Last night, after a delightful meal at the local Japanese restaurant and the winning of a pub quiz, I came home switched on the TV and was confronted with the despicable, derisible and disgusting face of Piers Morgan on the American celebrity apprentice. This show, on the BBC at the moment runs the same format a the British celebrity apprentice. The shame that this individual brings upon the nation is massive, how can this man still be allowed to represent Britain on the international stage? In the episode last night (01/08/2011) he started a spying war with the opposite team, after this all went tits up members on both teams and even Donald Trump used the term ‘British’ as an insult but when Morgan used the term ‘Very fat Italian’ towards a member of his team there were shouts that this was a racial slur. Surely if one is a racial slur then the other is as well but no one jumps to the defense of the use of the term ‘British’ and as it is used towards Piers Morgan in a way I can’t blame them but how did the term British become an acceptable insult? It probably because of people just like Morgan and the other celebrity representatives like him. Can’t we take away his and the others citizenship? There is also some speculation that Morgan will be dragged into the current newspaper hacking scandal from his time at the Daily Mirror and surely this can’t be to bad a thing, thats if it does happen, as then we can have a reason to pass him onto another nation. Wanker!
In other news the USA is seeming to come to some sort of agreement about its current debt crisis, although what that agreement will be nobody seems to be to sure. In the UK and in todays press there are call for Britain not to fall into the same kind of clutches as the USA and its most wonderful Tea Party. The Tea Party is calling for ‘no taxation’, this is based in a country with some of the lowest taxes in the world, with no true social welfare system and a large gap between rich and poor. This from a country that used to have to the motto, out of many, one. A country that allows the rich to get richer while having no requirement to look after the little people of their own nation. So the motto of the original Boston Tea Party ‘No Taxation without Representation’ seems to be turned on its head, taxation without representation, thats if you are poor of course. In America the idea of philanthropy is one way in which the rich and super-rich can make meaningful donations towards the state and towards charity.Often at public galas, which can’t but help there public image.
In the UK there is the idea of the BIG SOCIETY, an idea brought about by the governments and David Cameron's blue sky thinker Steve Hilton. A man much lambasted in Charlie Brookers Guardian column on monday (01/08/2011) Is this an attempt to push the American style of public Philanthropy on a small scale? Who really has that much spare time, especially in a year which sees thousands of charities receiving funding cuts from the government and thats not even mentioning the cuts in the arts sector and the cuts in education and the increasing of tuition fees. So how can I, a student, in almost full time employment, home owner and aspiring something or other really give anytime or money to anything. Those with spare time mostly have money and as the rich pay tax, apart from Phillip Green who avoided a massive tax bill by moving his assets into his wife's name (and others like him) why should they become involved as they already put large sums of money into the economy through the aforementioned taxation? One possible answer is to start to hunt down the unpaid and avoided tax bills of the rich, avoidance of tax, even through legitimate loop holes surely is a failing of the state and the systems which nurture them in there younger years. A tax bill of £300 billion or thereabouts and thats not even including the fines. £300 Billion, thats a lot of income into the economy which could be invested in schools, industry and anything else which needs a bit of a fix. Well we shall see what happens in the USA, maybe by the time I publish this it might be well on its way to being decided and as for us in the UK well we will just have to wait and see.
THAT IS ALL.
And now for TODAYS RECIPE.
Lets see, mmmmmmmm, I’m going to go for Baked smoked Haddock. First prepare a mix of eggs (3) a little dash of cream, a dash of milk salt and pepper, whisk until a smooth well mixed liquid. Boil a few new potatoes until just about cooked, chop and add to a ceramic dish, say about 10 centimetres across and about 5 cm deep. add a few chopped spring onions and some flaked smoked haddock, top up the dish with the egg mixture and sprinkle with paprika and black pepper. Place in the oven at about 180c for roughly 20 mins or until the bake has a quiche like quality. Serve with salad and a nice glass of dry white, maybe a sauvignon blanc, but make it a good one and eat outside in the sun.
First things first i must state that my heart goes out to all in Norway. A tragedy perpetrated by one man with loss to the whole nation and now this one man states he has ties with the British right wing. That this lone crusader has ties with others within Europe seems a real worry but what exactly are these defenders of British and indeed European culture defending? Lets focus on Britain as that is what i know best.
I have always thought that in many ways Britain was much like Japan, a strong cultural identity, a sense of self, they have the samurai we have the red coat, they have an emperor, we have a queen. Both are small island state that exist on the edge of a continent but are in many way separate. Unlike the japanese though Britain and the British have lost there sense of self, our singular culture and it is this that the far right wing are trying to protect. Or are they and have we really lost our sense of self or are we just not willing, in all ways, to open our eyes to what British culture really is?
In Germany Merkel once stated that multi-culturalism wasn't working well maybe thats true but how about plain old simple culturalism? And what exactly is this cultural that these naive, thuggish 'protectors of the west' are claiming to protect?We the people of Britain, English, Scot, welsh and Irish we are all the same aren't we? We all where kilts with bowler hats and eat lava bread don't we? No of course we don't so even at the simplest level we are already a multi-cultural society and does anyone pretend that getting to that was simple. Britain was once as diverse in culture and language as the the whole continent. Once. Now we are more or less unified or are we?
Unlike japan Britain has no single unified ethnic group, we have Saxon, Norman, Pict, Scandinavian, Roman and lord knows what else all blended in a big sperm mixer, but what of the new Britain, the one we inherited from the victorians, what kind of sperm in that mixer?
Britain was once the largest muslim empire the world has ever seen, that is the largest number of muslims under one flag and that flag was the union jack. So surely that religion is part of our culture and should be celebrated. We once shared our empire with hindu, buddhist, muslim, taoist, coptic christian, catholic, pagan, black, white, african, indian, chinese and all kinds of race, religion and creed. This is our culture, in this country we should consider ourselves people of the world. All these religions, cultures have influenced our land. Curry is as british as fish and chips and that fish is probably influenced by jewish food stuffs. What could be better than if we just worked a little harder at accepting what Britain is rather than what a few right wing idiots tell us it should be. What they tell us is stupid and what makes these 'lone wolfs' act is even more stupid. A fear of people? A fear of difference?
After all difference is what makes a country whole, working to overcome the differences and celebrating those differences make all of us stronger.
So whatever those lone idiots might claim the are defending the only thing they are really proving is their own stupidity, their own closed mindlessness and this doesn't only go for groups like the BNP and the EDL but also the groups from the other corners of Britain's diverse culture, accept what we are and what we have, sure the world isn't perfect but why don't we attempt to make this glorious Albion as close to perfect as we can.
THAT IS ALL.
The geisha photo is with kind permission of itsumo japan. a great blog about japan and its culture, which i like. find it at itsumojapan.blogspot.com
And now for TODAYS RECIPE.
Slow Cooked Lamb
preheat the oven to about 180ish in a large deep roasting dish place a good sized lamb leg, 3 onions peeled and quarter, 5 carrots roughly chopped, 3 sicks of celery roughly chopped, 5 large potatoes quartered, two lamb stock cubes (or a pint of home made lamb stock if you have it) and two bottles of a nice white wine, dry is best. place in the oven for at least two hours if not two and a half, a nice long cook. serve at the table, the lamb should fall off of the bone and the veg should be soft, provide plenty of fresh bread to dip in the sauce. Enjoy.
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