Back from a flying visit to Dublin, and in the two interviews I did (one TV, one radio) there was more interest in my admission of occasional falls from the wagon than in the matters Prince Charles/TB which led The Guardian on Saturday.
As it happens, the only other business I did whilst there was to meet with people from the Toranfield House addiction treatment centre, for whom I am speaking at a conference in the autumn. As in the UK, addiction problems are big in Ireland and I guess that is what drove the interest in the subject of my own addictive personality.
I’ve always tried to be open about my mental health problems, but when I did intermittently end my abstinence in 1999 after 13 years without a drop, I did not want to tell anyone at work. This was not for reasons of stigma. It was more that TB used regularly to say he would be freaked out if I went back on the bottle. I didn’t want to add any additional worries to the many he had in the position he held.
‘Back on the bottle’ overstates what I did. I had the occasional drink, partly I guess because of pressure, but more I think out of a desire to be ‘normal’ and even more I fear as a way of testing myself. I’m always doing it – testing myself I mean.
As I said on the Miriam O’Callaghan show last night, I am not recommending this to anyone who has stopped drinking. Even as I talked of it, I had in my mind the image of someone sitting at home who thought ‘well he had an alcohol problem and he seems to be able to take one now and then without a problem, so I’ll try.’ It is not a good idea.
When I have had a drink it has generally been in relaxed circumstances, usually with Fiona. I have never been drunk, which is something I could not have claimed of my life pre-breakdown in 1986. I also know that when I see my psychiatrist next, (he reads The Guardian), he will greet me with a slight shake of the head, and a warning that a proven addiction is best not played with. He’s told me before and he is right.
It was a good job I was on my best behaviour last night. Not only was Whitney Port of The Hills in the Green Room, but so were two of Miriam O’Callaghan’s lovely daughters and a group of their friends, not to mention a handful of young researchers dressed up for a night out after the show. I don’t think I have ever been in a Green Room with so many attractive young women. Some of them tried to get me out on the club scene. I resisted and headed for the hotel, alone.
Otherwise I might have had moments almost as embarrassing as the one with Britney Spears a decade ago, which seemingly is featuring in The Guardian’s Part 2 extracts tomorrow, alongside some of the new material in the third volume of my diaries on the ups and downs of the TB-GB relationship. The story is an old one, but it will be told for many years to come.
Meanwhile, back on matters Royal, I was almost tempted to buy the Mail on Sunday as I came through City airport this morning, as it led on a story about Prince Charles’ lobbying efforts with the new government. It was a temptation defeated rather more easily than a night out in Dublin. As I often say to people reading the Mail – you wouldn’t pour heroin into your veins, so why pump that stuff into your brain?
** Here, at the top of this extract, is what The Guardian ran from my diaries on the booze situation.
The left wing comedians are going to have a field day with this revelation, with your occasional drink and TB admitting it was crutch by the end, with GB howling at you, one can understand a need for stiff one at the end of they day, you can see the sketches and Iraq not far behind. I doubt you reach the great levels of Sir Winston, he had only to deal with World War Two!
Thank you for posting this before many of us saw it in the Guardian for ourselves. Context is everything as you pointed out earlier.
On the other hand it just shows what insidious stuff alcohol is.
My first dry session came to an end on the day of an aunt’s funeral – seven weeks in. For months after that I was trying to keep it down to a couple of units a day but you just drift away from it.
The next extended dry period was immediately after my breakdown until the lunchtime of the morning I was discharged by my psychiatrist (who was going abroad) who said a glass of wine with a meal would not be a problem.
My current dry period started when my GP referred me to a specialist to see if it was time to reduce my (official) medication – and he made me realise it was my own decision. Not because dear aunty popped her clogs or someone who should know better gives the green light. It was my decision.
That was over 8 years ago – but it could end anytime I choose.
As you chose, Alastair.
It’s a fact all of us on the wagon live with – we can get off whenever we want.
I am a teetotaller, but I would say that I am more or less addicted to Burnley FC, non-fiction books, British newspapers and functionalism. I also try to exercise daily.
