sumafoods

Its Christmas Again w00t !!1!!one!one!!111

2006-12-19T11:05:00.000Z

a non-denominational bloody massive Christmas Goat in Sweden, yesterday

So how are y'all its been a while ....again... no-one has bothered to send me any cryptozoological stuff so todays is entirely dull its probably death worms or mokele membes or something, see i haven't even decided yet.

Well whats been happening in the lovely world of food, you remember the gutless FSA and it being ordered about by the FDF? well who steps up to the plate but Ofcom who is a kind of Robert McCall character (those of you who never watched The Equalizer need to watch it NOW it rocks on every level, Eewar Woowar is the rockest septagenarian ex SAS, CIA funded vigilante EVAH!) ..... anyhoo Ofcom has backed up its ginger specky runny-nosed mate the FSA and told the all powerful FDF that it can't advertise its filthy disgusting chicken-arse-skin-dippers to children by cynically pasteing a picture of Scooby Doo on the front but the FDF has the brass balls to claim it's "over the top"!! now is it just me or does that sound like the whining of some evil profiteering scum or not? Well the scraps on the rec' at half four so join us all in a big ring shouting "fight, fight, fight etc"

This a a quite interesting link to the pesticide residues on fruit and veg' which comes from the USFDA

Some welshies have to change the name of their "Welsh Dragon" sausages by the entirely pointless bureacrats at Trading Standards because they don't contain real Dragon!, shame that but i imagine it would taste of chicken everything else does

The government gives vouchers for fruit and veg' that will now no doubt be spent on 10 Sovereign or some Kestrel Super

Cryptozoology Corner

Is David Icke Right?, Do Lizard Men Walk Amongst Us?

Crytomundo has a load of links to fiendish lizard blokes, and these people are just frickin' nuts

Film Of The Week

Undead 2003
Rene, a small-time beauty queen, is forced to move out of her hometown Berkeley, a sleepy town in Queensland due to finicial problems. However, barely had she started the journey when meteors start raining down from the sky, turning all those hit into zombies. In an attempt to escape, she stumbles upon a small group of surviviors including the single most annoying copper wearing shorts i have ever seen on film, and together they must fight their way out of town. However, one of the survivors firmly believes it is more than just a simple zombie outbreak, but part of a bigger conspiracy.
Loads of humour, gore and a ridiculous back plot, Sharpey likes it so much he's had my copy for 6 months.

Other Random Good Stuff

The unutterably funny Alien Loves Predator

and the equally good Ask Dr Eldritch

Right i'm off to get egg-nogged up, see you next year Merry Christmas!!

"Quick Tony has just pushed Colin in a bush"

2006-09-19T11:09:00.000+01:00

In a completely unsurprising move the all powerful FDF (food and drink federation) have responded to the FSA's "traffic light labelling" recommendation by stealing its lunch money, flicking spit in its hair, throwing its bag up on the bus shelter roof and then pushing it in a bush,figuratively speaking. The FSA is a 13 year old ginger boy called colin who's mom is the school nurse, the FDF is a seventeen year old called tony kept down a year, who smokes and whose mom is in Askham Grange
I know the nations health is seriously affected by obesity, i know that more education is needed to prevent the percentage of morbidly obese children increasing but putting traffic lights on food! WTF were they thinking?, you only have to look at the demographic of the people who are at most grave risk like these two fantastic mothers Whether you like it or not, it is the very poorest children of this country who suffer and it is these very same children who suside on pot noodles and sunny delight because their parents don't know any better, let the govenrment educate as well as legislate, let it have the foresight of Belgium and Sweden who forbid the marketing of food and drink to children as it is "morally reprehensible" to market products to gullible children, far be it from me to suggest that the government has any vested interest in keeping the purveyors of crap on the TV and in fridges but there were questions over some of the peerages offered to labour party **Ahem** **cough** "investors" see this list of some of the questionable labour party contributors and then think "cheese-strings" and see if you want to "try something new today"
If you have ANY doubt about conflicting interest of the FSA board members read this lets have a look at the FSA's board members

Cryptozoology Corner

HERE BE MONSTERS

Okay i know my obsession with werewolves is well documented and i can even trace the source to my buying a marvel comic called werewolf at the beach shop in Par in the **cough** seventies **cough** and similarly a couple of years later Hammer House of Horror had an episode where Diana Dors lived in a house in the woods with a gaggle of werewolf kids had a profound effect on my young mind, but deep down even though it saddens me greatly i know they don't exist.
So how these people can seriously discuss dragons albeit in a scientificistic "well if their bones were hollow and their had a residual methane filled swin bladder they could fly" type of way but its the preface from a guy who said he saw a dragon at a country fair in 1911 and goes on to discuss how they make fire that gets my loony of the week/month/quater/who knows? award

Film of the Week

Old Boy

Oldboy is a 2003 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook based on a Japanese manga of the same name. The film can be described as a psychological thriller, utilizing many elements of film noir to examine the nature of sin and morality, with distinct themes of Greek tragedy. The bare outlines of the plot are reminiscent of The Count of Monte Cristo (the director himself makes the homage explicit at one point), but the movie diverges very freely from its source. It is the second installment of Park's "vengeance trilogy", preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and followed by Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. It is massive cool and along with Visitor Q and A Tale of Two Sisters it's one of the must see tartan asia extreme movies of the week.

Other Random Good Stuff

This is a massive webcomic based in a fictional northern mill town somewhere close to halifax, its good stuff but be prepared to waste an entire weekend reading it just navigate back to the first page by clicking on the chapters heading and then wake up for work on monday scarygoround

and this is a link to the wonderful Boing-Boing which trawls the web for cool stuff so you don't have to.

