- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Well, I suppose I owe a big thank you to that racing driver twit Lewis Hamilton. Apparently he’s lately put his name to a new ‘vegan burger’ restaurant, intending to open a chain of the same no less. And sure enough, in the blurb, there’s the reference to this concept saving the planet. Oh the mirth we found in this announcement, guffawing at his world class fatuousness. Cuppa time was a joy when this news came through. And then of course, it’s a gift to me needing fuel for a newspaper column. This young man is a Formula 1 race driver. Indeed, s’far as I know, he’s done nothing much but race cars since childhood. And you don’t have to look very hard at the travelling circus that is Formula 1 to see that’s about the most profligate way of piddling away the planets resources, adding to our CO2 problem, and generally encouraging a hideously wasteful culture. He also seems to receive money from various sponsors, some of whom aren’t exactly good at saving the world.
No doubt his PR camp, and that of Mercedes for whom he thrashes cars round circuits, will quickly point out that innovation and progress in technology follows such high level motor sports. Well, yes, but it also follows lengthy intestine spilling blood soaked conflicts, but no-one is promoting that as reason to invade Belgium.
As it goes I’m not very interested in the facile tat that surrounds F1, and I don’t buy much that ole Lewis endorses, so I’m not sure he’d care what I thought. However, I do take exception to his hypocritically adding to the ever thickening cloud of baloney about meat – and beef particularly- being bad for the world. I daresay you could point at some production systems, and wish they were less demanding of resources. But since most of my ‘beef’ is made from reconstituted natural herbage, and the methane the beasts burp out was only grabbed out of the atmosphere a few weeks ago…to be reabsorbed before I’m likely to change the farm truck, I’m disinclined to think very nice thoughts about Lewis. He’s repeating damaging lies about my livelihood, while living the most damaging selfish lifestyle himself. What I mostly feel for him is pitying contempt, once the guffawing has died away.
And something I really want to hear is a clear statement about this kind of stuff from the current DEFRA ministerial team. They are supposedly at the helm, and representing my interests as well as yours, but remain silent in the face of the relentless noise coming from the anti-livestock camp. I accept that we’re all trashing our planet, squandering resources on an epic scale, and mangling ecosystems at a rate ne’er seen outside a colossal meteor strike. But look at the truth. UK beef is mostly raised on grass which we cannot eat, supplemented with some ever-so-slightly mouldy cereals which we really don’t want to eat. Indeed, whenever I hear some twerp spouting about how many more people we could feed in the UK if we simply grew veggies for people instead of livestock, I just want to bitch slap them. I can’t be bothered wanting to explain how it works, as they clearly don’t want to know. I just want to shut their stupid mouths from emitting such vitriol. I’ll explain it once, here, to save you the bother. Arable farmers, as a rule, don’t have crystal balls. They don’t know- when they’re drilling their seed corn- what the weather is going to do by the time the crops are harvested. Some spread their bets by planting more robust ‘animal feed’ varieties, others aim high for ‘milling wheat’, and accept some of it is only going to be fit for animal feed. Each base their cropping plans on a combination of experience, local conditions, market predictions, and whole host of factors. But the bottom line is that we live in a damp temperate place, and growing human grade stuff cannot be relied on. Hence it makes eminent sense to utilise animals to convert the lower grades and by-products. This is how our food system works.
DEFRA should be pointing this out loud and clear, but they don’t. Looking at the current Minister, I rather suspect she doesn’t know much more than Lewis.
Anyway, briefly back to celebrity planet saviours… I suppose we’d better dwell momentarily on that precocious Swedish child Greta. I can’t see her without thinking of Wednesday Addams in the movies, and mostly her speech at ‘Camp Chippewa’. Go on, google it, it’s a lot more fun than tedious Greta, and ironically just as cutting in its message.
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Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
No doubt his PR camp, and that of Mercedes for whom he thrashes cars round circuits, will quickly point out that innovation and progress in technology follows such high level motor sports. Well, yes, but it also follows lengthy intestine spilling blood soaked conflicts, but no-one is promoting that as reason to invade Belgium.
As it goes I’m not very interested in the facile tat that surrounds F1, and I don’t buy much that ole Lewis endorses, so I’m not sure he’d care what I thought. However, I do take exception to his hypocritically adding to the ever thickening cloud of baloney about meat – and beef particularly- being bad for the world. I daresay you could point at some production systems, and wish they were less demanding of resources. But since most of my ‘beef’ is made from reconstituted natural herbage, and the methane the beasts burp out was only grabbed out of the atmosphere a few weeks ago…to be reabsorbed before I’m likely to change the farm truck, I’m disinclined to think very nice thoughts about Lewis. He’s repeating damaging lies about my livelihood, while living the most damaging selfish lifestyle himself. What I mostly feel for him is pitying contempt, once the guffawing has died away.
And something I really want to hear is a clear statement about this kind of stuff from the current DEFRA ministerial team. They are supposedly at the helm, and representing my interests as well as yours, but remain silent in the face of the relentless noise coming from the anti-livestock camp. I accept that we’re all trashing our planet, squandering resources on an epic scale, and mangling ecosystems at a rate ne’er seen outside a colossal meteor strike. But look at the truth. UK beef is mostly raised on grass which we cannot eat, supplemented with some ever-so-slightly mouldy cereals which we really don’t want to eat. Indeed, whenever I hear some twerp spouting about how many more people we could feed in the UK if we simply grew veggies for people instead of livestock, I just want to bitch slap them. I can’t be bothered wanting to explain how it works, as they clearly don’t want to know. I just want to shut their stupid mouths from emitting such vitriol. I’ll explain it once, here, to save you the bother. Arable farmers, as a rule, don’t have crystal balls. They don’t know- when they’re drilling their seed corn- what the weather is going to do by the time the crops are harvested. Some spread their bets by planting more robust ‘animal feed’ varieties, others aim high for ‘milling wheat’, and accept some of it is only going to be fit for animal feed. Each base their cropping plans on a combination of experience, local conditions, market predictions, and whole host of factors. But the bottom line is that we live in a damp temperate place, and growing human grade stuff cannot be relied on. Hence it makes eminent sense to utilise animals to convert the lower grades and by-products. This is how our food system works.
DEFRA should be pointing this out loud and clear, but they don’t. Looking at the current Minister, I rather suspect she doesn’t know much more than Lewis.
Anyway, briefly back to celebrity planet saviours… I suppose we’d better dwell momentarily on that precocious Swedish child Greta. I can’t see her without thinking of Wednesday Addams in the movies, and mostly her speech at ‘Camp Chippewa’. Go on, google it, it’s a lot more fun than tedious Greta, and ironically just as cutting in its message.
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