But I do not see anything wrong with this. I am happy, and my “addictions” give me fulfilment.
Perhaps it is wrong to speak about addictions in my case. I personally think that as a creative person I “suffer” from the Walt Disney syndrome as I constantly need new “toys” to avoid boredom.
Before the internet I had over 50 newspapers and magazines on subscription, and I do still buy at least one book a week.
But I am 100% happy with my life and always in good mood, so my “addictions” bring contents to my life.
I guess the problems only start when things like football start to control your life…
Winston didn’t deal with World War Two single-handed – there were one or two other people involved, many of them crack Polish airmen. Also Labour Party members of the National Government opposed Tory Chamberlain’s appeasement, not just Winston. Trotsky was ahead of all of them – he could foresee what the Nazis were about in 1932. Winston wasn’t even averse to fascism – if he had been he wouldn’t have supported Greek fascists against Greek communists at the end of the war. It’s about time we looked at Winston, warts and all, and stopped this mythologising.
I couldn’t agree more Dave. Winston Churchill was a war-mongering old turncoat. I’ve said this before on another site and have been slated by some who still believe all the hype about WC. (lol)
There are of course many others out there who read alternative history books, which tell the truth about WC. and can see this bloke for what he really was.
Nobody’s perfect Dave and very few problems are simple.
I wouldn’t much like WS’s persona if I had to put up with it in my own life but I honestly don’t have a clue who else could have kept up the spirits of citizens during the years of the Blitz and the nightly losses from Biggin Hill, not to mention those on land and sea.
My mother was a child in London during it all and when I see the contemporary news film we’re being shown so often nowadays I’m staggered about my grandparents’ stoicism.
Plenty of people have already ‘looked at Winston, warts and all’, you won’t need to look very far if you really are in need of seeing him de-‘mythologised’. Fill yer boots as the saying goes.
———————-
Re booze; mine’s a Pimms with ginger ale and some mint leaves to make it all peppery-tasting please 🙂
The miners had some problems with Winnie, way back in 1910 when he was Home Secretary in the Liberal government then – yes, when he was in the Liberal Party. The whole affair is known as The Tonypandy Riots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonypandy_Riot
With alcohol, it is obvious to anyone he used it as a crutch to cope with leading us in WWII. Alcohol, or should it be called ethanol in solution, has been used in an almost human evolutionary factor for thousands of years, especially west Asia and all of Europe, but it does have a habit of kicking you in the teeth and turning you into a mess. I, myself, do partake, much too much, but have been on the wagon several times, and it is lonely there. But that is alcohol for you, two sided.
Your first line doesn’t need stating. You overestimate Winston and underestimate everyone else. The Blitz didn’t just happen in the East End of London – citizens elsewhere had to show the same stoicism, resourcefulness and resilience regardless of Winston’s broadcasts. We’re just so ready to heap praise on the relatively unworthy and so slow to give credit where it’s due. Look at the more recent phenomenon of Diana-deification. I prefer to abide by the opinion of all those contemporaries of Winston in 1945 who gave the Labour Party a landslide election victory and rewarded his war contribution with six years out of office – and even then in 1951 the Labour government got more overall votes, if less seats.
Oh go on, risk it, buy a Mail.
Hi Ehtch,
Yes – being on the wagon can be lonely.
But here’s the rub, it’s lonely because the friends we booze with have no duty to change with us. They have no duty to help us stay on the wagon. Friendships based in the pub are not the best place to start.
As Olli says way up top, keeping busy filling your life with other things is a good way to go.
Have you tried following your family tree? Difficult to do when pissed. Thrilling as it unfolds. Utterly addictive.
ofgs, my mention of the Blitz shouldn’t indicate to you or anybody else that I think the damage was confined to London. Don ‘t be so bloddy pedantic. Is it necessary to mention every single fact of every single situation for someone to write against your prejudice or envy?
Don’t bother telling me what line does or doesn’t need stating, your simplistic post of yesterday means it did OR (as I posted to an.other over the weekend) wanting to knock something down gives you the responsibility of explaining to the forum the alternative scenario/s that you think would have worked as well for citizens’ hope and spirit and survival instincts. It’s called being honest.