Well thats another one over, lets hope its not quite so long before entries next time eh? but i'll be honest i'm running out of cryptozoology stuff, and before you say owt i'm not put ghost or vampires in cos one of them is soft "wooooo wooooo be scared of me i'm incorporeal, watch out or i may float near you" and the other one doesn't exist outside of a goths head. So any sensible cryptozoology suggestions or general spookiness (without being spooks) let me know; ciao babies

All things are not created equal (except lego and Mary Kate and Ashley)

2006-07-06T13:28:00.000+01:00

Have a guess what these two young lovelies are meant to be? ...... no? that believe it or not is ronald and ronaldina McDonald, japan stylee, yep to celebrate the launch of the
Tomato McGrand, using two models to advertise a 1100 calorie, 56g of fat beauty is astonishing even by our Nestle cereals as a health food TV advertising culture.

However good news Education Secretary Alan Johnson published a "minimum nutrition standards for school food" on the 19th May, of the good things it addresses are the expulsion of low quality meat products, deep fried food restrictions, two portions of fruit or veg each meal etc etc. Read the full thing here oh and if you are interested or indeed involved in the changes that HAVE to happen in school food provision in the next year, see here, it includes the full auditing and planning toolkit as set out by the Department of Health.

But i have a problem or two with it

These pictures are both of chips one is of
Sarotoga Chips the history of which was "hilariously" portrayed by Johnny Ball who dressed up as "red indian" George Crum (this was the early 80's) to depict his reaction to a dissing that his sauted potatoes at the Moon Lake Lodge were too thick by slicing them too thinly to eat with a fork and then covering them with salt.
The other CHiPs are officers Jon Baker and Frank Poncherello of the California Highway Patrol who have an entirely different nutritional profile yet are both unable to be served in schools because "chips is chips", by the way if you ever get chance to buy the DVD of CHiPs '99 by all means do, there is nothing more entertaining / heartbreaking than seeing former childhood idols gone to pot (same goes for The Dukes of Hazzard Reunion, seeing Daisy trying to get in the windows of the General Lee brought tears to mine eyes).

The point being that it is not so cut and dried that low sugar is intrinsically better (my thoughts on artificial sweeteners are written all over this blog) likewise not all crisps are bad, here's a little pop quiz

A/ Ingredients: Potatoes, vegetable oil, cheese and onion flavour [onion powder, lactose, flavour enhancers (monosodium glutamate, sodium guanylate), cheese powder made with animal rennet, wheat maltodextrin, flavouring, colour (annatto)], salt.

Nutritional information
Per 100g: 525 calories; 33g fat (of which 15g is saturated fat); 0.7g sodium (equivalent to 1.75g of salt).

B/ Ingredients; Potatoes, Fully refined non-hydrogenated Sunflower Oil, Natural Mature Cheddar & Red Onion flavour.

Nutritional information
PER 100g; ENERGY 2118kj / 507Kcal PROTEIN 8.9g CARBOHYDRATES 49.3g of which SUGARS 2.0g FAT 30.5g of which SATURATES 4.2g of which MONO-UNSATURATES 8.7g of which POLY-UNSATURATES 16.1g DIETARY FIBRE 5.0g SODIUM 0.5g Equivalent as SALT 1.7g

Okay one of these is a handbaked crisp, one is a leading brand crisp both of them are cheese and onion flavour, can you tell which is which and can you honestly tell me looking at those ingredients that these products are entirely equal?

Crytozoology Corner

Are there still thunderbirds in the sky?

The Thunderbird is a creature common to native American religion. It is named such as the beating of its enormous wings causes thunder and stirs the wind. The Lakota name for the Thunderbird is "Wakinyan," a word formed from "kinyan," meaning "winged," and "wakan," "sacred." It is described as being two canoe-lengths from wingtip to wingtip, with glowing red eyes that cause lightning when closed. Storms are said to be caused by its flight. However it seems that many people are of the opinion that this is not the stuff of legend but something giant flapping round the skies of North America right now

Film Of The Week

Hellsing Vols 1-4
Okay i know its another cartoon or more specifically anime, the highly stylised form of japanese animation, remember Battle of the Planets? well this series OWNS B.O.P.
The Hellsing of the title refers to the Hellsing Foundation a secret organisation operating with the Knowledge of Her Majestys Government (yes its set in England) precided over by Sir Integra Whingates Hellsing (who is a woman so rock she is a sir rather than a dame) the direct decendant of Abraham Van Hellsing, Stokers original vampire hunter. With an unlikely ally in Alucard (yep its dracula backwards) and his vampire ward Ceres Victoria and faithful family retainer Walter (the angel of death) they all KICK VAMPIRES TO BITS.
Massive guns, crazy vatican warrior priests, undead children, ghouls, SAS, vampire dogs biting legs off............Brilliant.

Other good stuff
These comics RRRUUUULLLLLEE remember to press the << button to go back to the start of the strip or manually select it or you'll miss all the good stuff

Gunnerkrigg

Dr McNinja

Bye miss y'all already, mind you with my inability to write owt for ages it'll probably be a couple of months before i get owt else done, to be honest its the "crytozoology corner" thats proving the sluffer (technical term) as i'm running out of mysterious stuff and i don't want to resort to ghosts because ghosts are soft except Sadako out of the ring who is the hardest dead teenage goth ghost out.

This is Mary-Kate and Ashley saying "like TOTALLY seeya later homies"

YAY I'm Back

2006-04-25T10:48:00.000+01:00

AAAATTTISSHHHOOOOOOO have that you aesthetically pleasing grebes

Well here i is again, i have been off the radar because of some proxy server problem wuh?, when did people start saying "off the radar" its like "i'll keep you in the loop" or my personal favourite "service level agreements" seriously we have these things, now in my dads day, service level agreements (SLA's .... yeah really) were called DOING YOUR JOB or DYJ and if you didn't DYJ you got sacked and then had to live as a tramp before you got picked off the streets by the police beaten severely and then put in a mental hospital (you could call them mental hospitals then) where a man who called himself doctor, and who had "disappeared" 100's of vagrants previously, either performed an unsanctioned and unnecessary labotomy with a coat hanger or liquid coshed you for 30 years until World in Action discovered your plight and forced you in to Care in the Community whereby you walked the streets of Bootle frightened and confused, being happy slapped by estate filth whilst their grubby minimally educated "posse" laugh along.............. sooooo aaaannnyway if you are one of those people who are defined by your ability to write reports rather than actually produce anything then this may help in that it provides you with the tools to say absolutely nothing but make it sound important thereby disguising your complete inability to produce anything, safe in the knowledge that there are worthier people in Bootle being happy slapped as you blither.

