Get Your Horseburgers From The Supermarket
This story is not really about how horse and pig meat ended up in beefburgers. It’s probably more about the rubbish that gets put into cheap meat products, to keep the price acceptable to the supermarkets. After all, we may not generally eat horses, but they are generally well looked after and are unliely to give you any disease, which might not be true of some of the rubbish.
I rarely buy meat and meat products, where the provenance is not obvious. That doesn’t necessarily mean I always buy organic, although I often do, but I would always by a product, that was fully described. I wouldn’t buy a meat pie or something similar, if it was too cheap, as then the profit will be the same, so the quality will have suffered.
And Now The LidoLine
I found this article in the Guardian, whilst looking for something else.
It proposes a linear swimming pool along the Regent’s Canal.
C might have liked it. But it’s not for me!
Traffic In The New Kings Road
I’d gone to Chelsea to check out the traffic in one of the most congested areas of London and also to look at a box junction dubbed Moneybox by the Daily Mail in this article. These are the pictures I took.
I noticed several things that make this area so bad for traffic.
1. I’d actually got off the bus and walked because it was quicker. I wonder how many people don’t use the buses because it’s quicker to drive. By comparison here just north of the Angel, I would suspect the buses are quicker.
2. Note the number of large heavy good vehicles in the road. what are they doing here at lunchtime on a Tuesday. again to compare to the Angel, you do see some going through, but not as many as I did today.
3. You will notice in some of pictures, that trucks and vans are parked at the side of the road. some may be doing deliveries, but one van just had a couple of guys in it, eating their lunch.
I suppose there is just too much traffic and you can understand, why Ken introduced a Congestion Charge in the area.
It’s a severe problem and luckily, it doesn’t affect me, unless I go to the area on a bus.
Boris Gets A Statue
Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley unveiled a statue called Boris yesterday. But it is a large polar bear in front of Peter Jones in no way connected to the Mayor of London.
There’s more about the statue here.
I liked it and would vote for Boris to stay.
I doubt a lady who got on the bus towards Wandsworth would though, as she was wearing a fur coat.
Strutt And Parker Opens A Florist
I photographed this stall outside Sloane Square station.
Strutt And Parker Opens A Florist
Times must be hard for estate agents!
It’s All Go At Custom House Station
I returned to Custom House station today, to see if anything had started.
There did seem to be a fair bit going on. but no parts of the new station seemed to have arrived.
And what was the shark doing? I suppose the river isn’t far away.
On the other hand, the pub opposite; The Barge, seemed to have all the architectural merit of the average Australian dunny. Some buildings have to be sacrificed in the name of progress.
Vermilion And Other Developments At Canning Town
Canning Town is on the up literally.
Vermilion and the other developments are just a stone’s throw from the excellent station, which I visited earlier.
You will notice Vermilion really stands out in pictures like these taken from the Emirates air-line.
Sculpture At The Building Design Centre, Islington
This piece of large art has turned up outside the Building Design Centre in Islington.
Sculpture At The Building Design Centre, Islington
It’s certainly not as understandable as the bouncy bus.
But what is it? I’m not impressed.
The Bread Man Cometh
The pub next door, has its bread delivered.
But as the pictures show, not in the usual way, but then if you can eat real bread E5 Bakehouse doesn’t seem to do usual!
Robert Peston On HMV
Robert Peston has an interesting take on HMV’s demise in this article. He asks these two questions.
Will it go the way of Jessops and Comet? Will all 239 stores be closed, with the loss of all 4,000 jobs?
And is there a rising incidence of corporate insolvencies which could actually be a good thing, in the widest possible sense (please bear with me; I haven’t taken leave of my senses or transmogrified into some kind of insane company necrophiliac)?
It is his answer to the second that is most interesting. Here’s part of it.
The evidence of past recessions is that economic growth doesn’t resume at any great velocity until unviable and inefficient businesses are put of their misery and excess capacity in various industries is eliminated.
Now, although there has been a fair old number of retailing collapses in the past year or so (according to FRP Advisory, HMV is the 32nd significant retail chain to go into administration in just over a year), there have been many fewer corporate collapses since the financial crisis of 2008 than was predictable on the basis of past economic experience.
I think he could be right.
When you clear out the living dead companies you create lots of niche markets, where those with ideas and money move in to create jobs and revenue.
I think we’ll see a very different way of selling music evolve on the High Street. What it will be like, I do not know and I won’t even guess!
The Anonymous Widower 