As for why he was replaced post-war durrrrrr, one reason would be human nature, another would be the different kind of challenge and the best would be each party’s plans on how they would invest the Marshall Plan.
It would be far more relevant to knock the carpet bombing we are performing elsewhere today, in the ‘name’ of maintaining a no-fly zone but hey hush mah mouth, did that also not need saying?
Thank you Michele, but could you enlighten me as to who or what I’m supposed to be envying? I’ve had this ‘envy’ word thrown at me before on this blog, but usually I’m supposed to be envious of people with a lot of money. I wish I could feel a bit of this ‘envy’ just to reassure my accusers! Otherwise I think words like ‘prejudice’ and ‘human nature’ are commonly used by anyone incapable of reasoned argument.
Perhaps you had to be there, Dave, instead of just reading about it in books years later.
As I mentioned, the people who voted in the 1945 General Election were there and they cast their verdict. Perhaps, as Michele says, it was ‘human nature’ – people being so fickle and ungrateful. But then perhaps maybe they knew more about him than we do, with our short memories and natural human need to turn people into heroes, usually the wrong ones? I wasn’t around when Charles I was executed either, but that doesn’t prevent me from forming an opinion about the man and the event, does it? Otherwise I think there’s no future for historiography.
Alright Robert?
Yes, family tree, mainly consciensious life lovers, who give more than they receive, even my auntie who was lacking – she would give the time of day to anyone, even if she was partial to vodka and smoked like a trooper. She had her heart in the right place though, the poor dab. I liked her, a lot. In the early 1980s ahe developed a fixation with Boy George, of all people, and went to London to meet him, which, fair play, she did. She could hardly read or write, by the way. But I am proud she was my auntie. Wendy, you are remembered.
I think the biggest frightener with alcohol is the likelihood of Type 2 diabetes and that leading to pancreatic cancer.
Having seen two people die of that I really hope nobody’s imbibing more than safe amounts and feel for anyone that daren’t touch a drop for fear of not stopping when they need to.
As Dylan Thomas, the great welsh prose and poet writer claims to say, an alcoholic is someone you call that can drink more than one.
I rarely agree with you MicheleB but on this occasion you are absolutely correct in all you say. It is, in large part, down to Winston Churchill that Dave Simons and others are free to utter their stupidities about him.
Thanks Chris. It’s simply (tee hee) the devil or the deep blue sea.
.
Hi Ehtch,
Yes I know that Winston Churchill was a Liberal before crossing over to the Tories, hence my reference to him as a “turncoat” Actually it was from my late father that I picked-up that expression!
Regarding the alcohol debate. Or, as you rightly describe it Ehtch, ethanol in solution. I’m afraid I cannot relate to this area of discussion at all. I don’t like alcohol in any shape or form. Of course I tried it first when I was quite young! I didn’t like the taste of it and certainly didn’t like the effect it had! I must be among one of the few people on the planet who has never been drunk, ever! Very few members of my family drink at all and those that do only in moderation. So I guess it’s kind of an inherited attitude towards it. Fortunately, my husband also shares this attitude/life-style, so peace and harmony reigns supreme, in my household at least.
Well done Gilliebec, you are one of the few that doesn’t have the genes to be partial. But myself don’t know which is better – to experience the mortal dangers of alcohol or not? Myself I would say the previous, but I am overloaded with celtic blood, and we are well known as total pissheads, so no change there!
When I was in the RAF, there was a bloke from Kent that couldn’t understand the concept of getting bladdered. Good bloke though, out of the pub!
If you are not blubbering yet my Auntie Wendy taught mr to sing She Loves You from the Beatles when I was two in 1964. Thankfully there were no canphones around then…..
Also of course liver disease Michele. I read or heard somewhere just recently that liver disease was expected to be as big if not bigger than type 2 diabetes within the next 10-20 years. Not good news, on any level.