OK back to business, swans eh? ccuuhh (thats my attempt at putting into letters that sound you make when you you kind of tut whilst raising your head slightly and rolling your eyes) there i was only the other month going on about pandemic this and epidemic that and poo-pooing it all and then blow me down if a bird flu'd up German (yes German) swan washes up dead in Scotland which is ironic because thats where it started according to the Scotsman Newspaper
This is some massive stork things being sprayed at a zoo in Scotland to save them from bird flu, now i don't know about you but if those things escaped bird flu would be the last of my worries i'd be more scared of being PECKED TO DEATH by their massive beaks then carried off to a nest on the top of a volcano like Doug Maclures lass in
At The Earths Core who was the foremost horror siren of the day the fantastic Caroline Munro

Now i think i've mentioned this before but seeing as this blog is simply an extension of my own id and ego i'll repeat myself, Sodium Benzoate is A POISON do not feed it to your kids, if you do me and Esther Rantzen will go medieval on your booty, seriously the FDA and the FSA know that sodium benzoate or E211 is a poison so they limit it to 0.1g per 100g but, is it just me or, do you find it unacceptable that the soft drinks producers operate with apparent total immunity from the law, see this article to see how impotent government agencies are in the face of the huge lobbying power of these companies, it actually says "we told them to stop and they said they'd do it" what next The FSA chase the drinks companies round the park dressed as saucy nurses in fast motion..jeebus!

Cryptozoology Corner

Thar be sea-serpents Yar

Not yer run of the mill Loch Ness Sturgeon sighting but real massive stuff including photo's of a sail fish which i'd never heard of before but it grows upto 30 feet long, all links here courtesy of the lovely people at Shadow Lands

Thar she blows YAR!!

Film of the Week

Family Guy; Stewie Griffin the Untold Story

Stewie and Brian Griffin are quite simply the two best characters in cartoonland in this film Stewie, the maniacal baby genius, is distracted from his plans for world domination after a near-death experience. Stewie plays nice thus creating an alternate goody-two-shoes version of himself. Convinced that a man on TV (his future self) must be his real father (after all, how could he possibly share genetic material with the dimwitted Peter?), Stewie sets off on a cross-country road trip to find him. But his incredible journey leads him to discoveries far more vile and shocking than anything found in his diaper.
Sample Stewie-ism
Stewie: I say, Mother, this hot dog has been on my plate for a full minute and it hasn't yet cut itself.
Lois: Honey, I'll be right there.
Stewie: Oh, by all means, take your time. Oh, and when you do finally get around to it, I'll be the one covered in flies with a belly that protrudes half-way to bloody Boston! . ACE

Other Random godd stuff

http://www.nataliedee.com/

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/

Enjoy it or you are a twit, toodle-oo for now

New Years Resolutions anyone?

2006-01-17T14:31:00.000Z

this is the sublime poofy's new years resoloution

Chances are though that you have all overdone it on Snowballs, fairisle jumpers and charades, so what do we do? yep New Years resolutions like this list of the top ten well meaning resolutions, but we all know you lay off fags until that first faux stressful moment, or stay off the ale until you can tie your shoes without having to push your liver out of the way, or even join a gym, now as someone who spent a good many years of his life in a gym i can understand the whole endorphin thing, plus you can eat, drink and smoke loads (the principle of doing ALL things to excess including the good for you bits) but as someone who periodically lapses i can understand the whole torpid inertia of getting off the Playstation sorry XBox 360 and going out of the house to anywhere apart from The Old Bailey, one of the main criticisms people have is the amount of time you have to sign up for well these people called Save On My, who offer advice on like...saving money...and that!?!. Oh and here is a link to the Times article on choosing the right gym for you

I know this is ostensibly a blog about food, so it would eb remiss of me not to mentions this but here is a clue as to what a lot of folk could do relatively easily to make vast improvements to their health and well being

STOP EATING LARD

We know this people, obesity is a major contributor to cancer, heart disease, cirrohsis of the liver, kidney failure, impotence and now the Mental Health Foundation and the Secretary of State for Health make the link between poor nutrition and mental health as if just to rub it in here is another study linking obesity to Alzheimer’s disease
I'm not going to bang on about it because you know you've got a problem if you are having Black Forest Gateaux for breakfast and all your clothes have elastic waists. So i'll just mention that fast food can be very fast and very ace, i've mentioned it before but this is the best quick snack you will ever had, if a lttle wordy and this gives you 75 different quick ideas

Cryptozoology Corner

This months we will be looking at demons, was reading in some alternative therapy magazine about "angel therapy" and thought, well if angels are on the come back trail why not their nemeses the demns, so i googled it and whaddya know, they are all over the shop, here is a link site with some pretty creepy ones on there along with the sound clip from that Norwegian drilling team who claim to have taped hell,dig in

FILM OF THE WEEK

There ahve not been nearly enough werewolf based items on this blog for ages so in order to set this right i will submit to you the genius that is

Is becoming a woman analogous, in some deep psychological way, to becoming a werewolf? because there have been a slew of films and books with this subject but none does it better than this.Ginger is 16, edgy, tough, and, with her younger sister, into staging and photographing scenes of death. They've made a pact about dying together. In early October, on the night of a full moon, a werewolf bites Ginger. Within a few days, some serious changes happen to her body and her temperament. Her sister Brigitte, 15, tries to find a cure with the help of Sam, a local doper. As Brigitte races against the clock, Halloween and another full moon approach, Ginger gets scarier, and it isn't just local dogs that begin to die.
There were two sequels the second in the series being even more grim (in a good way) than this one. An absolute must for any fan of the horror genre, and its canadian so no slushy subplots aimed at teenagers.

