthew’s grandfather, who I loved as my own, died of the same disease at the grand age of 98. The latter fought the illness for five years, a great feat at his time of life and whilst caring for his wife. My father died less than three months after diagnosis, after what had appeared to be a successful operation which had removed the tumour. In fact he was killed by a rare side effect to the chemotherapy that should have ensured his medium term survival, a side effect which was missed until it was too late, because he had the temerity to fall ill on a Friday lunchtime, meaning that he was not seen by a specialist for three days.
So you might think I’d be squarely behind the campaign to make Avastin more freely available on the NHS. The truth is that I really don’t know what the answer is to the ever-increasing numbers of expensive drugs that may or may not increase the quality and/or quantity of life by various lengths of time. Read more
A polite ‘No thank you’
As I am incarcerated in hospital for nine days, I have made sure that I have plenty of reading matter. Husband Matthew has been looking after me with fresh fruit and clean clothes, but now he is away on a business trip, it has fallen to my mother in law to keep me supplied whilst in hospital.
This morning she called to ask if I would like anything brought in to me today. I asked for some Granny Smith apples and a couple of bananas. After confirming that I could get a newspaper, she then asked if I would like a copy of Tony Blair’s memoirs to read. I have politely declined.
