Litter at the entrance to B&Q

I visited B&Q recently to buy some paint and other DIY stuff. Whilst walking to the DIY store I looked down the embankment between the road entrance and the motorway bridge I spotted anormous amounts of Fast Food takeway litter.

The fact is a lot of it is in a location that would imply that it was thrown there by people in cars visiting the store and not cars passing the store heading for Leigh Park or Walmart.

The packaging is from a variety of sources including Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds.

It is sickening, especially as I believe the store provides bins in the car park.

I think authorities need to put in temporary cameras that will capture licence plate numbers and catch the culprits responsible.

As well as that I think the Fast Food businesses identified by the packaging along with B&Q need to get the mess cleared up.

New retail around Waterlooville

A Warrens Bakery and a Giorgios Pizza open in Waterlooville. I tried a Warrens Cornish pasty and it was good. Apparently the company have been going for 150 years. Big question mark though regarding the Cornish pasty, Warrens can currently protect their product under EU law, but after Brexit there will be no protection for Cornish pasties and or Melton Mowbray pork pies. Any company anywhere will be able to make anything that roughly looks like a pasty and call it Cornish.
Not sure if Giorgios is a chain or an independent.




New Premier shop being kitted out at Hambledon Parade.

Some positive activity around Waterlooville?

Waterlooville is struggling to survive as a retail and business area, but it is good to see three shops openning, two in Waterlooville centre and one opposite Hambledon Parade.

The two in Waterlooville are food/cafe units. One is a bakery/cafe selling Cornish pasties, cakes and drinks, the other is still being kitted out, but it looks like it will be a Pizza cafe of some sort.

Meanwhile, at Hambledon Parade the empty shops under the new Wellington Park flats appears to be acquiring a Premier convenience store. However given there are two existing convenience stores (Mace and McColls) in Hambledon Parade itself, it looks like something has got to 'give' and someone is going to lose out.

The other issue of course is that we have plenty of cafes and food stores already!

Oh and charity shops.

I'll have pictures and other details later.

Horsemeat and things

Cosham Iceland

'Food you can trust' says Iceland, who took a hit when Irish food inspectors found traces of horse DNA in their beefburgers. But at least it was only a tiny trace, Tescos were far more embarassed when it was announced that almost 30% of the DNA content of it's 'value' range of beefburgers consisted of horse meat.

Strangely in 'i' newspaper a Tesco spokesperson suggested it was illegal to have the meat in their products. I'm not sure that is true, what is illegal is to say a food product contains beef only, when in fact it contains other meats as well.

Cosham high street

Meanwhile the big corporates continue to fall on the high street. Following the news of HMV and Jessops in trouble, Blockbuster have joined the growing count of failing retailers.

I am just thankful that when I graduated as an engineer all those decades ago that I went more or less into a good engineering job and spent a year as a paid trainee. I designed things that were manufactured in this country, even often went on the 'shop floor' to see the products being assembled and chatting to production line colleagues.

Jessops, Portsmouth

Today young graduates often end up in service industries like supermarkets, despite having degrees in IT, mechanical engineering etc

Yet successive governments, including the Conservatives and Liberals just cut, poke, criticise, blame and find scape goats (such as jobseekers and others) for the situations they are responsible for creating. They kill the desire to make things and the desire to innovate. It is no wonder we are in a spiral and that many are disenfranchised.

Low carbon technology and engineering is a challenge and as such must be viewed as an OPPORTUNITY to exploit, hence fostering new industry and jobs. Wasting time and effort on old industries will result in other nations overtaking us, yet again. Commiting our graduates to stacking shelves whilst other nations take the prize projects and jobs.

More obesity and diabetes predicted for Havant Borough

As is obvious from my posts, I am interested in real evidence and science when it comes to policy and life in general. New research shows a direct correlation between the over provision of food shops and obesity and diabetes.

The research has been conducted by Professor Makse at City College, The City University of New York. His research shows that individual factors have less impact than collective behaviour. A major influence is the provision of food retailers, including supermarkets, restaurants, cafes and other facilities. The more food related economic activity, the greater the levels of obesity.

How does this translate to local activity in Waterlooville? Well it isn't exactly a secret that the Havant Borough Council have been actively trying to fill the town with cafes, food shops and supermarkets, largely because they approved other out of town retail developments that laid waste to the town centre. The biggest project is the Caetano manufacturing site, now handed over to Sainsburys supermarket. The obsession with the ideology of competition and market forces, will result in higher health bills.

Basically there is a conflict of interest. The flaws in todays unscientific economic theories, result in serious health and environmental problems. This is what happens:

1. You create plenty of opportunities to sell food.
2. Collectively and statistically people get fatter.
3. That results in higher health costs
4. But the current ideology is to limit or reduce state spending
5. The result is a big hole, caused mainly by flawed and unscientific economics that fails to include 'externals'.

Yet the 'right' would advocate personal responsibility, which would be fine if the science supported that idea. But as is often the case, people are social beings, like many species. Yes there is competition, but there is also peer pressure and that is often far more influential.
The science shows that individuals will not determine health, they are instead 'victims' of environmental factors, in this case created by flawed political theories and economics that over supply cheap food.

Will a small amount of spending by the council on health road shows and getting individuals to change do the job??
Again this is not supported by science or any fact. The national government sticking a few public information films on TV, or the council sticking a health caravan in Waterlooville town centre for a day, will do absolutely nothing. However refusing a supermarket planning permission will reduce obesity levels. Yet just about all councils think it is cheaper to allow planning applications for supermarkets. Is it really cheaper to get sued by a supermarket, or is it cheaper to spend millions on obesity and diabetes?? Which is the morally correct choice?

It is interesting that this research is published just as a new series 'The Men Who Made us Fat' starts on BBC2.

Here is the research:
Lazaros K. Gallos, Pablo Barttfeld, Shlomo Havlin, Mariano Sigman, Hernán A. Makse. Collective behavior in the spatial spreading of obesity. Scientific Reports, 2012; 2 DOI: 10.1038/srep00454

Or if you want it explained in plain'ish' english:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120614131207.htm

Looking for work?

Portsmouth Friends of the Earth are looking for an Area Project Officer to cover maternity leave on their Lottery funded Grow to Eat Well project in Portsmouth. If you have good horticultural skills, are a good recruiter and are happy driving an electric van or riding a cycle, you might be interested. Closing date 13/12/11. Contact the project for more details.

http://www.gtew.org.uk/

Windmill Biscwits

Having bought some flour at Bursledon windmill I decided to have a go at making some biscuits. I found a recipe for digestive biscuits and got the ingredients together:

Wholemeal flour
Porridge oats
Baking powder
Butter
Sugar
Salt
Milk

See recipe link for amounts and directions.
I used organic milk, butter, porridge oats and sugar.

Here are all the ingredients mixed up, excluding the milk. I just used my hands, that was fun. Haven't done that since helping my mother or grandmother in the kitchen.

This is where it went a bit pear shaped.
I added far to much milk, at first it looked OK but then puddles of milk appeared. Anyway it was all or nothing now, so no turning back.

When cutting out the shapes, the mixture was far to soggy. When I did the second batch I abandoned rolling/cutting and just grabbed some mixture, made it into a ball then flattened it.

First batch finished, turned out quite well.

Tea and biscuits. Actually they are more like wholemeal soft cookies. But very tasty, the amount of sugar was just right.

I think less milk and a thinner/flatter amount of mixture per biscuit would give a thinner crisp biscuit.
Or maybe a different recipe?