And Finally

Because it doesn't fit anywhere else
The excellent toothpastefor dinner

and the equally hilarious Bad Gas

Ho Ho and indeed Ho

2005-12-22T11:03:00.000Z

the Christmas Stoat

Well its that time again, peace on earth and goodwill to all men, but lets not forget the true meaning of Christmas....... presents and enormous excess!.
The TNS Superpanel predicts another record breaking year as Britons go mad at the checkouts with an expected 17% increase on last years spend in Christmas week on festive grocery shopping to £3.3b (US$5.8b) with the figure for December said to hit £13.3b, US$23.8b(and remember this is just grocery shopping, not including Ipod's you will only load one album to, or lingerie in sizes so insultingly wrong they will never see the light of day). This is not a new thing our forebears knew more about excess than we ever will check this out mmmmm swan However there has been an equally massive rise in ethical consumerism which is encouraging, but it's not all sweetness and light apparently the more discerning palette can readily enjoy the taste of.....

TURN AWAY YOUNGER READERS

Santa's reindeers !!!!! for the love of god man, Noooooooooo

Although i believe that they may not be using Santa's real reindeer as you can actually track Santa here using NORAD, the North American Air Defense system! you know those secret bases up in the Cheyanne Mountains set up to intercept incoming Soviet nuclear missliles....yes really! I guess the cold war really is over.

Oh yes remember the last post, that one down there headed "We're Doomed" well i don't like to say i told you so... oh hang on yes i do, i can exclusively reveal that not one of my friends, neighbours or colleagues has died of bird flu' however i don't know how i'll survive the horrors of killer cheese it's not the whisky or the cigars or the gallons of brandy butter swilling down undercooked fowl, no its a french soft cheese thats going to get you.

If you are having turkey here is the science of cooking a turkey and this explains why some foods taste better at certain temperatures, its all a bit dull though, so don't bother unless you're an obsessive like me.

On a more serious note, i make mention often on these pages and in our online webzine, to go online shortly at suma of my problem with additives and the like, particularly AZO colourings and artificial sweeteners, so no surprises that there is more and more evidence coming out to show that its these things we should be worrying about not bloody salt or sugar, this study links aspartame with cancer, lets remember that Apsartame has only been in the food chain for one generation and even the ordinarily quite lax FDA called for a much more extended testing period before it was released into the food chain, look at the can you're holding i bet that it has aspartame in it and sodium benzoate, but thats another story,
This looks at the previously unstudied problems that additive combining could produce, along with the disturbing fact that additives banned in most of Erope and the US are freely eaten by our children in the UK.

Cryptozoology Corner

Well i promised them some time ago but here they are, Shadow People, mentioned in the Koran and spoken of in shamanic tradition, more recently in the works of HP Lovecraft and Phillip Pullman in the excellent His Dark Materials shadowy creatures from another dimension or just ghosty things you decide

Film Of the Week

For those of you that think my life revolves around werewolves and mung beans you are wrong this months film of choice is an absolute stunner of a film that the whole family can enjoy

The Princess Bride

Made in 1987 by Rob Reiner, who made two of the funniest films ever made The Jerk and This Is Spinal Tap (we'll forget about Sleepless in Seattle) with a largely unheard of lead cast, but a support cast second to none Peter Cook, Carol Kane, Peter Falk, Billy Crystal (back when he was funny). It follows the fortunes of Wesley and Buttercup a pair of mis-matched lovers in fairytale times, and involves in no particular order a giant, fire swamps, mel smith with scabs, ROUS's (rodents of unusual size), the most intelligent sicilian in the world and the "Dwead Piwate Woberts".
Pure genius from beginning to end it's that good that julius here at Suma has had my copy for 3 months!. see what IMDB had to say here

And Finally

Because it doesn't fit anywhere else

A bloke eats some really rather unpleasant food which are delicacies elsewhere in the worldPlease Steve Don't Eat It

And one for those of you who don't mind undisclosed vitriol and language that would make Ozzy blush here is Life Long Disappointment in which people spit venom at work colleagues they don't get along with.

Here are beedogs, needs no introduction hundreds of pictures of dogs dressed as bees like this one

A Beedog Yesterday

Until Next time have a very Happy Christmas and i remain............

We're Doomed.......doomed i say

2005-11-24T10:47:00.000Z

Ok, hands up anyone who knows anyone at all that has died from BSE? Listeria? Bird Flu? Sudan Red poisoning?, now hands up anymone who knows anyone who has died of cancer, heart disease or a stroke ? bit of a different picture isn't it, yet we sit in hushed conversations at work and home and in the pub, discussing the impending end of the world from the latest fashionable thing.
Pandemic is an oft used word these days, but its used as if it were either a new word or one evocative of the Dark Ages and the black death. Pandemic in its literal sense means whole geographical areas affected, but with our attitudes and abilities for global travel what pandemic means now is "Global", i would argue that the strains of bird flu in South East Asia are not even an epidemic (meaning large scale casualty rate in a moderately large area) i would suggest due to the ways in which contagian presents itself to the at risk population (they live with chickens in the house for gods sake) that what we are seeing is an endemic problem, one restricted to a smaller geographical or social groups.

