Neither Colin or Cuthbert but Hirsute Chocolate Caterpillar cakes
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that while Marks and Spencer is pursuing Aldi in respect of a trade mark dispute over a chocolate cake, a wider issue has been missed altogether.
Neither Colin the Caterpillar (M&S) or Cuthbert (Aldi) is hirsute, yet in the natural world there are many examples of hairy caterpillars.
The campaigners say that there is surely no issue with replicating the hairiness of caterpillars in confectionary. There would no significant difference to the taste of the cake but a hairy chocolate cake might well appeal to the target audience- supposedly of younger people.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, this looks like an example of pogonopobia- the fear of follicles. Given that no manufacturer currently seems keen to produce a hirsute chocolate caterpillar cake this should be one area where there can be no trade mark dispute.
Inventing tradition: Pigeon flypast for Prince Philip’s funeral
The funeral of Prince Philip on Saturday will see the invention of a new tradition.
There will be a pigeon flypast.
The Murdoch Times (15.4) reports that pigeons will be released from Royal lofts at Sandringham and Windsor on the day. The Royal Pigeon Racing Association plans to have 10 pigeons- one for each decade of Philip’s life- fly in 65 cities.
The Royal association with pigeons goes back to 1886:
According to the report Prince Philip showed particular interest in pigeons. There is a perspective that racing pigeons is a cruel sport although this may relate more to global pigeon racing than domestic where flying times and distances are relatively short. It was a working-class activity- think Jack Duckworth in Coronation St.
However when the Royal pigeon lofts at Sandringham were upgraded in 2015 the cost was reported to be £40K. As often with the Royal family, the pigeons seems to inhabit a rather different space than those to be found in the lofts of working men’s clubs.
‘Dodgy Dave’ Cameron the ‘unpleasant & unacceptable face of capitalism’?
In May 1973 following a Court case the then Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath referred in the Commons to the activities of London based southern African mining firm Lonhro as the ‘unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism’.
The phrase has entered the historical record as an example of a Conservative Prime Minister drawing a moral limit to how far free market capitalism might go.
The question for Boris Johnson now, well known promoter of the benefits of capitalism, is whether he echoes the words of Ted Heath and accepts that David Cameron is another example of the ‘unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism’.
Or perhaps the conclusion is that all Tory Prime Ministers are dodgy in one way or another…
Steve Bell’s If Cartoon strip in the Guardian today reminds us that the late Duke of Edinburgh was a regular feature of his ‘If’ cartoon strips in the paper. Apparently he will having been drawing cartoons for the paper for 40 years later in 2021 (slightly longer than Ive been writing letters to it).
With the reverential tones that the death of Prince Philip was met with in official circles its an important reminder that there were other ways of understanding his life and times
Its not of course about the beer, that will be good.
Nor is it entirely new. A Cloudwater-Brewdog New England IPA has been in Tesco for a good while now and evidently is re-brewed from time to time by Brewdog.
Today however Cloudwater has announced a significant brewing outsource to Brewdog. It will no longer brew its core range at Manchester but four beers will be brewed at Brewdog and these will go into larger Tesco branches.
Alongside this it has announced a four pack of collab beers made with a LGBTQ brewer, two black and one Indian origin owned brewery. These will also be brewed at Brewdog and go into Tesco- although initially not so many. The profits will go entirely to the four collab breweries.
Cloudwater, known for pursuing the point of keeping beer cool, are also pushing Tesco to expand their cold shelf operation for beers.
It is I suppose broadly welcome. I recall talking to Logan Plant in the early days of Beavertown (when such casual chats were possible) and hearing him explain that his big idea was to improve the quality of beer that you could get not just in specialist bars and shops but across a much wider range of outlets. He has gone some way to achieving that, although clearly at a considerable price.
In that sense it will be good that Cloudwater beers will be more widely available and presumably based on the usual Tesco model at a competitive price. More people will try them.
Its not so good for Indy retailers and smaller brewers struggling to compete.
On the collab four pack its good of course that a Queer Brewing beer will be on the shelves in Tesco along with beers from several of the far too few black and Indian owned breweries in the UK. It will not lead to liberation or equality (how could it) but as the slogan of one supermarket chain has it ‘every little helps’
There are of course downsides and they are not insignificant. Tesco is a huge business and its business is making profit. Obviously we wont know the terms of the arrangements between Cloudwater, Brewdog and Tesco but ultimately if the beers don’t sell well enough or someone else comes along with a better offer, they will not be on the shelves any longer.
Being on the shelves of Tesco is another matter. Anyone who buys cans of beer from there (as I do on occasion) will presumably check the BBE date on the can before buying. If you don’t I’d suggest you do because Tesco don’t (fortunately they don’t take the same approach to food!)
