it wasn’t the cows after all

london 10.25am 24C cloudy monday 2019

i saw this article in my wordpress reader today, called it wasn’t the cows after all. it referred to our popular idea that cows are the biggest cause of increased methane in the air, hence the call to eat less beef, and by extension less meat to save the planet; but it seems the production of fertilisers to grow plants produce more methane than all the cows. it seems the CO2 is more important than methane. because the C02 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, whilst methane degrades in about 10yrs. but it is a complex problem, because methane’s effect on warming is very much more than CO2. and i read that growing rice is a big cause of emission of methane, bigger than cows or so it seems. frankly it looks like it is a complicated thing, too many links and causes . might be better to just to ameliorate the effects of global warming, rather than prevent it, as it is going to happen, whether it is our activities or just that it is time for a warming, in the long history of warming and cooling of the earth in the earth’s history.

added 25.6.19 tuesday ; today read this article that manufacturing cement is responsible for 7% of global CO2 emission,more than all the trucks on the road in 2017. (you can read the article if u want more details though it is not necessary really without having to give them permission for cookies, just continue to scroll down and the pop up box asking you to chose the cookie preferences will disappear.)

this article suggests that the vegan movement is a ploy by the industrial processed food industry to shift us to all eat processed foods that they make out of vegan stuff to feed the world. when you consider it, it is to the advantage of the processed food industry to shift us to vegan based foods, that require a lot of processing to make it edible. of course it could be a solution that the processed food industry thinks is a good one as a response to not to eat meat, and if it makes every human rely on them to expand the vegan products , think of the huge sales that can result from all humans eating their products instead of the raw veg, or raw meat, that they have to cook themselves; all the better for the industry… right? their ultimate dream must be to make a vegan based soylent green product.

 

 

mackerel and cabbage

london 6.02pm 9C dry saturday 2019

9.33pm 6C

this morning i was at victoria station, or rather outside it at about 10am. it was strangely quiet and peaceful. hardly anyone about, usually it would be thronging with travellers with luggage. i had overshot my stop. had wanted the stop just before this one to go to the post office. but since i am here, i decided to go to the food hall nearby to use their toilet. the station itself have its main toilet but it is under repair, and so also the side toilet . they have put up lots of temporary cubicles housing the toilets like portacabins, but it was on the other side of the station. i figured the food hall must have toilets and so it proved. and the toilets were much nicer than the portacabin ones.

there is a roti blatta place on the mezzanine floor of this food hall, but it was not doing business. a sign says the roti might take a bit of time and to ask how long it will be. i figured the roti man was not around. in malaysia, roti is a breakfast food, and you will find the cook busy making it early in the morning, but it is impossible to ask anyone to work so early in the morning on a regular basis, especially as here there are not that critical mass of customers wanting to eat roti blatta so early in the morning. the prices reflect this, in that in malaysia roti is very cheap, but here they are like very expensive, in the £9 range. it is a street food in malaysia, but here it is like gourmet food. anyway from what i see, the downstairs have the customers and they were having breakfast of pastry, and croissant and baked goods.

i was thinking that tortilla breakfast of burito that i had , seem like good value at £3.50. though i just remembered you can get a macD or a burgerking hamburger and kfc chicken burito for £2 with a coupon, and you get fries too. 

but anyway it was nice to have a peaceful opening to the day at the victoria area , a moment of calm to start the day. it was quite a cold day too.

an old man who sat next to me on the bus started a conversation with me, saying it was cold, and he started talking but i could not make out what he said, so just nodded and pretended. haha. i dontknow whether it is just me who is deaf, or him with an accent that i could not understand.

well i did what i need to do at the post office, i was the only customer haha. a nice change. then off i went to the library to read the papers. that was this morning. 

now it is nighttime, and i am back from doing a bargain shop at tesco. it was an interesting episode. there were lots of reduced liver, chicken, 30p, and pork liver 25p. such a temptation, normally i would swoop on them and buy them, but now that i got gout, i cannot eat liver anymore. it really is a bother. because i love liver esp chicken and pork liver. instead i bought mackerel at 50p, two fillets. which i fried and ate one with the cabbage . i bought two  clumps of white cabbage (or should i say bunch how would one describe these i wonder; maybe i should call them 2 rounds of cabbage) of them, at 20p each. they were reduced because the outside leaves look a bit shabby, otherwise they are really allright. they are  selling for 79p each. which is very expensive for cabbage. they were very small cabbage too.

i think there is a shortage of cabbage. usually cabbages are very cheap, even in winter. don’t know whether they could not find any EU people to harvest them or what. anyway i had a delicious dinner using these bargain buys. the fried mackerel was delicious. its rare to get mackerel reduced like this. and to think mackerel was a fish that was supposed to be only good for poor people. 

