Its time for a bit of a rant. I enjoy watching Saturday Kitchen during the two months that we are closed, I am usually doing other stuff in the house, but I do like it, I really like that James chap, he seems good fun, very honest and a good chef. I like him and Raymond Blanc and Nigel Slater, they are all great to watch and I would love to try their food. However I was really annoyed by a film they showed last Saturday with a cook called Rick Stein, the guy is an idiot. Firstly he commented how he loved that every inch of viable land is cultivated for food. He does not seem to understand that to do that over 90 per cent of the natural rain forests have been destroyed in that area, not only causing the extinction or near extinction of some amazing species, but taking down trees is a really bad thing to do for the planet, and these are, unless humans stop breeding the way the do now,  irreplaceable. They also give us oxygen and I don't know about you, but I really like having oxygen.

 

Then he showed a wild civet cat in a tiny cage and gaily told us that it is being fed on nothing but coffee beans, indeed he fed it with some (I would love to see him survive on nothing but coffee beans for a month, let alone all its captive life), the beans go through the animals body and the resulting coffee is supposed to be very special. He then tried some on his staff in his restaurant somewhere in Devon to see if they could tell the difference between normal coffee and beans that have been eaten and crapped out by a civet cat. Not only were only just over half his staff able to correctly identify the right coffee but none of them said that it was stunningly better than any other coffee. Just imagine how many civet cats are kept in an appalling way to produce this ridiculous variation of a coffee that is not even identifiable by a bunch of people who supposedly are experts in terms of taste. The guy as I said, is an idiot and very short sighted, and I will not be going to his restaurant.

 

At the same time I would like to congratulate Chris Packham for his letter to Ant and Dec (whoever they are) about I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of here. I have to say that I have not watched it, I find most reality television a cheap and nasty way to supposedly entertain the public and I abhor it. But the stuff they do on that particular programme is obscene and cruel and completely unnecessary. The use of insects and reptiles, fish and amphibians to amuse the public is reminiscent of the old Roman Games where animals killed one another or humans for the entertainment of other humans. The Japanese do the same sort of programme and all it does is as Chris says, vilify the animals which they do not deserve and teach people to have a complete lack of respect for life other than their own. Its not acceptable and shows a huge lack of intelligence both from those who are involved in making those sort of programmes and I am afraid those who encourage it by watching them.

 

While I am mentioning television just how many times has Back to the Future been shown on TV, it must be even more times than the Harry Potter films. Good Lord there must be more films to show us!

 

It was pretty cold last night and this morning the weather forecasters were bemoaning the fact that it

was cold - its winter for heaven's sake, its supposed to be cold and actually we have only had about four frosts here this winter, and only one last winter. Its good for the country, kills off insects and breaks up the soil. We like it here in the winter - its proper and in its place and time.

 

The birds are well, the daffodils are showing a inch of leaves as are the snowdrop, although the frosts may slow them up. New Year approaches!