Just to go off topic a bit, and since it has been mentioned in various threads here, Evan Davis final episode of “Made in Britain” tonight? Feel very depressed with it – the second episode was quite uplifting, but this one on our service industry and banking and City Square Mile stuff left me billious. But fair play to Evan, he did conclude at the end that we need to manufacture more hardware of anything, which to me is stating the bleeding obvious. Ah well!
Ehtch, I suppose it’s quite possible that genes have a role to play in whether a person likes the “demon drink” or not. I don’t know one way or the other to be honest. But, genetics at the moment seem to be the answer for everything that humans are and do. I think inherited attitude or just inherited learning could be an influence too.
To be honest I much prefer spending money on good healthy food!
Alcohol is very expensive and a total waste of money to my way of thinking. But that’s easy for me to say. However, just to blot my copybook, so to speak, I still like the odd ciggie! Which of course is another total waste of money.
However, when smokers and drinkers end up in hospital at least they can truthfully say that they have more than contributed to the cost of their treatment!
That last comment may annoy some people, but hey ho, such is life.
Chris, are you really saying that people with different opinions to yours and others regarding Churchill are merely uttering stupidities?
If that is what you meant, then can’t you see how grossly stupid i.e. crass that statement of yours is?
Yep, agreed all, modern life and leisurelyboozing is hammering livers. The rest of our bodies might be alright because of a relative good diet we eat, on the whole, but the liver with alcohol is the concern. It doesn’t take prisoners when overloaded with alcohol.
But funnily enough, when a post-mortumn was done on Keith Floyd the chef that snuffed it, his liver was well above average for his age. But his heart gave up, which can be said is related to over-consumption of various wines and spirits – heart starters I think he called it in the morning
I’ve still got all the Beatles singles on vinyl (not sure how to spell that v word) Nothing to play them on now of course, not that it matters because I swiftly moved onto to Abba after the Beatles, without a backward glance.
Abba’s music was the soundtrack to my life throughout all the dramatic highs and lows that only the young can do so, well, dramatically!
Well. to be technical and scientific about this, I have looked into it, and the main factors is alcohol effects on acetylcholine and on an immune system factor from di-homo-gamma-linolenic acid, a fat, and it’s effects in the brain, obviously. And this is where the genetic disposition comes from. Some people have enough of above in the brain to start off with and do not get boosted with alcohol, and some that do.
Yes, sadly, it is genetics. Celts and Native North American Indians are very suceptible to the effects of alcohol with above brain factors. And sadly once the flag is switched on, it is torture to ignore it. It seems its needs need to be fed. That is why the alcohol industry is money for old rope industry, a cash cow.
That’s a fairly characteristic ‘Chris Lancashire’ contribution. If someone says something with which you disagree you say they’re stupid, but make absolutely no attempt to argue against any of the points they’ve made. If I were Michelle I wouldn’t want to express gratitude for, or ally myself with, what is a typically vacuous and totally unpersuasive post. By contrast her contributions do have some content and do address the points that have been made.
Welcome back! You were miissed.
Quite right Gilliebc, unreservedly withdraw “stupidities”. Substitute “inanities”
I’m not wishing to be argumentative Gillie as I’m just glad there is some hope with liver disease; the awful thing about pancreatic cancer is that it’s very hard to find early and there’s no cure, no transplant possibility.
Having the experiences of it that I have, I’m very wary of diabetes and have found it a much better incentive for watching my diet than anything else has been.
Re the news about widespread liver disease and already-fatty organs in young children I’m afraid I would welcome some Big Govt intervention (I’m sounding draconian in the past few days eh?).
Fast food joints should be closed at schools-closure time.
………… and then have a wail?
I mentioned human nature as an aside.
The Marshall Plan and how it was to be used was in my opinion the most important reason.
One can only speculate on how the opposition would have used it (can’t be bothered to look as I’m pleased with how it was used). I’m also pleased that we did repay it (very eventually) when other nations didn’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945
Great to meet with you here in Dublin on Saturday night and delighted that you will open the Toranfield International Conference on the 10th November 2011. Looking forward to this 3 day conference as we too need to remove the stigma and demystify the world of Addiction through what can be achieved in Recovery, Behavioural Health, Wellness and Wellbeing.