Right back to sudan red, i'm only going to say this once more Sudan red was only outlawed in food in 2003, those of us that ate Spangles, Vesta Curry, Frazzles, Golden Wonder MSG crisps, Cherry Bombz and Monster Munch all washed down with Cresta "Rimski Korsakov its frothy man!" or Quattro, have enough banned AZO colours floating round our respective genomes to last forever, i am convinced thats why my friends and i of a certain age are never ill even with our high fag and alcohol lifestyles, its because we are steeped in preservatives.
And to those pious ones amongst you who say "i never eat processed food anyway", consider this, do you think that smoked salmon comes out of a smokery bright pink?, no it looks like this unless its full of the very colours decried in processed foods, also how long has that turmeric, garam masala and saffron been in your acheingly trendy, white ash fitted kitchen?, because a good deal of milled spices have been in the food chain in excess of FIVE YEARS, sudan was outlawed in 2003!
I've said it before, but this hysteria around silly little food scares is embarrassing, whilst i might not be able to get tandoori chicken wings or palm oil from the Kwik-E-Mart i can still console myself with 20 Malboro Lights and 3 litres of anti-freeze masquerading as white cider, to wash my turkey twizzlers down, and all for less than a tenner! cashback! (that was meant to be ironic by the way)

So whats the answer, wear a mask?, live on light?, take mega-dose vitamins?, Nope easier than that, don't eat too much processed rubbish, buy a copy of E For Additives, read labels, take a bit more exercise and stop worrying (see last entries donkey mortality figures for solace, except of course i made that bit up as do many people see here oh and ducks quacks DO echo by the way)

Oh and as for flu' jabs here is the SP on them i repeat "you're all doomed" and here is the wonder food which will stop you getting bird flu (alledgedly) as long as you don't mind smelling all....well teutonic, yep its sauerkraut say it ain't so Joe, say it ain't so.

I have'nt looked at the wonderfully sweary yet hilarious people at unnovations for ages, but how could i resist a sales pitch that asks "Could this be the worlds most dramatically effective baker-infuriating hat" genius! check out the links. Warning not for the "faint of swear" (if thats even a condition, and i haven't just made it up)

Cryptozoology Corner

Hooray lovely big black spectral dogs for man and ...err dog, i knew of Black Shuck and Padfoot but apparently there's blimmin loads of em, here and here and here

FILM OF THE WEEK

NEW FEATURE; each entry is going to have a recommendation of my film of the week, but seeing as its only being up dated once in every three it will henceforth be known as film of the present period, no scrap that it sounds rubbish

THE MACHINIST

Christian Bale, yes that Christian Bale the new Batman lost 42 stone to play the troubled Trevor Reznick, a lathe operator in a humdrum job who hasn't slept for a year, the comparisons to Memento and Jacobs Ladder are obvious but a little unjust, as its plot also has echo's of another, less fashionable, film but to give you its title would give a vital plot clue away, and i hate plot spoilerers. Reznicks descent into paranoia is fanatastically well played by Bale, a strong support cast including Jennifer Jason Leigh who has cornered the tart with a heart market, filmed in Spain and a little off the radar for our American chums, this fully deserves its cult status;
Watch while drinking JD straight from the bottle, smoking Camels and eating burritos at 2 in the morning..........on a work night!.

And Finally

Elland is now officially the International Town of Culture, here i am during a recent cultural exchange, in the ancient Thracian port of Nessebar in Bulgaria, i believe in this photo i am indicating how many years it is before Bulgaria join the EU to the French Foreign Attache

And Next Time? who knows, but it will have food, odd creatures and now film, its easy to see how these blog things have become very theraputic, why pay some gestalt therapist loads of cash to sit behind you going "Hhhmmm" when you can pour it all out on to (cyber) paper and have terrific fun doing it?

Bulgaria, Bird Flu and Black Shuck

2005-10-27T15:50:00.000+01:00

Well thats where i was the other week that vast communist era concrete block with the massive swimming pool you can see in the foreground, the weather was "cracking the flags" which in Yorkshire means very sunny, its was incredibly difficult to spend a lot of money, but the stamp of the previous regime was everywhere and at times the poverty was equally depressing and embarassing, embarassing as in all the tourist were either english or german and as such all the restaurants were selling schnitzel and full english breakfasts, but when you managed to convince them that not everybody wanted english food, the local fare was simple fresh and very tasty Sropzka Salad for instance was just tomato, cucumber, red onion and liberal gratings of the very salty local goats cheese and it was excellent

There is some of that there salad above

Well whats been going on in the world of food whilst i've been off? well bad news for chickens as the mass hysteria that is bird flu rears its head (lets remember only a hundred worlwide have died, so technically more people have died in donkey related mis-haps in the last year, 186 in case you are interested) so what are the facts? well here is what the noble people at Axis of Logic have to say, it includes both sides of the argument the "oh my god we're all going to die" argument favoured by the Daily Mail and the "well i ain't gonna snog no chicken, fool!" argument favoured by. . . . . .err Mr T

As part of my "aren't i helpful to all you retailers that have awkward customers, who will persist in asking you questions you don't know the answer to" help facility that i offer, i will attempt to tackle a thorny issue. That you are reading this means you know your way round the t'interweb, and most answers can be found there, but i was asked recently about surgars and sweetners and to be honest it is a minefield. I personally would rather have unprocessed golden cane in my tea, rather than something created by scientists,

but the scientists would say "Luddite, what are you scared of, the sky falling in?"

and i'd be like "shut up i'm not a luddite, i was once in the top hundred ratings on a Half Life mod"

and he'd go "no you shut up, i know more cos' i'm scientisty"

and i'd go "Hah if you're so scientisty how come you don't work at Tefal?"

then he'd cry and run off for his Mom so i win, yay!

but i digress, this article gives a mostly balanced treatise, if slightly weird at the end where he tries to convince us to sneak about trying to get hold of Stevia, the sweetner that is banned as an ingredient in this country!

The Ig-Nobel Awards this is the yearly awards ceremony that celebrates the audacity of people to secure research grants for preposterous or entirely useless pieces of research, fans of www.badscience.net will love this, particular highlights being "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide", a bloke who was funded for more than 80 reports on "things that annoyed him" and my favourite "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces."

