Ted Max

These Syrian stumps are a big target, but they're well-defended. http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/8/2/1312272071671/Syria-tanks-007.jpg

Pic here: http://instagr.am/p/JDvF0/

Forced out of retirement by a pathetic annuity, he'd found a job servicing obsolete agricultural machinery. No more farmhouse chats, though, these days. Instead, the gang masters of East Yorks and Lincs were his patch. Always the A road, always a room, always the same raised faces asking him for escape. In the morning, a maid, not much younger than him. She sees the shoes by the wardrobe, the empty half-bottle of whisky on the counterpane. She sees the hotel stationery put to its first ever use: one envelope, propped up against the miniature kettle. "For Margaret". She picks up the room phone and dials the head of housekeeping. She sits on the bed and waits. Only then does she notice the ketchup stain on the torn net curtains. She understands, for the first time, that she hates this country.

As I am now a noted homophobe of the Parish, I think it unlikely I'd be found hanging off Curtain's pelmet any time soon.

Bit unlucky. You think you'd be safe on the Clapham omnibus. Still, I'd like to point out I'm not looking my best in that picture. Been having a bit of a bad trot, recently.

Thin chips, Curtains? And a few undressed green leaves wilting into the juices left on the plate? Or go to the dark side with Dauphinoise, buttered green beans and a few arterial stents on order from BUPA.

Yes.

http://www.haynes.co.uk/wcsstore/HaynesPublishing/images/features/050630_JumpLeadsPR_3_small.jpg Nice jumper, Quids.

But why does it work on a burger but not on a steak? Burgers fatty, need to be cut with vinegar. Steaks lean, need unctuousness. HTH.

Mockney, are you Steve Jones in disguise?

Just to reiterate my original argument, I don't think it was teeth, omnivorism or puberty that helped us advance, but the way we prepared food through cooking and preservation. These methods meant we were able to extract a greater energy from foodstuffs and introduced pulses and grains into our diet. This freed us from the tyranny of a hunter/forager lifestyle and fostered farming and a move away from feast/famine in early human society. I believe that this was the secret of our success. Have you read Richard Wrangham's Catching Fire?

The bloke that wrote this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Longest-Crawl-Ian-Marchant/dp/0747577145 (which contains some short social history of alcohol type stuff) reports that 20% abv is reckoned to get you pissed the quickest. That is, it's the optimum strength for absorption into blood or some such. Sounds dodgy to me. But on that reckoning, fortified wines like sherry would get you trollied the quickest. That's why vicars, university dons and my mum drink it. They know, you see.

I think we can be quite clear what 'ponces at the Victoria' meant... It was meant as a dig at the owners of the Victoria, and It was intended to insult/ slur and if you can't see that then you need your head testing Sorry, no. I can't have that. I appreciate you feel under attack but I don't think that's fair. I don't know anything about the people at the vic _ I've had one glass of coke in there since it opened. I wasn't taking notes about peoples sexuality as I did so. The word was meant to mean "over-fancy" as i stated, and also not serious in any case. You alerted me to a derogatory meaning of the world so I withdrew it. I have not apologised for a slur, insult or similar because it was not one.

Cross-posted with SJ, there, just for clarity.

No, fair enough. If it's an offensive word then I withdraw it. I meant it to mean "fancy dan, lah-di-dah" (and not seriously, obviously), but as it has other negative connotations then I'll distance myself from it.

What do you mean by "what do you mean by 'ponce'?"

The Prince Albert has agreed not to serve Foie Gras. I will be in the Telegraph next week congratulating them. The Guardian Food Monthly is coming to do a double feature on the Drovers and the Pulse cafe - neither of which is serving Foie Gras. Then we are all going for a slap-up feed at Starburger.

I think I can claim to have successfully campaigned to make Peckham a Foie Gras free zone. Unless those ponces at the Victoria have started injecting the livery goodness into their scotch eggs.

Foie Gras Free East Dulwich - bag checks on Dog Kennel Hill, sniffer dogs on the 18.08 from London Bridge, hessian bag brigade smuggling FG on the #40 from Borough Market. Do Ealing Studios still make films? And does Thomas Mick look anything like Sir Alec?

I don't mind people having views on Foie Gras in private, but I object to having them forced down my throat.

I wasn't equating FG and battery chicken - I was saying that there is a scale and people take their place on it as they see fit. Yet I also see people who seek to source food that they know has been farmed to high welfare standards eating foie gras (which may or may not have cause suffering to the animal) with a shrug of the shoulders. I guess people do what they can with most of their purchases, and let the odd exception pass through on grounds of taste/can't be botheredness. Otta's exception is the Colonel, for others it's FG.

Seem to remember that his (hot, Jamaican, possessive) actual ladyfriend was jealous of the potential rivalry from his (hot, possessive, Sierra Leonian) cleaner, or something. Suffice to say, the only reasonable conclusion to draw was that there was, indeed, a cavalcade of ethnic foo-foo competing for a slice of the T.LS.

Plenty of badger slats coming onto the market soon... Anyone who eats meat is by definition making some kind of compromise with animal suffering, given the beasts all have to march up the abbatoir steps at some point, or get on the outside of a bullet etc. People sit where they are happy to, can afford to, on that scale. Slightly confuses me that many* people I know who would only eat well-sourced beef, chicken, sausages, with at least part of the reason being animal husbandry and care, are only too happy to stuff the product of a deliberately enlarged liver down their gob. Tastes too good, I suppose. * at least a few, anyway

TLS had many "ladyfriends" of various ethnicities... and only a very few of them were also employed to clean his house.

Can I get back to you on this, Lara? Only I'm trying an eating cure for my cellulite on Channel 4 at the moment, and my other half is way too busy being a victim of crime on ITV2 to respond. Anyway, congrats on the programme idea. That first development meeting must have been like when Dylan went electric, or when George Martin played Paul the score for Eleanor Rigby.