 

feasting

london 10.19am 10C cloudy saturday 2017

i have noticed veg is very cheap this year… 20p each for brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips,potatoes, cauliflower, brocolli, such a large variety of veg being reduced. we have been pigging it with veg as a result. in fact all the christmas favourites in a roast dinner seem to be included in this cheap deal. even the meat is cheap… or cheapish… with tesco sellling £5/kg beef joints, and leg of lamb for £5.50/kg. salmon even half priced £5/kg. (though the salmon is sold whole, and a whole fish can be very heavy). that is remarkable really when u consider it is christmas period now.

i wonder if there will be any reductions come christmas eve, when it is early closing at 4pm for most supermarkets, it being sunday. we had a feast yesterday, with simon roasting duck. but i am hoping to get bargains tomorrow, when it is the last day of trading before the shops close completely for christmas day. i am looking for reductions in meat. but if i cannot get, then i shall get a chicken, and roast it and that will be our christmas dinner. in fact, i think even if there are other meat bargains, i shall still get a chicken as i fancy roast chicken. 

the latest news today

london 11.50am 17.4C sunny victoria library thursday 2017

i was in the tesco last night, for food bargains, and got 3packs of sausages(8) for 30 p each. usually £2. that was a good buy. i freeze 2 packs and i will have sausages for lunch today , with eggs and fresh tomatoes, they can be like breakfast. they are ordinary sausages, with only 47% pork, but i do like them, even better than the designer sausages with higher meat content and herbs. there is something about them that is unique in taste and it really spells british sausages to me… they are unique to britain, i have never seen these sausages sold in europe… maybe to the europeans they are gross… haha. but i do like them.

but what surprised me was their veg shelves. celery and iceberg lettuce for 29p each. i bought 2 packs of celery, but pass on the iceberg lettuce. i nearly missed this bargain, as i dont usually browse past the veg shelves looking for bargains.   i wonder why they are selling veg cheap. summer is over, so i would have thought the glut of summer veg must be over too. 

and today in the paper, i see an advert from aldi selling brocolli, celery, beetroot etc for 35p each. but no advert from tesco publising their cheap veg.

aldi only has one branch in london, on the old kent road, quite a distance from me. that is why i have not gone to them for quite a long time now, especially when lidl, or even tesco is selling its veg cheap too. competition is a fine thing, isn’t it?

hugh hefner had died, aged 91. so a symbol of the olden days have gone. those of my generation would have known of his playboy magazine.

and did u know that dogs cannot eat chocolates? or rather they can but they get really sick if they do. as this greedy dog who tore open a sample package of chocolates posted through the letter box found out to his cost. and the owners are blaming sainsburys for sending them the free sample chocolates. dogs are so greedy really, you would have thought nature would safeguard the dog by making it not eat it, but i guess the domestic dogs are so inbred and tamed, their wild instincts have completely been bred out…

the daily mail website also was breaking news about a world wide computer crash at the checkout system in airports … even changi in singapore is affected. it seems it is a software checkin that crashed. 

storm doris dont seem to be affecting london that much.

london 5.46pm 10.8C (about 12C all day really ) strong gusts of wind. thursday 2017

storm doris seems to manifest itself in the area where i live in short strong blasts of wind. and not much rain, mainly dry here. the poor daffodils are tossed strongly,waving wildly for a bit of time, most of them survive the tossing, one or two got their stems broken. that seems to be about all the effect of this storm. i daresay other areas get it worst.

but i think the weather forecasts have made a lot of shop keepers of the stalls in brixton decide to take a day off. there were empty spaces where before u can see stalls with bowls of veg on them.i went about 12pm and the market seems emptier than i have seen it. 

the toilet in brixton market was not opened today. i saw workmen setting up turnstiles at the entrance, so it looks like they are finally going to install coin operated gates and it wont be free anymore. before , there were the gates without turnstiles, so can walk in free. 

i got ginger, 260mg for 50p. not as much as the usual amount, but then i guess it is winter and things are scarcer. though it is still cheaper than in the supermarkets.