Cryptozoology Corner

Alright its not black shuck thats next time (and i'm getting sick of alliteration by the way) but ladies and gentlemen this time a real treat the SkinWalker Ranch an area of such outstanding weirdness that i'm not even going to comment enjoy Volume 1 and volume 2

OK OK so its just an excuse to get Where The Wild Things Are on the post

Common sense prevails

2005-09-30T12:03:00.000+01:00

Well who'd a thunk it, an almost global reaction to the rubbish that is being fed to our children in schools, even big Arnie Schwarzennegger in California has banned junk in schools, and here in the UK education minister Ruth Kelly has said basta, enough no more fizzy drinks and rubbish to our children, here is the story although it has not been universally seen as a good thing as you can see from this BBC forum the nay sayers seem to be making the (fair) point that it is the parents job not the schools to instill good eating habits, and whilst this is indeed true, it is not the truth, i remember reading somewhere that for children on free school meals it is very often the only cooked meal they get in a day. But i also remember reading that only 200 out of 1000 meals a child has in a year are in school (figures subject to seasonal variation and / or the amount of cider ingested since i last read it). I think the point is moot though surely the education system has a duty of care for all aspects of our childrens life whilst they are in their trust.

I'm off to Bulgaria next week, never been there before but it should be fun, to see if it is try looking here which is the webcam across from the happy duck pub which seems to update every day at 6pm so i'll try and be in front of it each day.
So what do folk eat in Bulgaria well its pretty similar to Greek and Turkish food see here for some receipes including the very filling sounding pork shops sliven style!
They also seem to like their tapas there as well have a look at this for a fascinating insight into the history of tapas

Cryptozoology Corner

Yes you lucky people its werewolf time again, firstly let me put in the the link for the which sets the standard for all modern werewolf sightings as this was not some superstitious Romanian hill farmer, this was a town in Wisconsin in the 1990's! Bray Road Beast (check out the fourth link down "tracking down....")

But finally a closer to home werewolf, i was going to just put in the story of the hexham heads but the whole story makes it even more interesting, watch out in Hexham for thar be wolves!
Well they're not are they, however werewolves are rock in comparison

food allergies, stoats and scary kids

2005-09-12T13:18:00.000+01:00

We, and our customers, get an awful lot of folk that claim to have food allergies, coming to us to ask questions about ingredients etc, whilst this is laudable that people are taking an interest in what they put into their bodies, the sheer volume of people making this claim, not only for themselves but also for their children, bothers me somewhat, especially when i ask who diagnosed their condition and nine out of ten times they are self diagnosed. Lets not get confused here a true food allergy is life threatening, an aversion to cabbage is not. So at the request of one of our customers and one of my colleagues here is a FAQ (frequently asked questions) link to a sight which has the answers N.B. its got a little pop up on the load page but just click it off, here it is

It was recently organic week and i want to say thankyou to all the people that visited the Organic Festival in Bristol, we were exhibiting there and i was one of the speakers, and apart from the, frankly too high, temperatures a massive amount of people turned up, it was a cracking little (well not exactly little) do! and the harbourside is a lovely place to spend some time, special mention must go to the staff on the floating restaurant Arbi 'n' Tap who fed us even though it was technically too late, the food was outstanding, thankyou.

Some of the people reading this will know about the problems we had round here with mink, they used to be farmed on the hill and some people decided to "liberate" them, in doing so letting loose an almost perfect predator, so my thoughts on this are well documented on other forums. However i read recently that there has been a dramatic decrease in the stoat population round here, and bizarrely i like stoats, i know they are an equally voracious predator and the damage they do to fledglings is remarkable but its just the way they kind of bounce across the road and stand looking at you quizzically on top of dry stone walls, i would like a pet stoat i'd call him bouncy and we would be an evil mink-crime fighting duo!
A stoat yesterday

Crytozoology Corner

In a break from all things lycanthropic this week, we have an intriguing little sub-genre of apparitions, black eyed kids or BEKs, seemingly coming from one original source BEKs are now de rigeur as the boogeyman of choice on the net, there has always been something scary about evil kids (John Wyndhams book "Midwich Cuckoos" was made into the excellent Village of the Damned 1960, don't bother with the remake its crap) but the imagery of the BEKs brings to mind Damien in the Omen, and another little aside, evil children are one of the constantly reported images associated with one of the forms of "night terrors" called HSP (hypnogogic sleep paralysis) as distinct from simple nightmares in that the subject is totally paralysed, unable to move, call out or anything, here is where the theme comes in, the subject "see's" quite clearly a creature in front of them and in Europe it appears to be a Hag or a child both are perceived as utterley evil and the subject feels completely awake, sometimes the creature is sat on their chest or lying atop them like in the famous John Henry Fuseli painting The Nightmare where the creature is an imp or demon (this was 1752) read more about sleep paralysis here and if this sounds all a bit like hysterical five year olds wanting some attention, it happened to me!, only once, i would have been about 22, i heard my bedroom door open, heard someone walk across the floor and felt them sit down on the bed, i was absolutely pertrified (literally) and even though i couldn't open my eyes i "knew" there was a young girl looking down at me, waiting for me to open my eyes.
Watching "The Ring" was a difficult one for me cause thats how she looked in my head, all these years, like sadako, black eyes looking through long black hair, here are the BEKs

heeeeeres Sadako

Lakes, Labelling and Loup Garous

2005-08-19T16:37:00.000+01:00

Hello again, i've been off galavanting round this lovely bit of Wales, and apart from a day where it absolutely tipped it down, it was pretty much top notch weather all the while.
As a sort of pre-addendum to crytozoology corner Lake Bala has its own lake monster called Teggie ooooooo creepy, or it would have been if the matriach of the Williams family (who seem to own half the town, including the cracking restaurant Plas Yn Dre at the top of the high street, do stop here to eat if you can)took great delight in telling me they had made it all up to add to the towns tourist value, its a shame the japanese sub' crew who went searching for the monster didn't stop off for lamb and leeks and a chat with Mrs Williams before they bought a sub!

So whats been happening whilst i've been away? well the FSA are still persuing their labelling scheme this time its Guidline Daily Amounts (GDA's) instead of traffic lights (even though the BRC have said they won't advise their members to partake in the scheme) there is a very interesting article here that gives a detailed precis of this 21 year old hot potato.

