insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Strong and stable my arse
Theresa May’s snap election that wasn’t meant to happen turned out to be a bit of a disaster for her. She was handed a majority on a silver platter and somehow managed to squander it all on horse manure. Now she’s carrying on as though nothing happened. It’s a bit like that Monty Python sketch…
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I voted
I voted today. I am a British taxpayer and I’m happy for my tax to go towards a world-class education system, pay rises for nurses, a strong national health service, more police officers, and effective policies that protect the environment for my children and their children. I did not vote for policies that only benefit…
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Is Donald Trump right to claim unfairness over Paris?
There’s a brilliant article from Peter Singer in Project Syndicate this week about Donald Trump’s whinging over the unfairness of the Paris climate agreement. Trump is basically the fat kid who ate 3/4 of the cake and then complained that it’s unfair he didn’t get more while 3 other kids shared the 1/4 remainder between them.…
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Who is the bigger nincompoop?
Theresa May and Labour’s Diane Abbott seem to be competing for the biggest nincompoop award in this election campaign. I think Diane Abbott is slightly more incompetent than Theresa May and even worse is that she’s the shadow home secretary during a campaign with two terrorist attacks. The home secretary is the person responsible for…
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Nameless nobodies
I wish the media would not publish the names of terrorist attackers. These men get a hard-on by thoughts of media notoriety and it encourages others to copy them. We should completely ignore them and focus instead on the lives of the victims and their bravery and the bravery of those who came to help. Let…
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The pen is mightier than the sword
Wars are not necessarily won by the army with the biggest guns, although I don’t doubt it helps. They are won by the side that makes clever decisions and has an intelligent population supporting them. It is said that Britain was able to defeat Germany in WWII thanks in large part to the mathematicians at Bletchley…
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Kia Kaha
I’ve had one glass of wine and I’m really pissed. I don’t want everyone to think I’m an alcoholic or anything because alcohol is best avoided. I don’t drink very often but I bought a half case of sulphur-free wine recently and I’ve really enjoyed it drinking it, especially the red wine. The broccoli in my…
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The Maybot
John Crace from The Guardian calls Theresa May the Maybot. I think it’s very apt because she has come across as stilted and robotic in this election campaign, repeating memes and displaying a lack of independent thought and critical thinking. I realised yesterday what I am particularly fearful of with Theresa May and that is…
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Liar, Liar!
I’ll likely be voting for Labour or SNP on Thursday. I haven’t yet decided which party but I’m leaning towards Labour because I really like Jeremy Corbyn and I want him to be Prime Minister. He rides a bike, he’s vegetarian, and he wears his mother’s knitted jumpers. What more could you want from a…
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The Handmade Burger Company
We went for dinner to The Handmade Burger Company this week. It’s a chain store which sells – no prizes for guessing what – burgers! I nearly fell off my chair and had a heart attack when I saw the menu because there were six vegetarian options and four of them vegan. Usually there’s just one thing for…
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“Does that elephant need its face more than some guy in Asia needs a tusk on his desk?”
Theresa May plans to lift the ban on ivory trading. Why would anyone want to do that? The reason is because people who sell antiques are required to prove that any ivory in their products was worked before 1947 and this is apparently difficult and expensive to do. She is putting what is a minor inconvenience for antique dealers…
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Sainsbury’s vegan mac and cheese
Sainsbury’s reported earlier this year that sales of their newly launched vegan cheese exceeded expectations by 300%. This is not bad at all considering the vegan market has always been viewed as small and somewhat niche. I decided to give their vegan macaroni cheese a try. It’s a ready-made meal for one which you heat for…
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On being smug, blaming Pepper Pig for cavities in teeth, and three solutions to all the world’s problems
I was planning to be all smug in this post and write about how vegans can make their own milk from a packet of soy beans while non-vegans have to find a cow to milk. Unfortunately my first attempt at making soy milk created a watery and slightly gritty mess. I tipped it down the sink. I milked a…
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A new dress
I haven’t been op-shopping for ages but had the chance to duck into a charity shop on our way home from the vegan festival today. I got this lovely dress.
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The future of food
Aberdeen had its first ever vegan festival today and we went to check it out. Despite being vegan for more than a decade, this was the first vegan festival I’ve ever been to. I’ve never lived anywhere that had such a thing. It seems ironic that my first vegan festival should be in the home…
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Who should I vote for?
Since we moved to the UK in 2014 I have voted in four elections: a general election, a Brexit referendum, a council election, a Scottish parliamentary election, and another general election next month will make five. We also narrowly missed out on voting in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 by just two weeks. I’m…
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The Trojan Slug
It’s frustrating to watch seeds germinate and then grow only to see them eaten by slugs a week later. In an attempt to outwit the slugs, yesterday I moved two trays of seedlings inside overnight and put them on our dining table. When I woke up this morning I saw telltale signs of slug dining: there were…
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International Festival
I have spent most of this weekend hard at work in the kitchen. The school had an international festival today and the mum organising it asked me whether I’d like to bring some vegan food. I was delighted to be asked and felt I had to put on a good spread as a representative of plant-based…
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Inside my greenhouse
It’s a lovely drizzly day today. I cycled to Newton Dee thinking I’d have the bike path all to myself but there were lots of people there – dog walkers, cyclists, and joggers. I love it when it’s overcast and I don’t have to squint. Squinting is annoying because it gives me wrinkles and somehow…
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Do animal rights activists care more for animals than humans?
Some people think that those who advocate for animal rights care more about non-human animals than human animals. That’s not true at all. The ethicist, Peter Singer, who wrote Animal Liberation back in 1975 thinks we rich people ought to donate 10% of our salary to the world’s poor. He gives around a quarter of his own…
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