Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

7th March

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

British Pie Week: No Twits! Steak & Ale voted the most Beard Friendly Pie

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued advice on pie eating and Beard Friendly Pies as part of British Pie Week 2025 which runs from March 2nd to March 8^th.

In an on-line poll Steak & Ale triumphed over butter or cheese & onion pie to be  voted the most Beard Friendly Pie of the Year.

The hirsute campaign group say that as with many prepared foods the requirements of people with beards are often overlooked when it comes to pies.

The BLF says that common issues with pies for those with beards are:

Excessive gravy

Puff or flaky pastry

‘Deep filling’ making it difficult to avoid contact of the pie with the beard

The campaigners cite the traditional steak and kidney pie as an example of pies which are made without thought for the requirements of the hirsute pie consumer. Such pies often have excessive gravy- and comparatively little steak and kidney- which ends up in the beard.

The campaigners say that the hirsute should choose their pies with care to ensure that they enjoy a traditional eating experience without beard pollution

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, no self-respecting beard wearer wants the remains of their lunch or dinner in their beard so once again as part of British Pie Week we are promoting the Beard Friendly Pie.  The hirsute are fed up with pies that, pace the Twits, leave as much in the beard as goes in the mouth.

He added, Steak and Ale pie fulfils our Beard Friendly Pie criteria, with the ale provided a richer and less runny consistency to the pie than gravy.

Scottish craft brewer Innis and Gunn has been bought out of administration by C&C who own Tennents lager.

As a result the brewery and three taps will be closed with a loss of 105 jobs. C&C already owned 8.8% of Innis and Gunn and the company had contract brewed there.

It comes at the end of a grim week for Scottish brewing with Brewdog bought by US company Tilray on Monday with 484 job losses across the UK.

C&C were named as one of the bidders for Brewdog and it appears had capital for acquistions.

The move further raises the question about why the Scottish Government does not intervene in such cases to preserve both jobs and Scottish craft brewing

More than 100 jobs go as brewer Innis & Gunn is bought by Tennent’s owner – BBC News

Brewdog. After the sale to Tilray: results and prospects

The US firm Tilray bought Brewdog’s brewery, brand name and 11 pubs on 2^nd March. 484 people were sacked on the spot and Unite the Union is on the case.

The first issue Tilray has is that the sackings will mean a significant amount of reputational damage to Brewdog which has already suffered a large amount in the last five years.

Tilray’s CEO Dwight Simon did a video call for investors after the sale. He noted that while the Ellon brewery has capacity to brew 2.4m hectolitres its currently producing a third of that, 800,000 hectolitres.

That means there is plenty of space for the US craft brands that Tilray has hoovered up over the last few years to be brewed in Ellon for the European market.

In phrases that trip off the tongue of pretty much every CEO Simon noted that there was ‘lots of cost to be taken out’ of Brewdog and Tilray would be looking for ‘efficiencies’.

This means primarily job cuts. 733 workers were TUPEd (transfer of undertakings, protection of engagements) to Tilray. That protects their jobs and terms and conditions on day one, but not thereafter. At that point a variety of reasons can be given for job cuts known as ETO (economic, technical, organisational).

Given that Simon said Tilray did not know they had been successful until March 1^st they won’t have had time to work out what level of workforce they need at Ellon. Any brewery worker not yet member of Unite would be well advised to join.

The Guardian (6th March) is reporting the below.

Whether it is actually true is another matter. Farage has a history of claiming that he is meeting Trump only to be found wandering around in a location where Trump is, but actually nowhere near him.

That said it does fit with Trump’s agenda to build relations with the European far right. After he has finished appointing the new leader of Iran perhaps he will appoint Farage as King.

Nigel Farage to discuss Chagos Islands deal at Mar-a-Lago dinner with Donald Trump tonight

In the latest example of Nigel Farage doing absolutely anything rather than spend time in his Clacton constituency, the Reform UK leader is to meet Donald Trump for dinner at Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he says he will discuss the Chagos Islands deal.

Attending a ‘Save Chagos Boat Party’ yesterday, Farage said he would be flying to Florida to dine with the US president on Friday, GB News reported

I was there on 30th April 1978 in Victoria Park and I’ll be there again on March 28th 2026, Park Lane, Noon, on this occasion.

I joined a TUC London and South East Region virtual mobilising meeting on 5th March and its clear that the big general unions UNISON, UNITE, GMB are doing serious work to get people there. There are lots of coaches booked from around the UK but more are needed.

In the face of Farage the cry on 28th March needs to go out: Whose Streets? Our Streets…. and then build from there

This of course is a random headline generator produced by the New World. Allister Heath is the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph and to be honest its often difficult to spot the difference between what he actually writes and the random.

I live in Tottenham a few minutes walk from the ground and I’m a lifelong fan.

That won’t be changing and relegation is as yet not certain. However its being coming for a while. In fact in recent years I’ve tended to check not how many points Spurs might be away from the top of the Premiership but rather if they have accrued enough to avoid the drop. In 2026 so far they certainly have not.

Relegation will be a blow to the businesses on Tottenham High Rd that rely at least in part on Match Day crowds and the people employed by them. How much it will really bother ENIC (the current owners of Spurs) I’m less sure. There will be less games in 2026/7 come what may, which means more availability for the Stadium for gigs, boxing, NFL etc etc….

Anyway it’s only a game.

Reform’s donations are primarily from a Thai based businessman Christopher Harborne who gave £9m in August 2025.

It does bring to mind the German photomontager John Heartfield’s image of Hitler facing a mass audience while his hand reaches behind his back to receive a bundle of notes from a very large businessman figure..

World Book Day: turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class

I’d choose E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (1963 still in print on its 63rd anniversary) as my book for World Book Day. I’m conscious of the fact that the day is aimed at younger people and encouraging reading and Thompson’s book is a weighty tome, which might put some off.

That said it is full of characters who might spark interest and indeed passages that can be read aloud.

In fact Thompson compiled a good deal of the detail in the book and arguably some of the approaches to it while teaching WEA night classes in Yorkshire in the 1950s. His engagement with working-class students underlines the point he made in the 1968 postscript that the book is far from being a dry academic tome.

E P Thompson on what people ate in the 1790s

The southern rural labourer refused to abandon his diet of bread and cheese, even when near the point of starvation, and for nearly fifty years a regular dietary class war took place, with potatoes encroaching on bread in the south, and with oatmeal and potatoes encroaching in the north

Making of the English Working Class, Standards and Experiences

Thompson also noted that so low had labourers wages become that some were noted as ‘turnip pilferers, alehouse scroungers & poachers..’ (section on William Cobbett)

Private Eye

Matthew Goodwin who lost the Gorton and Denton Election for Reform by several thousand votes to the Green Party has written in the Spectator about his canvassing experiences.

I have extracted here a small taste of what Goodwin had to endure on the doorstep

Looking back, there were subtle hints the vote mightn’t go my way. ‘GB News!’ shouted one middle-aged cat lady on her doorstep before I’d said a word. ‘Reform UK!’ she screamed louder. ‘You’re a total wanker!’ She slammed the door in my face.