Savoury Snack Based Public Service Announcement
Anyone who has ever enjoyed the unique delight that is an Ivor Dewdneys Cornish pasty (ironically from Plymouth)can now get them delivered across the UK from here you will never look at another pasty again, they even do bake off for the retailers amongst you. Come on lets banish the ubiquitous pannini to history and put cornish pasties in front of the nation, they are double lush.

A personal request here from one of our customers who wants to kick the new school term off by informing people of the hidden ingredients, conveniently not mentioned in the FSA stuff above, with a list of contra-indications where necessary, its still worth buying E For Additives for the full lowdown, but here is a very comprehensive little article, including searchable links on each additive.

Crytozoology Corner

In honour of my sodjourn in Wales here is the story of the welsh werewolf watch out they are getting closer, and also attached is the legendary "Beast of Gevaudan" which was the basis for the ace film Brotherhood of the Wolf

Langsam young warrior

2005-08-02T15:18:00.000+01:00

Thats a place in Greece i really like up there, it makes me happy just to think about it, i should think about it more, i watched the news the other night that didn't make me happy, i don't avoid the news its just i don't watch a lot of TV. My TV's for films and Playstation 2, but it did make me think about other things. It made me think about people yelling at their kids for being late or messy and it made me think of the parents in Beslan to whom that wouldn't matter anymore. It made me think about the folk who cut you up or lay on their horns in traffic jams, in such a rush, or who moan about the stress of work, or their mortgages, or not having time to cook and it makes me think hang on, thats all a bit rubbish isn't it? can't we just calm it down a bit, langsam is a german word that translates roughly the same as the musical term adagio, it means slowly, with grace. Wouldn't it be nice if we could go through life like that?
I'm lucky enough to work in an industry that embraces a lot of these ideals i've mentioneddownsizer these people will help you look at simplifying your material side, there was a poll on there about when did you last wash your car and the almost universal answer was last time it rained!, there's also a guy called Neil Crofts who shouts out a beckoning call to authentic business for people who have an entrepeneurial spirit but don't want to be cut throat, success at any cost, sharks.
And then there is food, and what better advertisement for food as it should be (apart from us) than slow food just have a read of that.

Cryptozoology Corner

This is great a bloke was bitten by "something large and dog-like" and then posted a blog about his social problems, be warned this is a 31 year who works in a video store so his language can be somewhat colourful at times
kirk thomson has a problem

Raw Foods and the Jersey Devil

2005-07-27T14:23:00.000+01:00

Now you can't deny that looks lush doesn't it, great piles of fresh fruit what a good do!, i often thought if i had the time, willpower or inclination i would do one of those raw food detox things and then maintain a high degree of raw foods in my diet through juicing, come on its easy, bang a load of fruit and veg in a juicer then neck what comes out of the other end, if you want to read some more about it look here at living foods which is very informative if a little wild eyed in its zealousness.
However lets not forget that vitamin c from a raw food source (say an orange) is pretty much the same as from another raw food source (say goji berries) one may have more beta-carotene, so just add a carrot! there isn't really such a thing as a superfood it is just that the type of people who exhibit increased longevity and health in the most part are leading healthy lives anyway (eating well balanced low fat diets, avoiding processed food, exercising regularly) so they would enjoy the benefits of this without noni juice, or whatever.
This is why Suma is a food company, not a supplement company or a healthfood company, because what we sell is not specialist or arcane or revolutionary or indeed going to change your life, you do that not us, we just sell food!

Another thing i'd like to do more of is take advantage of the wonderful stuff available for free all over the country by getting out foraging for stuff, futher down the page there's a picture of park woods across the road from here, and though i'm by no means Grizzly Adams i've had wild garlic and "chicken of the woods" (which that fungus above not a feral chicken) out of there this year, to find out more go see the lovely folk at downsizer , tell them mac sent you and they might send me some traffic in return.

Cryptozoology Corner
Ladies and Gentle men i bring you the jersey devil (not spring heeled jack as previously reported as he is just a guy in a suit) a creature so pointless that I'm surprised even the residents of the 18th century pine barrens had enough time on there hands to make him up.

illegal polar bears and the food police

2005-07-22T14:17:00.000+01:00

I touched on the EFSA's vitamin directive earlier read the Scotsmans round-up and the, at times, unfathomable nannying that this piece of legislation brings, whilst seemingly oiling the path of the pharmaceutical giants to monopolise the prescripted version of these vitamins and minerals, for instance in a couple of nordic countries glucosamine is a prescripted substance having been freely available previously, now only two pharma' corps vie for supply. I don't suffer from osteoarthiritis, thank goodness, but i do feel aggreived at this grubby bit of profiteering on other peoples pain and misery. Then Claire (one of the buyers here) pointed out that if you ate a polar bears liver you would die because of the vitamin A content, so how long is it before we have unscrupulous medical reps putting patented genetically modified super potent polar bears in our pharmacies?, not long enough i cry!

RANT ALERT *** RANT ALERT *** RANK ALERT ***

And while i'm at it, i get a bit perturbed by the amount of attempted regulationary scare mongering we get in the UK concerning food, recently an enormous CGI slug told me to eat less salt as i would get high blood pressure then heart disease followed by a stroke, which i find incredibly patronising, cutting down on the hidden salt (granted they do make mention of hidden salt on the website)in the huge amount of processed rubbish, people seem to gorge themselves on is no doubt one way in which we can back peddle this sprint towards a majority obese population, but is this going to get these people off their backsides and out wandering round the countryside or going to the gym or swimming pool, no it won't because convenience and fast food is symptomatic of far deeper problem laziness is now completely acceptable

Crytozoology Corner

Now as promised here is an intriguing bit of american urban legend that is every bit as idiosyncratic and provincial as the Bray Road Beast mentioned previously, something big, human-sized and wingy was battering itself against the porch lights of West Virginia yep heeeeeres the mothman warning you will spend hours on this site if you like your x-files stuff

