Israel – WTF?

Is there – and I ask this in all seriousness – insanity at the heart of Israel’s government? After Israel’s deliberate act of piracy – if not war – in attacking the Gaza aid convoy this morning, before dawn, and storming the flagship, the Mavi Marmara, the official response, by Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, [...]

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What’s the Telegraph up to?

A couple of days after trashing Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary David Laws, the Telegraph has now taken pot-shots at his replacement, Danny Alexander. WTF? Are we to expect this Tory rag to attempt to undermine every Lib Dem promoted to high office? And why attempt to impugn Alexander? He appears to have broken no [...]

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Sourdough and yeast…

I’ve just been browsing a website where the sourdough bread is labelled “Yeast Free”. They couldn’t be more wrong. OK, I accept it’s a genuine mistake, based on lack of information (which I’ve emailed them to put right – nicely!). More worrying is that their baker might have told them that. A sourdough culture is [...]

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An emmer loaf…

Emmer (Triticum dicoccum), is a seriously ancient form of wheat, its first recorded cultivation dating back to around  9,000 BC, in south-east Turkey. These days, it’s the grain known as farro in Italy, though it’s also grown in other countries. Wikipedia will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about it. The references [...]

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Some thoughts on Shipton Mill flour…

Since switching to Shipton Mill from Doves Farm flours, I’ve had to modify my recipes, particularly those based on unbleached strong white flour. The Shipton Mill (SM) flour has a different texture to Doves Farm (DF), feeling more finely divided, with obvious fragments of bran, which was a bit disconcerting before I figured out what [...]

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Toxic Omeprazole – Fake and/or toxic drugs mystery solved…

I’ve spent the last few hours checking out the non-drug ingredients of the blue and orange Omeprazole capsules that have caused me so much grief, and I would have to ask why any of the following products, found in the suspect Omeprazole capsules, are there at all. If SLS can damage the oral mucosa (see [...]

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Spare me from sloppy science…

Scientists have announced that not brushing your teeth twice a day is a recipe for heart disease. So says a study based on data from the Scottish Health Survey, which, it’s claimed, provides “…evidence of a link between poor oral hygiene and heart disease, revealing that people who

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Fake and/or toxic drugs, Part 2…

As I said a few days ago, in Fake and/or toxic drugs… I had reported the problem to  the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They, in turn, passed it to their Defective Medicines Reporting Centre (DMRC). Result – a brush-off. What’s needed is an investigation. The text of my report to the MHRA [...]

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Sterling Diamond noise fix…

The Sunrise Medical Sterling Diamond scooter has a couple of noise problems. The worst is the direction indicator beeper, which is sodding deafening! So loud it attracts attention from amused, pointing, dorks over 100 yards away. It had to go, but how? It’s hidden away inside the tiller moulding, and the plate which holds the [...]

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Looking after mobility scooter batteries…

I was moved to write this because of the most abject bovine ordure I have just read in a blog post on the subject, and for which there is no excuse. If you’re going to share information, you absolutely must know what you’re talking about – or just shut the hell up. No matter how [...]

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