At the recent UKESAD conference in London, a speaker suggested that the people who solve the addiction epidemic, rife in both our countries, will indeed solve the healthcare issues of that country – I hope we never stop trying to find and implement that multi-faceted solution?
Paddy Creedon
Ireland
The Marshall Plan was thought of in America in 1947, nearly two years after the 1945 Election. It wasn’t on people’s minds in the UK in 1945. I am interested in why contemporaries voted for Labour and not Churchill in 1945, but I think generally no-one wanted to go back to the thirties and some thought Churchill was a capitalist warmonger.
The Marshall Plan was thought of in America in 1947, nearly two years after the 1945 Election. It wasn’t on people’s minds in the UK in 1945. I am interested in why contemporaries voted for Labour and not Churchill in 1945, but I think generally no-one wanted to go back to the thirties and some thought Churchill was a capitalist warmonger.
Chris, I had to smile at that comment even though it is not funny.
Your short comments are in the style of a “hit and run” driver. i.e. there is very little actual thought put into your comments, no responsibility taken for them in the form of a reasoned argument/debate and you seem totally oblivious to other “road users”
However, I don’t think you ever cause any real harm or real offence. So
keep posting your one or even two-line comments. Maybe one day you will exert yourself and stretch to a whole paragraph! In other words, once in a while, show us a little more of the “real” Chris Lancashire. No one is ever as one dimensional as you currently come across as. Unless you are just a “one trick pony” Anyway, enough, if not too much, from me.
Chris, I had to smile at that comment even though it is not funny.
Your short comments are in the style of a “hit and run” driver. i.e. there is very little actual thought put into your comments, no responsibility taken for them in the form of a reasoned argument/debate and you seem totally oblivious to other “road users”
However, I don’t think you ever cause any real harm or real offence. So
keep posting your one or even two-line comments. Maybe one day you will exert yourself and stretch to a whole paragraph! In other words, once in a while, show us a little more of the “real” Chris Lancashire. No one is ever as one dimensional as you currently come across as. Unless you are just a “one trick pony” Anyway, enough, if not too much, from me.
The US did leave the UK a bit high and dry, and is it true we didn’t qualify for money from the Marshall Plan, but had to borrow it from the US, which took decades to pay off? Some say this happened because we voted in a Labour left-wing government in ’45 – what with the iron curtain dropping down between West Europe and newly communist East Europe – and that baffled the hill in Washington. These loan payments, it is said, was the reason Britain struggled to get over WWII, but also with the extra costs of helping parts of the Empire to become independent, and the reducing income into the UK from the Empire – the Indian sub-continent in ’47 mainly.
Thank you Chris – you’ve just perfectly illustrated the workings of the dogmatic mind.
……………………………….. Re your (Dave Simons)
“The Marshall Plan was thought of in America in 1947, nearly two years after the 1945 Election.”
Yeah but it had been preceded for 7 full years by Lend Lease, and MP was in planning.
How the heck else do you think Labour’s manifesto of ’45 for a bankrupt and devastated country could have included all the investment promises it did if the loan was not known to be available?
To this very day many Americans resent how it was invested (education for all, grammar schools in previously-private premises, start of the NHS) and criticise it as having funded “socialism”.
This ‘convo’ started because you asked why Labour won in ’45; you prefer the single notion of the electorate turning against Churchill, I believe they preferred the concrete promises about their futures from Labour. Only one of us is being negative.
sorry, am only just seeing this, so to Dave Simons re your old query ….
“Thank you Michele, but could you enlighten me as to who or what I’m supposed to be envying?”
Wayyyyyyy back at the start of this ‘convo’ it was used about your spoiler attitude re Churchill and the gormless claim that he lost in ’45 because of nouse about that personality, rather than allowing that Labour won because they had a much more positive manifesto.
Nobody needs to like what they know of the man’s personality to acknowledge that he really did manage to create an ‘all in this together’ atmosphere which was all that kept people going in a civilised manner.
