UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

View image on Twitter


spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs

7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

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pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.

It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.

 

[break these cuffs]

...make people think they're doing something at the city's expense.

This is what governments do best.

 

[Haramburger]

And I turned out normal in the end, in my experience, spanking works.

ending up on the Farms is normal? But nah, spanking's cool. You shouldn't have to spank more than 4 times for most kids in the 2-3 year range, and then they have the frame of reference for "bad stuff's gonna happen" when you switch to non-violent discipline like counting or raising your voice.

 

[Judge Holden]

To be fair they had a better scheme planned with reintroducing insects that went extinct from these areas during the past few centuries

Alas they ran into funding issues so they had to go with Plan B

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

To be fair they had a better scheme planned with reintroducing insects that went extinct from these areas during the past few centuries

Alas they ran into funding issues so they had to go with Plan B

Native pollinators tend to be far less efficient than Apis mellifera anyway.

 

[Monika H.]

Regardless whenever it will work or not, or only halfway, it's still good they are trying to do something about it.

 

[Poiseon]

There's a world of difference between a slap on the ass and say, getting slugged in the head. I don't remember my parents ever spanking me, but I was boring as a child.

This law seems unnecessary; again, a slap on the ass is not a traumatic experience. God knows a lot of millennials are fucked because their parents weren't stern enough. And trying to enforce it will be a nightmare whether it was a real problem or not.

Even with that said, I don't see myself spanking my kids. Just give them enough attention and teach them right and spanking will be as unnecessary as this law is.

 

[Beluga]

Good time and thread to post this:

Spoiler: NSFW

NSFW

Experts in beekeeping and shit: if you don't have space/time to become a beekeeper, how can you help the lovely bees? Is having some flowerpots enough?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Regardless whenever it will work or not, or only halfway, it's still good they are trying to do something about it.

Not really. If it doesn't work it was a complete waste of time and money. Except it might get some local dudes votes because of this soft story.

Good time and thread to post this:

Spoiler: NSFW

NSFW

Experts in beekeeping and shit: if you don't have space/time to become a beekeeper, how can you help the lovely bees? Is having some flowerpots enough?

You probably can't, meaningfully. It takes an assload of flowers to supply one hive and as previously mentioned a lack of plants to take pollen and nectar from is not generally an issue for them anyway. Maybe find a way to donate money to efforts to eradicate the varroa mite or develop more specific pesticides that won't harm bees?

But people don't like being told there's nothing they can do, so you get this sort of thing.

It's kind of hard not to have space to be a beekeeper unless you live in a big city. They'll forage around 2 miles from their hives and assuming they're not remotely africanized they're pretty docile and harmless. You can set a hive up in your front yard and it will do fine as long as it has a nearby water source. Even if you are in a city, some places will let you place hives on roofs. Time is also not an issue if you really want to bad enough. After the colony is installed it's actually an important rule not to check on them too much, since it disturbs them. They largely take care of themselves. Installing a colony is a matter of a couple hours in an afternoon.

 

[J A N D E K]

It won't work. The bees were killed by a parasite not by lack of flowers. You're just gonna have to wait for the Varroa resistant strains to slowly bring the population back up. Also a seven mile stretch of planted wild flowers is probably not a significant addition to what's already in the immediate area. Plenty of things we consider weeds are perfectly good pollen sources for bees.

Tons of pesticide use doesn't help but I don't know how much mass agriculture the UK gets up to.

Also just want to point out the Italian honey bee is not native to the UK anyway so if anything it vanishing is a return to a "natural" status quo.

EDIT: To be productive instead of just complaining, if you really want to help pollination, become a bee keeper. It's pretty cheap and low maintenance as a hobby. Get some Minnesota Hygienic or Russian strain bees. Let them swarm from time to time. They'll spread Varroa resistant genes into the population. Or depending on where you live, much more likely, become the root of the new population because there are no wild ones.

You’re such a buzzkill

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

You’re such a buzzkill

I didn't invent bees or mites, it's not my fault. Bitch to God.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

And yes, that was the last time he so much as swatted the cat but he didn't avoid her either; just gentle kitty love.

Before anybody asks: My son's name is not Albert Einstein. Get that Hebrew shit outta my face.
Little Mohammad is still doing great, Bis'mallah.

 

[Beluga]

Maybe find a way to donate money to efforts to eradicate the varroa mite or develop more specific pesticides that won't harm bees?

Do you know any trustworthy charity/organisation I could throw my money at?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Do you know any trustworthy charity/organisation I could throw my money at?

No. Maybe look up a university with a big entomology department and try to donate. I think the USDA does some stuff too. Use a search engine or something.

 

[byuu]

As far as I see it, if the kid is about to do something incredibly dangerous, and you need to very quickly let them know not to do it like stick a knife in a wall socket, a smack will get them to knock that shit off, followed by an explanation.

I'd pull the kid away as fast as I can, not smack them.