on the way back i stop off at the lidl, in stockwell, and got two cauliflowers @59p each. now and then i do like to eat cauliflower , and these are the cheapest . they are part of the weekly reduced priced veg promotions by lidl.  and when they come up, i then get a chance to eat cauliflower. it works out well, as it is much tastier if u dont eat it all the time, which is true of most things. eat it all the time and you can get fed up of it. that is why variety is the spice of life.

hmm, that might be the secret of enjoying your life, inject variety into it. perhaps all those people we see doing and searching for new things to do, are the ones who are searching for variety to inject into their lives. but it is not necessary that u do a new thing every time… 

i take myself as an example. I do the same thing all the time and i enjoy it. the reason is because though  i do the same thing  all the time, the outcome need not be the same all the time.

for eg, i go to the library all the time, but i read different news, i borrow different newspapers, i go online and browse different things on the internet. sometimes, i even meet and talk to people, and different people too. oh, dont forget, i borrow different books.

 so you remember that old saying, which tries to tell people that if they want different results they must change and do things differently… ‘dont do the same thing and expect a different result’, may not be true  after all. it depands on what u relate to. you can do the same thing and get different results… i walk past the recycling bins all the time, and do that same thing every day, but what i find there changes all the time. never do i find the same things. so i wonder what saying covers that kind of situation. so far no one have coined a phrase to cover it.

 added. it looks like the trees falling onto the railway tracks are the cause of the biggest disruption to london. train travellers are the ones most affected with rail services suspended in practically all the major railway stations. that is if u want to believe the newspapers, showing pictures of crowds stranded at the railway stations. though interestingly enough, my friend took the train from victoria to bromley yesterday to visit a friend,  and stayed overnight. he came back today (friday 24.2.17) and he said there was no trouble with the trains at all.

 

lots of carrots

london 9.45pm 10.1C dry wednesday 2016

you might be forgiven if u think i am referring to the autumn statement by the chancellor which he is giving today. but no it is literally about carrots.

i was in the tesco near me and there was a 2.5kg bag of carrots reduced to 27p. it was originally £2.49. my immediate thought was that i can have them roasted as i suddenly crave roasted veg. and i guess i can think of other ways to use it up. boiled with some meat (pork)  of course to make a soup,or a curry, or a stew, stir fry, grated to make a salad. 

10.52pm . i crave roast carrots , so cannot wait till tomorrow. i have put in a batch of it in the oven. so i shall have roast carrots tonight.

cheap veg

london 12.54pm 13.3C cloudy tuesday 2015

i wonder if anyone else have noticed, but so far this december has been very mild, in london that is. so much so that when i read in the papers and saw the snow covered pictures in the daily mail saying there is snow up north, it makes me wonder. glad i dont live in the north where it seems to snow or flood or god knows what all. in london it is fantastic. very mild weather and very pleasant. not much sun mind you but then can’t have everything hey? 

last night i happen to go into the tesco.com and saw they were selling 39p veg… quite a nice selection esp the cauliflower. usually that veg is very difficult to get cheap. so i hot foot it last night to my local tesco and got all the 39p offers,even bought two of the cauliflowers;  except the brussels sprouts, and that was because i did not see it. i am pleased with the other veg i got. and i got sweet peppers 3 in the pack for 25p, reduced section. and got two white bread for 14p each. the potatoes at 2.5kg for 39p is heavy so i took the bus back, even though it is only 3 stops away.

not for the first time i marvel at the bus system. i had the bus practically all to myself, it is like a personalised chauffeur service all laid out for my benefit. i do feel like a millionaire whenever i get such occasions occur. all the pleasure of the feelings of being a millionaire without the angst and the bother of making the money. haha. 

i got bananas reduced to 24p per kg, i bought two bunches, they are real good value as the bananas were not overripe and all those i have so far eaten are unspoilt. sometimes i get a craving for bananas.

i guess we are getting all these reduced veg because they are expiring in 19dec. so they want to get rid of them. after 19dec, they will have a fresh new batch of  veg delivered and they will increase in price to catch the christmas shoppers.

what is rather mystifying is that tesco dont advertise these cheap veg. i only knew of it because i happen to visit their website. not sure why i did, because i dont normally go into the tesco website. oh, hang on, of course they advertise it , but in their website, which is the best place to advertise it. i wonder what made me think the only way to advertise it is via the newspapers with the paid ads. nowadays with social media, that is not the only route anymore. i wonder if tesco has a facebook or twitter page. haha. if not they should. maybe pay one of the facebook or twitter user to do it.

i googled it and found that there was a scam about free tescovouchers in facebook a few years ago. so maybe that is the reason why tesco dont do facebook. 

 perhaps since it costs money to advertise it in the newspapers and since they are selling these veg for such low prices, it would wipe out the profit if they have to pay for the advertising too. so maybe they are hoping people like me will advertise it for them via word of mouth. haha.

there are no websites that aggregate all the bargains and broadcast it to all. the reason is because there is no money to be made for having such a website that tells people of transient bargains. and u have to be quick off the mark, as these offers soon get sold out. and the info will be out of date very quickly and no website can keep up. that is why i think we dont get any such websites at all. 