You called him a ‘war mongerer’ and were Liked for so doing; perhaps you’d have preferred he capitulated to Germany like all the European countries that did?
So he drank too much, how shocking!
People alive in those awful days needed that inspiring, someone whose impositions they could understand and rationing, gas masks, thunderous speeches were part of it.
I doubt a character like yourself would have managed that maintenance of people’s spirit; hence ‘envy’.
You espouse (or spout) negativity and it’s pointless; so is this ‘convo’.
‘So he drank too much, how shocking!’
Are you talking to me or someone else? If you read my posts I defy you to find one mention of Churchill’s drinking habits. I don’t care how much brandy the old bugger drank for breakfast, and I don’t ‘envy’ him even that either.
I’ll repeat what I said previously – you overestimate Churchill and underestimate everyone else, and nothing you have said leads me to cancel that observation. I may be negative about Churchill – people like you and the ‘Chris Lancashires’ rather persuade me in that direction – but I’m positive about other people who get no credit and probably wouldn’t want any.
I don”t prefer anything. If you actually read what I said – well, let me quote directly
‘I am interested in why contemporaries voted for Labour and not
Churchill in 1945, but I think generally no-one wanted to go back to the
thirties and some thought Churchill was a capitalist warmonger.’
‘I am interested’ means that I don’t have any fixed, hardened opinion but am interested in a debate on the matter. I’ve suggested an opinion based on what I’ve heard from my parents’ generation. Churchill lovers have to explain why all those ‘Are we downhearted’ sentiments he uttered whilst doing walkabouts in Blitz-devastated east London were decisively rejected by the UK electorate in 1945. Not just the UK electorate in general but former Tories like Harold Nicholson, who joined Labour at that time.
Yep, I was conflating your reply to UK2006 with their comment about WC’s drinking and presuming you concurred about that … this is after all a blog that is mainly about that topic.
Whatever, I disagree about your interpretation of why the Tories were kicked out in ’45.
Hi Dave, good post.
MicheleB has a (bad) habit of mis-quoting people. She has done this “in reply” to two of my posts. I notice too that her “replies” are posted not by using the “reply” facility, but as a free standing post, just so that her posts appear at the top of the blog (lol) when using the “newest first” choice, which I think most people do.
MicheleB, when you first began commenting on AC’s site, not that long ago, I was willing to cut you a bit of slack. I did think however that you were a “ditsy light-weight” I had good reason to believe this. It was you that kept inadvertently and unintentionally hitting commenters “like buttons” and making unnecessary queries such as “do all comments go into moderation, or just mine because I’m a newbie?” Simple observation would have given you the answer to that one!
I have given you the benefit of the doubt on several occasions. I’ve even offered you the odd “olive branch” here and there, only to have it thrown back in my face. As you said in your most recent although, not direct reply to me “you don’t know me”. There was no need at all to personalise the comment I made, it wasn’t even directed at you!
If you decide to reply to this comment, I would advise you to think carefully about what you write. Don’t just write a “knee-jerk” comment that’s all I’m saying.
I have not mis-quoted you Gillie. When I quote I used C&P.
Isn’t it a bit childish of you to accuse me of something by addressing it to an.other? Isn’t it a bit of a playground tactic? Isn’t it a bit like asking Dave Simons to agree with you and have a convo about me and take things very off-topic? Grow up (and imagine the initialism I would use if I was not so polite **grin**).
I’ll not be apologising for making a reply (using that very facility of C&P) at the top of a blog.
I’m well aware that not everyone uses ‘Newest First’ abut also know that as I do so I have often missed posts to me that were well down the list. Perhaps you have more time than I have to scan up and down and re-read what you’ve read before.
The main danger from what you say is the amount of sugar in the diet for fatty liver and diabetes – fizzy sugar drinks are the worst due to the next to nil amount of protein, fat, minerals and vitamins in processed sugar. Fat in the diet is essential, due to its ability to slow down the speed of sugars (in which form is how the gut absorbs carbs), and prevents spikes of insulin in the blood, putting the pancreas and other signalling hormones under strain, physiologically. Fat gets absorbed quite slowly in the gut into the body, but sugar spikes get turned quickly into storage fat in the body. Sounds ironic, what with all this low fat diet hype nonsense in recent decades, but that is how it all works in reality. Fat has had a bad press, as long as it is natural healthy fat, and not industrially made.