 

[LegoTugboat]

World's most mysterious text is finally cracked: Bristol academic deciphers lost language of 600-year-old Voynich manuscript to reveal astrological sex tips, herbal remedies and other pagan beliefs

Within the manuscript there is a foldout illustrative map, provided here, that provides the necessary information to date and locate the origin of the manuscript. Vignette A illustrates the erupting volcano; B, depicts the volcano of Ischia; C shows the hows the islet of Castello Aragonese and D, represents the island of Lipari

For 600 years it has steadfastly refused to give up its secrets and has beaten some of the world's most brilliant brains, including Alan Turing.

Experts variously claimed that the Voynich manuscript - known as the 'world's most mysterious text' - contained codes, magic spells, alien messages and even communist propaganda.

Eventually most agreed that it was either impossible to solve or else written in gibberish as an elaborate practical joke.

But a linguistics expert from the University of Bristol has now cracked it - and it took him just two weeks.

Dr Gerard Cheshire worked out that it was written in a dead language - proto-Romance - and then by studying symbols and their descriptions he deciphered the meaning of the letters and words.

He discovered that the manuscript contains information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrological readings about sex, matters of the female mind and parenting.

It was written in accordance with the Catholic and Roman pagan religious beliefs of the time and has been carbon-dated to around the mid-15th century.

Dr Cheshire discovered that it was compiled by Dominican nuns as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, who is the great aunt to Catherine of Aragon.

There are also images of Queen Maria (1401–5 and her court conducting trade negotiations whilst bathing as well as many other images of naked women bathing.

It demonstrates that the spa lifestyle was highly regarded as a form of physical cleansing and spiritual communion, as well as a general means of relaxation and leisure.

Also within the manuscript is a foldout illustrative map that helped Dr Cheshire to date and locate the origin of the manuscript.

The map tells the story of a rescue mission, led by the Queen of Aragon, to save the victims of a volcanic eruption in the Tyrrhenian Sea in 1444 off the western coast of Italy.

The Voynich manuscript, named after Wilfrid M Voynich, a Polish book dealer who bought the manuscript in 1912, was written in Central Europe in around the 15th century, according to academics.

Its date, origin and language have been debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text featuring botanical and scientific drawings.

Among those who have famously attempted to crack the code are Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park and the FBI during the Cold War.

This figure shows Folio 19 left: Borage (Borago officinalis). The first line of the accompanying text reads: ‘panais-or o nauira æo arna o péor omor or é’epe a doméas t’ (the narrow golden taproot, its bark has the potency to kill the domestic/family belly). Borage oil has a long history as a toxic uterine stimulant for inducing miscarriage and abortion, which was commonly practised to deal with unwanted pregnancies as a form of birth control

Proto- Romance is ancestral to today's 'Romance' languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician.

Some of the symbols were unfamiliar to scholars studying the text because they have different geographical origins or because they have different variants which indicate particular phonetic accents.

The language was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, but it was seldom written in official or important documents because Latin was the language of royalty, church and government.

'I experienced a series of 'eureka' moments whilst deciphering the code, said Dr Cheshire.

This, he said, was followed by a sense of 'disbelief and excitement' when he realised the magnitude of the achievement, both in terms of its linguistic importance and the revelations about the origin and content of the manuscript.

'What it reveals is even more amazing than the myths and fantasies it has generated.

The next step is to use this knowledge to translate the entire manuscript and compile a lexicon, which Dr Cheshire acknowledged will take some time and funding, as it comprises more than 200 pages.

'Now the language and writing system have been explained, the pages of the manuscript have been laid open for scholars to explore and reveal, for the first time, its true linguistic and informative content,' he added.

The peer-reviewed paper, The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, is published in the journal Romance Studies.

World's most mysterious text cracked

Doctor Gerard Cheshire, from Bristol University, claims he cracked one of the world's most mysterious texts, the Voynich manuscript, a medieval text which has eluded scholars for years.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Eryngium]

Tbh i'm kinda sad it was cracked, I liked the idea of a mysterious undecipherable text.

 

[Superman93]

British Researcher: Finally we have been able to decipher this 600 year old text! Now it let see what this reads!

"Playeth with thee clitoris first followeth with fruit of the mouth, then do the alphabet"

 

[whatever I feel like]

Wow, shocking. I had always just put it down as a puzzle book with no real meaning. Congrats to that guy.

 

[An Account]

I was always fascinated with the Voynich manuscript. Kind of disappointing that it amounts to nothing more than Ye Olde Cosmo.

 

[LegoTugboat]

I was always fascinated with the Voynich manuscript. Kind of disappointing that it amounts to nothing more than Ye Olde Cosmo.

Holy crap, you're right. It's basically just Cosmo. It's got how to do women, how to raise kids, what plants to take for pregnancies, horoscopes.

The only difference is that this one has volcanic eruptions.