Oh and here's a picture of "Mothy" up a bridge apparently:

NEXT TIME ..... raw foods and springheeled jack

quorn and chupacabras

2005-07-21T11:07:00.000+01:00

I really, REALLY dislike Quorn, as a meat eater working in a vegetarian co-op it angers me even more, because i have to stand in the road eating bacon butties (even though it is conceivable my daughter was feeding the beast it came from only the week before, i know my butcher and his animal husbandry is beyond reproach, the pigs live outside, have toys to play with and are fed a full and varied diet, no growth hormone, no antibiotics, which are de rigueur in conventional pork production), oh and whilst we are on it have a look at this before you buy pig bits from teso again
Anyway back to quorn, it would have you believe that it's based around lovely little mushrooms growing in a fairy ring in a dell in Cottingley this is utter bollocks, whilst all mushrooms are fungi, not all fungi are mushrooms!, Quorn is grown in vats and is as natural a product as petrol (good analogy that actually!), read more here mushrooms my arse! and .... AND you can buy a McQuorn Burger nuff said

Crytozoology Corner

Those of you that liked my werewolf link earlier will appreciate this,el chupacabra yep the "goat sucker" is back and wreaking havoc upon the hispanic hinterland, not quite as intriguing to me as the werewolf saying "gaddarra" (which if you have got a muzzle thing going on, you could just be growling "get outta here") however in the spirit of delamere dairies and other purveyors of goat based products that we sell, i feel it is my duty to bring to their (and your) attention the potential of cabrine sucking that goes on in the world.

Next Time............ the mothman and general moth related wholefood issues

being ethical doesn't mean being a hippy

2005-07-14T10:30:00.000+01:00

Folk seem to think that because we are an ethical business we are a load of beard-having, sandal-wearing, grateful dead-listening-to, mung-bean-eating, pacifist hippy-weirdos. This is NOT TRUE.

There are of course some who are witheringly right on, but we co-exist well, what i think is important is that we all fiercely defend what our business is, whether you're like me and spend more time and money on werewolves than whales (check this out a werewolf sighting ) or whether you find the EU Food Supplements Directive a work of supreme evil. We still operate a £20M+ business better than anyone else in our industry, with out a hint of arrogance i can honestly say we are at the top of our game.

Mindyou it is a weird bit of legislation that though, banning calcium and selenium (amongst 300 other supplements) yet i can still pop down the corner shop for a bottle of vodka and forty marlboro lights, except of course i won't be able to smoke them anywhere soon except my local pub The Old Bailey where Pepe, the landlord, has the good sense to stop selling food in favour of the right to smoke.

People are often surprised that Suma has its share of drinkers and smokers and meat eaters as they are perhaps of the opinion that it is run by only the pure and righteous, but we are a business not a religious order, we stand by the principles of what that business means, both to fellow members of the co-op, and also to the world at large through the "Suma Brand".
To give you an idea of what our brand stands for this is our current ethical policy

Ethical Policy
This Policy states the standards of Suma Wholefoods covering:
v Employment and Structure
v Products
v Working Practices
Employment and Structure
Suma is a fully democratic workers’ co-operative. All co-operative members and employees receive the same net hourly rate of pay, no matter what their job or responsibilities.
The Co-operative's policy and direction is decided by general meeting of the members. Operation of the business is achieved by the Coordinators within a flat management structure. Fulfilment of the democratically agreed Business Plan is overseen by the elected management committee.
All members have input into the direction and policy of the Co-operative.
We strive to be an equal opportunities employer. We have a 25 year history of working to be an equal opportunities employer.
We encourage our members and employees to learn new skills, take on new responsibilities and make improvements to the Co-operative’s working practices.
Products
We aim to promote 'green' and healthy eating. We will not knowingly stock products which contain harmful food additives.
All our products are carefully sourced as Vegetarian. This means there are no animal (including fish) product used in producing them. Where eggs are an ingredient they are free-range.
Organic options are stocked wherever possible.
We stock a wide range of fairly traded produce.
Bodycare, cosmetic and household products are all cruelty-free.
Working Practice
We aim to operate in a way which balances running a successful business with the environmental impact of our actions.
We will explore the viability of ‘green’ innovations and new ways of operating e.g. energy use, delivery vehicles etc.
We will recycle as many assets as possible. Where re-use and repair is no longer a practical or efficient option we will pass on, sell or recycle as appropriate.
We strive to minimise food wastage by stock rotation, careful storage and handling.

This policy also covers ingredients in the products we stock, along with decisions on what brands we will stock, for instance Nestles continued promotion of formula milk to third world countries (for those of you that don't know of this despicable practice see baby milk action) means you will never see a Nestle product in our catalogue.

Our customers can trust us to do the groundwork for them "from field to fork", to use a really wanky term, they know we have been meticulous in making sure the ethical, social and ecological pedigree of our products are beyond reproach.
Right i think i'll stop blathering on now here is a picture of Park Woods just over the river from our factory, when the bluebells were out this spring, pretty isn't it

hello

2005-07-01T16:16:00.000+01:00

Well its taken some time to get it together but hopefully this will be the beginning of an interesting and informative ride for all of us.

This blog is related to our business here at suma
we are a workers co-operative, for an explanation see here worker co-ops we sell natural products, what were once called health foods, eco-friendly household goods, organic alcohol etc etc. But there are 140 of us and our opinions differ greatly, however seeing as i'm writing this its probably mine you will hear most of, thats me up there but i've got more hair now.

My intention is to provide interesting, amusing and informative postings to keep people here at suma, our customers and any passing readers with an interest, coming back here

However to start off with i'm going to introduce you to the cultural delights of the area of West Yorkshire in which we are based Elland and its surroundings in case you can't be bothered to read all that it basically says "used to be full of mills, they closed down and now its full of mill convertions, marketed at people who wear pashmina's and air kiss each other" for those of you further afield than Watford, who don't know what Yorkshire is, here is a link to the sublime Ayup.co.uk to explain why it is God's Own Country