Some wider points still.
The arrangement Cloudwater have with Brewdog to contract brew would often be seen in business as the precursor to a further coming together of the two in some way. We shall see.
Its also worth pointing out that for all its numerous downsides Tesco is a fully unionised company. Craft beer please take note. Playing in the big league brings necessary obligations too.
In conclusion, it’s all a bit of a compromise with earlier grand visions. Then again as a long time national trade union officer I’m hardly unfamiliar with that….
Jeremy Corbyn (2016) on Dave Cameron & the Panama Papers: ‘some at the top think that the rules simply do not apply to them’
The 2016 House of Commons debate on the Panama Papers in which David Cameron was a key figure makes interesting reading in the light of the Lex Greensill affair and Cameron’s lobbying of Rishi Sunak and numbers of others.
The opening paragraph of Corbyn’s statement is below and there is a link to the full debate. This was the occasion when Dennis Skinner was excluded from the Chamber by the Speaker for refusing to withdraw the words ‘Dodgy Dave’
I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement—it is absolutely a master class in the art of distraction. I am sure that he will join me in welcoming the outstanding journalism that went into exposing the scandal of destructive global tax avoidance that was revealed by Toggle showing location of the Panama papers. Those papers have driven home what many people have increasingly felt: that there is now one rule for the super-rich, and another for the rest. I am honestly not sure that the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice. How can it be right that street cleaners, teaching assistants and nurses work and pay their taxes, yet some at the top think that the rules simply do not apply to them?
With the Hundred, a new marketing inspired form of post-cricket due to start in July, there is discussion about what terms should be used to describe parts of the activity which were previously part of cricket. An early suggestion has been to replace wicket taking with ‘outs’. I have added a few more possibilities:
WEARING A SNOOD KEY TO BEARD PROTECTION IN PUB GARDENS
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued important guidance for the hirsute as pub gardens and outside spaces re-open in England
The BLF says that it is essential to keep the beard protected from the elements wherever possible. The weather in April can be very variable from warm sun to snow but temperatures in the evening, when many at work have time to visit the pub, are invariably low
The following guidelines for hirsute pub garden drinking have been issued by the BLF:
1] Protect the entire beard with a Snood. If a Snood is not immediately available a scarf or roll neck jumper may provide some protection. Obviously the Snood should be lowered when sipping beer.
2] Sweep any rain drops or snow from the beard on a regular basis. Do not allow the beard to become waterlogged in any circumstances
3] If the beard becomes chilled or frozen due to icy weather it is essential to thaw it out slowly. Immersion in a glass of imperial stout will help this process
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said water or snow in the beard can cause serious damage to hairs and follicles and the hirsute are urged to make sure they are protected, preferably by wearing a Snood while enjoying things in pub gardens.
Keir Starmer misreads the C20th history of the Royal Family
The House of Commons has met today to pay tribute to Prince Philip.
Of course on the Conservative side this is unproblematic. The Party’s foundations lie in the Church and the Monarchy.
Labour’s understanding of the matter is more recent and more complex. That doesn’t mean that Labour hasn’t been monarchist- it has- but it has had, from time to time, different approaches.
Many Labour leaders haven’t exactly been that good at labour history so it would be unfair to criticise Keir Starmer too much for his comments in the Commons on Prince Philip.
Even so it is far from the case that over the last 100 years the British people’s faith in the institution has ‘never faltered’ (words and link below).
As the former Labour MEP Michael Hindley pointed out on twitter this ignores for a start the 1936 abdication crisis. This revolved around the then monarch Edward V111’s desire to marry someone who was divorced from their former partner. This was not just frowned upon but not allowed. He stepped down.
Keir Starmer really ought to have remembered however the period after the death of Princess Diana in 1997 when Tony Blair endeavoured to try and make the monarchy, whose reaction to the death had made it deeply unpopular, more in step with the twenty-first century.
Beyond that one of the things Prince Philip himself tried to do over the years, clearly not always successfully, was to try and keep the institution of the monarchy relevant.
I’m a socialist and republican but even this account of the last period of the British monarchy can be told in such a way as to reflect reasonably well on Prince Philip if that is what one wants to do. History is better than hagiography.
Keir Starmer, House of Commons 12th April
The life of Prince Philip was extraordinary, lived in a century on fast-forward and a time that saw world war, a cold war, the fall of empire, 20 Prime Ministers, and the invention of the television, the internet, artificial intelligence and technology so extraordinary it might have seemed to a lesser person as if from another world. Throughout that time, the monarchy has been the one institution in which the faith of the British people has never faltered.