 

veg for 2p

london

simon came back from his mum’s. he got loads of veg, broccoli, cabbage,

kale, mixed veg, all for 3p, 2p, 7p, 5p, 10p, 8p. the supermarkets there really are fierce in their reductions.

i have never seen so much veg reduced to so little.

So unlike the supermarkets here in pimlico. only just now i got back from the sainsbury near me and only bought 2 basic white bread at 14p each. it is the cheapest i have seen it reduced by since the heady days when good quality bread are 10p each. these are basic bread costing 55p normally. i was craving a bit of bread as simon had eaten all the frozen bread i bought last time when the same supermarket reduced to 34p each. i ate 2 slices when i got back as toast, and frankly i dont taste any difference from more expensive bread. i put jam and peanut butter on them so they taste of those things. i doubt anyone eats bread by itself and since that is the only way to tell what they taste of it seems to me not important what they taste of as whatever they are will be swamped by the taste of jam and peanut butter or whatever spread u put on it.

he also bought tuna for £1. reduced from about £5.

( the tesco i was in just now i saw had tuna reduced too, but only to £4 from £5).

I had allready eaten that tuna that simon bought so dont have any to take a picture. I ate that as sashimi, (raw)dipping it in wasabi (from a tube) and black soya sauce. delicious. its been an age since i ate sashimi, and i have forgotten how nice it tastes. i ate the whole lot at one sitting haha. mixing it with a bit of white rice and ginger. that was my lunch no cooking involved and right welcomed as i was so hungry. simon said i can have all of it as he is not keen on tuna. he likes them as tinned tuna.

its lovely to revisit a taste sensation that i have forgotten about. its like finding it out for the first time. i wonder whether that is why people fast.

in my case i forget to eat something for a long time, and then rediscover it. others might fast and rediscover how nice food tastes when you are really hungry.

so many people are quite able to afford food, or eat often and never revisit that sensation of being starved. so fasting is a way of getting that feeling again. 

life here for me in london now is very nice. but then i make it nice by not bothering with things that are a bother to me.

you might say lucky you, but i think it is something i consciously make happen. it is no accident that my life is so nice.

the only thing that i cannot control is health. i am in good health now; i know one day i will have something goes wrong with the body, it is inevitable as i grow old. but i hope to keep that time when it happens at bay for as long as possible. haha.

aldi

london

I did not intend this post to be about praise for aldi.

I was about to talk of the hot weather we were having, and why i find myself being very sleepy at the middle of the day because of it and wanting to take a nap. it does make me miss out on a lot of things, because unlike europe where everything close down for their afternoon siesta, here in uk, and london everything stays open. it is one of the nicests things about uk that i like over and above europe.

I was on the bus to the supermarket earlier today and the hot weather seems to be affecting the kids a lot more than the adults. certainly the kids on the bus were all dozing off.

though reading a blog , i see europe is having a glut of summer vegetables and big bulgy tomatoes that we dont get here.

I have noticed they do have these big tumourous tomatoes, but they taste like tomatoes and are no different in taste from smaller tomatoes, so their size is the only difference.

they go well with buffalo mozzarela in a tomato salad, in that they look very nice, but of course u can have it with small tomatoes and they taste just as good. but i know some europeans like the look of things.

perhaps the beefy tomatoes also taste different. but i think they only look as if they taste different. certainly i have not noticed any difference in taste, partly because the olive oil dressing and basil herb masks any taste they might have. maybe that is why they are not so popular here in uk, certainly i dont see many of them on sale in the supermarkets.

i remember the european summer fruits, like the peaches that i bought in capdagde are just delicious, they are always just ripe and bursting with juice and comes off the core very easily. unlike peaches here in the supermarkets , where it is either not ripe yet, or too ripe. And no matter what state they are in they are never juicy or sweet. and they are not cheap either. That is something that europe has better than uk. but it seems the downside is that come winter, in europe, the range of vegetables on sale is severely restricted… at least if i read that blog entry correctly.

