A John Cleese quip

Posted on November 6, 2024 by odeboyz

If one door closes and another door opens you’re probably in prison.

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Cooking for Slackers: Convenience food

Posted on November 6, 2024 by odeboyz

People think Slackers love convenience food. They’re wrong. (1) they’re expensive and (2) they’re inconvenient.

Inconvenient?

Slackers are addicted to cheap, quick food. Cheap doesn’t mean unhealthy. It means good food that’s cheap. A look at the cooking instructions and ingredients of two convenience foods explains everything that is wrong with them.1

Sainsbury Pizza: £2:75 (turbo-charged bread and cheese!)

“A pizza base topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella and Cheddar cheese and a sprinkle of oregano and black pepper.”

1. Preheat your oven to the temperature below.
2. Remove all packaging, even out toppings (prep work), and drizzle with a little oil (more prep work and an extra ingredient, which you provide)
3. Place directly onto the top shelf of your pre-heated oven.
4. Cook in line with the timings below.
5. Remove carefully and serve. Enjoy!
200°C 16 mins, Fan 180°C 16 mins, Gas 6 16 mins Ovens are energy VAMPIRES

Marks and Spencer’s ‘Fiery Hot Chicken Tikka Masala’ £5:50

This is what you’re eating (good luck):

Smoked Chicken Breast (50%), Onions, Single Cream (Milk) (15%), Water, Rapeseed Oil, Tomato Paste (3%), Yogurt (Milk), Ginger Purée, Garlic Purée, Unsalted Butter (Milk), Lemon Juice, Salt, Coriander, Cornflour, Ground Coriander, Ground Cumin, Vegetable Oil (Sunflower/Rapeseed), Honey, Turmeric, Natural Colour: Paprika Extract, Ground Garam Masala (Roasted Coriander, Roasted Cumin, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Kashmiri Chilli Powder, Black Pepper, Green Cardamom, Cloves, Bay Leaves), Cumin Seeds, Kashmiri Chilli Powder, Dried Garlic, Ground Cinger, Ground Paprika, Ground Smoked Paprika, Sugar, Naga Chilli Extract, Ground Cinnamon

Cooking time – 25 minutes. Most Slackers regard 25 minutes as an eternity not a convenient interlude before a meal hits the plate

Keep faith with Cooking for Slackers recipes

Addendum: Dominos pizza’s health ratings

A comprehensive analysis of their pizzas that is virtually unreadable and is published for food scientists with magnifying glasses.

C5 Corporate Nutrition Brief Pizzas Bases and Toppings.pdf (dominos.co.uk)

Note

1 The best analogy is looking at the insert in a box of pills. Even aspirin has side effects which include death.

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Dogs! Don’t you love them?

Posted on November 2, 2024 by odeboyz
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A Genie with a sense of humour

Posted on October 30, 2024 by odeboyz

I told my Genie, “I want to be Happy!”

And now I’m working down a mine with six dwarves.

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Podcast Review: Gary’s Economics https://fb.watch/vfeoM839M_/

Posted on October 30, 2024 by odeboyz

Gary Stevenson was a city of London trader who made a fortune and retired in his 20s. He came from a working-class family in east London, went to LSE and then to CitiBank. He was a currency trader turning over millions of pounds each day. He has transitioned into an author,1 a private trader (so he gets a 100% of the profits), and a podcaster.

His podcasts are notable for their political analysis of the impact of the redistribution of wealth from the middle-class to the super-rich. The middle-class is being * eaten* by debt and especially housing debt. His version of inequality builds on the work of the French economist Thomas Piketty.2

He has a very earnest style and poor presentational qualities. But. Like all good communicators he has an interesting story to tell and he tells it in a compelling way. The other great thing about Stevenson is that he keeps his narrative short and sweet. This one in the title is 90 seconds long. (There are longer ones as well.)

Notes

1 Gary Stevenson (economist) – Wikipedia

2 Thomas Piketty – Wikipedia

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Moses didn’t make everyone happy

Posted on October 26, 2024 by odeboyz
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Problem solving for Slackers

Posted on October 23, 2024 by odeboyz

When people tell me, “You’re gonna regret that in the morning.” I sleep in until noon because I’m a problem solver.

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Need Anyone Starve?

Posted on October 23, 2024 by odeboyz

Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published today by five United Nations specialized agencies.1

Starvation is caused by many things. Classically bad weather ruins the farming year. Poor farming techniques can cause under-performance. Such ignorance often leads to soil exhaustion, which when combined with climate change, is catastrophic. Likewise, crop and animal diseases decimate output.

External factors are critically important. War, and especially civil war, destroys agricultural productivity. Population displacement leads to economic and social insecurity. Badly maintained roads, corrupt warehouse employees deny starving people food despite its availability.

There are many routes to starvation.

Technology isn’t mentioned. The photos below show how to increase agricultural productivity. Firstly, traditional foods are grown differently; natural foods are repurposed, and finally laboratory foods create new opportunities. Laboratory foods face an uphill task for acceptance. Many people are fearful of Frankenstein foods. Even sophisticated First World populations yearn for ‘organic artisan’ foods – priced as a premium product. Nonetheless no-one cares how a lettuce is grown and so warehouse agriculture shouldn’t face irrational resistance. Repurposed and laboratory foods require education even for First World  consumers.

Embracing agricultural technology should make starvation a historical oddity. Water scarcity will disappear as a challenge. The quality of land becomes irrelevant.  And the weather is just, well, weather. Externalities meanwhile, remain a vicious cause of starvation, which will continue. Other contingencies can, and should, be controlled.

Traditional Foods

 

Repurposed Foods

Laboratory Foods

 

Notes

1 Hunger numbers stubbornly high for three consecutive years as global crises deepen: UN report (who.int)

2 How to fit a farm into a warehouse | The Marketing Society

3 This Insect Farm Uses Robots To Raise Insects For Protein — AGRITECTURE

4 Will lab-grown meat reach our plates? | MIT Technology Review

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Rafa Nadal discusses Equal Pay

Posted on October 19, 2024 by odeboyz
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A Good Samaritan and two sad men

Posted on October 16, 2024 by odeboyz

Two men were sitting silently on a park bench looking very sad when a Good Samaritan spoke to them and asked if he could help.

“Take a seat and we’ll tell you.”

The Good  Samaritan sat down, with a caring look on his face, and said, “I don’t mind what you say I’m sure I can give you some comfort.”

“The paint is still wet.”

Adam B. (revised)

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