I’m so pleased to hear of your evaluation Matron, especially as you’ve elected to put it at the top of the blog for those ‘Newest first’ readers to appreciate.
Thank you also for the advice re how I should reply to you but you forgot to mention that I should do so on one knee with the lappie balanced on the other.
See? I did ‘think carefully about what’ I wrote to you Mith.
I explained why I accidentally hit the ‘Like’ button a couple of times, hven’t done so since so when I Like now it’s cos I like.
Along with Liking I don’t need to ID myself, in fact I find the very need to do so a little bit like blackmail to its recipient. It’s not a function I’ve seen so I suppose a poster needs to look it out in order to arrange it.
My advice to you Gillie? Get back on the topic of the blog and stop imagining anything being thrown in your face.
Had you found yourself capable of holding off Gillie you might have seen my explanation (two hours before your opportunistic intervention).
Chronological appearance of individual posts (and the notation within them about to what they are responding, if anything) would lead to less confusions of this type.
You were not to know mine was also in the pipeline and ahead of yours.
But that’s exactly the point Aitch, fast food joint products are industrially made and something labeled ‘pure beef’ could, in this country, in fact be majorly beef fat.
I ventured in to one last week at about 3.30pm, desperate for lunch and lusting after their new ‘New Orleans’, the place was packed out with kids/Mums (not a party) eating everything that was battered and guzzling gallons of sugary drinks. If not being got by one of the evils then being got by the other !
I’m not sure how many times you need to be advised of this before it sinks in.
You asserted, along with the ‘I am interested’ that people voted negatively (as in AGAINST Churchill, as in personalisation / misuse of vote).
I posted that I prefer to think they voted FOR the positivity in the Labour manifesto (as in using their vote properly).
Live and let live eh?
Just a very quick reply MicheleB, A poster does not have to “arrange”
anything at all in order to display an ID when “liking” another’s post.
Again simple observation will give you the answer to that one!
Incidentally, please do get up off of that “one knee” a simple curtsy will more than suffice 🙂
I’m more than happy for my own to remain Anon Gillie, as far as I know they all have been and I realise yours being badged aren’t the only ones scattered around.
I must admit it’s always been a favourite dislike of mine, the wholesale lifting of Facebook features and gullibility. On the Torygraph site (also Disqus) they used to (might still) have a thumbs down as well as the up function. It’s a bit childish imhoo although I do use it at times if in a hurry, I suppose it’s not human nature to post in agreement with someone, most of us usually find the energy when we’re disagreeing 🙁
Not being one of your dreaded ‘sheeple’ I don’t need to know who before
me has liked something before knowing what to think and whether to join in the applause and unlike some that
have swallowing the garbage from NoW’s already-proven liars because it suits their
agenda (or their fantasies about a Police state or dictatorship) I haven’t swallowed that either.
Anyone remember Gerry Anderson and his, well, where we were left after WWII allegorical stories, that ironically sold well in the US, with Thunderbirds. My favorite was real action UFO, but that is just me. But Joe 90? – a classic in Gerry Anderson’s stuff not well known,
watch?v=IW5Ig49sVa4
Real action, with Ed Bishop/Strake, Commander against true aliens,
watch?v=htpePBELOS8
Said quarterpounder with “cheese”, or big macduff, either with small fries is quite a nice and healthyish meal, as long as you have a cup of tea or coffee with it, not any of that suger loaded rubbish with it.
Quarterpounder with pickled gerkins – yumyum!
Furthermore. MicheleB, nuts and seeds are generally about 50% fat, and are super healthy, due to their healthy natural fat and phytonutrients they contain. Sugar is sugar, no matter which way you look at it.
I quite agree Aitch, vegetable fat and animal fat are very different things (both in their nutritional properties and their appearances, which hint at their future effects on the bod!)