Unmitigated England fully supports the right of Paul McCartney to eat lettuce burgers instead of a big sizzling joint of roast cow. But what gets Ashley Towers hot under the grill is him appearing in my Telegraph magazine last Saturday with his pale daughters (they look like they could both do with a good haunch of venison each) telling me that I should give up eating meat every Monday. Well, Macca, as much as I like Eleanor Rigby and that thing you did with Dave Gilmour a few years ago, I just wanted you to know that as a result of your campaign I'm going to designate one day a week (Full On Friday perhaps) to eat twice as many butchery products as normal. I don't eat that much meat anyway, a good old bit of cow or pig on a Sunday, bacon and bangers for breakfasts, that sort of thing. So it'll do me good to bulk out a little, and at least I'll be doing my bit to keep scenes like the above (a few Sunday dinners there) intact. I think I'll also try to make a variant of the pork pie, perhaps with some slices of badger in it or something, and call it McCartney Pie. But I think what annoyed me most was the reason he gave for going veggie in the 70s. "We were on the farm and we saw lambs gambolling and we were eating a leg of lamb. So it was a compassionate thing". I think he's realised just how fatuous that was, so now of course he and his wan offspring are saying it's to Save The Planet. Very laudable Macca, but not half as good as Back In The USSR.
Talk about being half-pregnant!Either become a vegetarian with full conviction or continue to enjoy crispy bacon, juicy steaks, sizzling sausages and yummy roasts whenever you like.
If he became a vegetarian on compassionate grounds, has he not realised that if we all gave upeating meat, there would be no need to keep farm livestock as we would need the land for growing crops. I can't see that the livestock would any better off in the long run apart from a few kept as rare breeds collections for nostalgia reasons.
A Seagull tried to nick a pork chop off our barbie last night...the ethics of whether it was immoral to attempt to hit it with a an empty wine bottle and hopefully kill it, momentarily escaped me. As it was, Mrs.D had me searching for microscopic shards of glass with my Ray-O-Vac torch.
Proper job. Remember the Unmitigated 1950s Ever Ready aluminium battery torches? Sorry, totally off-blog, but very useful for finding dairy shorthorns and vegetarians in the dark.
very good, very good - i've changed my profile picture just for Macca. This is a shot of a full (old style cut) shoulder from a particularly well brought up Tamworth. Also today the long search for a Mincer-cum-Sausage Stuffer attachment for the Kenwood has been bought on e-bay. At this time of year my meat input is down a bit to say 8lbs a week, i make up for this by raising fat content of that intake to about 40% by volume. I have a very fine home cured prosciutto in stock which is yielding over 60% hard fat to 40% lean. Delicious. Offal's up at the moment and I'm experimenting with making some foie-gras using a good sized Muntjac liver. Let us have Macca'saddress and i'll pop some in the post.
Last time I spoke to Macca was backstage at the Royal Albert Hall (don't ask) so I expect the doorman there would keep it for him Diplo, or send it on to Maccaville.
I stood behind Macca once,in an umberella purchasing queue.He bought the one with all the bells and whistles,and I bought the bog-standard item. There was'nt time for a frank exchange on dietary views.An opportunity missed.
I am a designer, writer and photographer who spends all his time looking at England, particularly buildings and the countryside. But I have a leaning towards the slightly odd and neglected, the unsung elements that make England such an interesting place to live in. I am the author and photographer of over 25 books, in particular Unmitigated England (Adelphi 2006), More from Unmitigated England (Adelphi 2007), Cross Country (Wiley 2011), The Cigarette Papers (Frances Lincoln 2012), Preposterous Erections (Frances Lincoln 2012) and English Allsorts (Adelphi 2015)
"Open this book with reverence. It is a hymn to England". Clive Aslet
Preposterous Erections
"Enchanting...delightful". The Bookseller "Cheekily named" We Love This Book
The Cigarette Papers
"Unexpectedly pleasing and engrossing...beautifully illustrated". The Bookseller
Cross Country
"Until the happy advent of Peter Ashley's Cross Country it has, ironically, been foreigners who have been best at celebrating Englishness". Christina Hardyment / The Independent
More from Unmitigated England
"Give this book to someone you know- if not everyone you know." Simon Heffer, Country Life. "When it comes to spotting the small but telling details of Englishness, Peter Ashley has no equal." Michael Prodger, Sunday Telegraph
13 comments:
Talk about being half-pregnant!Either become a vegetarian with full conviction or continue to enjoy crispy bacon, juicy steaks, sizzling sausages and yummy roasts whenever you like.
If he became a vegetarian on compassionate grounds, has he not realised that if we all gave upeating meat, there would be no need to keep farm livestock as we would need the land for growing crops. I can't see that the livestock would any better off in the long run apart from a few kept as rare breeds collections for nostalgia reasons.
Is it more cruel to keep animals to kill and eat them, or to force them into extinction because we will only eat vegetables? Discuss.
Do I have to? It's too hot Chris.
A Seagull tried to nick a pork chop off our barbie last night...the ethics of whether it was immoral to attempt to hit it with a an empty wine bottle and hopefully kill it, momentarily escaped me. As it was, Mrs.D had me searching for microscopic shards of glass with my Ray-O-Vac torch.
Oh God it had to be a Ray-O-Vac didn't it. Is this the Unmitigated Torch do we think, or an garishly-coloured metallic Pifco?
Proper job. Remember the Unmitigated 1950s Ever Ready aluminium battery torches? Sorry, totally off-blog, but very useful for finding dairy shorthorns and vegetarians in the dark.
very good, very good - i've changed my profile picture just for Macca. This is a shot of a full (old style cut) shoulder from a particularly well brought up Tamworth. Also today the long search for a Mincer-cum-Sausage Stuffer attachment for the Kenwood has been bought on e-bay. At this time of year my meat input is down a bit to say 8lbs a week, i make up for this by raising fat content of that intake to about 40% by volume. I have a very fine home cured prosciutto in stock which is yielding over 60% hard fat to 40% lean. Delicious. Offal's up at the moment and I'm experimenting with making some foie-gras using a good sized Muntjac liver. Let us have Macca'saddress and i'll pop some in the post.
Last time I spoke to Macca was backstage at the Royal Albert Hall (don't ask) so I expect the doorman there would keep it for him Diplo, or send it on to Maccaville.
I'm more inclined to eat a nice leg of Spring Lamb after seeing this: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=98412354556&ref=nf
I stood behind Macca once,in an umberella purchasing queue.He bought the one with all the bells and whistles,and I bought the bog-standard item. There was'nt time for a frank exchange on dietary views.An opportunity missed.
I worked with the super hippie Macca close up a couple of times...as my mother would say "he needs a good pan of scouse down him"
Lamb stew for lunch today. Sirloin for dinner I think.
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