whilst here in uk, we get veg all year round, no exciting summer vegetables, but the staples like brocolli, lettuce,plain tomatoes, cauliflower, cucumber, celery are always available. not very exciting perhaps but people know they are there. And human beings being creatures of habit, we like eating what we are familiar with. maybe that is why in summer the supermarkets just dont bother to bring in other types of vegetables. people just dont buy them. if they are not familiar with it, they dont buy. that is my impression anyway, maybe it is a false impression.

but just using myself as an example, i too dont buy fancy vegetables that i dont quite know how to use. also some of the ones, like rocket , i find bitter and not very nice. as for kale, forget it, it is really a difficult veg to cook, and tastes of nothing and looks worse. haha. 

in fact they found out that people who plan their meals, stick to the same dish for each day of the week and repeat that for years. so if it is monday it must be lasagna. or if it is lasagna today, it must be monday. haha. 

this morning, i was browsing the daily mirror and saw a advert by lidl, where they featured celery for 50p, so i decided to go there, but since it was in peckham, i decided to go first to the aldi , and there i find celery was 45p. as well as lots of other veg for 45p instead of the usual 50p in the other supermarkets… except sainsburys strangely. for some reason, sainsburys are not caught up in reducing their price. i wonder why? their customers dont seem to be bothered that their stuff is higher priced. what makes the sainsbury customer so price insensitive i wonder, when we hear so much  of tesco losing business to the likes of aldi, and having to reduce their prices. i was browsing in sainsburys recently and went away without buying anything as their prices were so much more. it is why i have not bought anything from sainsburys for ages. i have a feeling i will not bother to go there anymore. do others also feel the same way about sainsburys as i do? 

in fact i ended up buying all my veg at aldi, and dont bother to stop over at asda or lidl, and caught the bus straight back. aldi never advertise these prices, so i was not aware of it. instead they advertised fruits at 69p, which i was not interested in, as i know those fruits are not as juicy as in europe. i am glad i decided to go to aldi first in spite of not finding anything in their reduced priced adverts. 

I have come to the conclusion that i shall go to aldi first thing, before i go to the other supermarkets, unless they have really good offers. 

Added 8.8.14 read today here that the russian embargo of fruit and veg imports from europe starts today for a year and the article says it means europe will have cheap fruits and veg as apples and pears from poland gets diverted.  coupled with the good weather making the harvest in uk for fruit and veg the best so far, let’s hope it will filter down to us and we get cheap fruits and veg, though the cost of transporting those goods may up the prices. it is not good news for the farmers. they might let the fruit rot. what else can one make out of apples and pears… cider?

i have been eating a lot of salads this summer

london thurs 2014

The reason is the supermarkets giving such good prices for them. today i read an advert by morrisons of 3 for £1.50 offers for celery, tomatoes, courgettes, plums, 4peaches, and pineapple. whilst tesco have a long running offer of 2 for 75p for celery, beetroot, lettuce.

I am waiting for my chromebook to charge up fully before i go off to buy them.

And their cheap prices makes it the reason why i am eating so much salads.

john came to visit me for the naked bike ride and he bought salad dressing for the salads. and i find i like them. usually i make my own french dressing using olive oil, mustard, and vinegar, but this salad dressing is rather nice. so now i am eating my salads with salad dressing but i have finished john’s bottle, and now going to buy my own. however, i am puzzled how they are different from mayonnaise.

 except for the price, mayonnaise is so much cheaper, i dont see or taste the difference.

there is a small amount of egg in mayonnaise, but so small amount it might as well not be there.

so i am settling for mayonnaise as a dressing. it comes in a bottle with a wide neck so easy to spoon every last bit out, whilst the salad dressing comes in a plastic bottle which u can stand upside down but the contents never settle and u are left with bits at the bottom which is impossible to get out. 

I have a weekend magazine that tells me how to make all the different types of salads, using rocket, and such like, but i find i am just happy to eat salads using only lettuce, tomatoes,beetroot, cucumber salads all the time. somehow i never get fed up of them. l wonder why? they are just so easy to make and the ingredients are available everywhere and like now, on special price and so cheaper. 

 Added. morrisons were selling 10kg basmati rice for £10. so i bought a bag. there was a time about 5months ago when rice price rose, to £12 for 10kg, or more. but thank goodness prices seem to revert back to £10.

though sometimes like what happened recently you might get lucky like i did, i got a 4kg bag of basmati rice for £1.95, reduced just because there was a tear in the bag.