School Dinners, Soldiers and Police
Yesterday the British seemed to have woken up to how bad dinners are in schools. Jamie Oliver obviously hit a nerve with his show. Personnally I think Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me had more to do with it, and the British have just realized they too have a problem. As an expectant father I am glad this issue is being brought up now - with luck some change will have happened in time for me to benefit from it.
I do not understand why children are given the choice of bad food. It seems to me that children should not be given the option - some representatives were coming forward with "well, we give them a good option and a bad option". Seems to me to be daft. I went to a private school which had both a fully catered and buttery service. The buttery service was designed to soak up the rich kid's money from what I could see, but did not benefit the children at all. Pot noodles and junk food were the main things available there.
The fully catered option was functional. Some days it was good, some it was bad. It was mostly traditional food done OK, memories of the spagetti withstanding (it used to congeal together in a way I have never seen since).
It was also mainly prepared on site. Food companies have now got in there and produced basically preprocessed meals. These are apparently cheaper. I am not convinced that it hasn't more to do with the risks associated with fresh food - storing it, preparing it etc. The food companies can calm head's nerves by saying "we take on the risk of any problems, if you serve our products". In America this is probably a greater problem than here, but the pond seems to be getting smaller all the time...
I do, however, think kids need more fat and "bad" things that most people are willing to admit. After all most office workers do not spend as much time running around chasing each (or at least shouldn't). Putting a kid on a vegan diet I think is tantamount to child abuse, as they have to grow upwards too. Dieticians often still seem to be in the snakeoil game, so its hard to know who to trust.
Modern farming has brought about better food than ever before and it would be nice to see that reflected into the diets of the next generation.
So on to soldiers, and the deepcut thing. Was most amused to hear that complaining was not encouraged in the army. Not that I don't think events like this shouldn't be investigated and people brought to justice, but can and, possibly more importantly, should we really be trying to foster a complaining culture in the Army? "Sarge, my packs too heavy", "Sarge that was a really bad decision attacking that gun mount".
Seems to me officials are loosing focus on what the army is there for: to (almost) unquestioningly follow orders from their superiors - however distasteful they may be. Trying to compare this to a company's duty of care over its employees seems to be misguided in the extreme.
No, things will always happen in the army and the investigative post mortem is the only way to deal with the problem unfortunately.
The Police, however, are a different matter. They have to deal with the public. Institutional racism and homophobia should not be allowed in. Having had only minor brushes with the law, I can say that the position is a harrowing one.
Reporting crimes is one area I think they could do with further training. A few years ago I was assaulted in a pub. The Police could not be bothered to turn up, and when pushed told me I could file a report if I liked. The questioning procedure was unpleasant, and made me feel like I had done something wrong. The final result was no useful follow up, even though the barman said he knew where the individual worked.
A few months later they called me to ask me if I'd like to close the case. I said no, I was not going to improve their open-closed case figure. The whole thing felt like a total waste of time. Having later got stopped for speeding I know now where their attention lies...
I do not understand why children are given the choice of bad food. It seems to me that children should not be given the option - some representatives were coming forward with "well, we give them a good option and a bad option". Seems to me to be daft. I went to a private school which had both a fully catered and buttery service. The buttery service was designed to soak up the rich kid's money from what I could see, but did not benefit the children at all. Pot noodles and junk food were the main things available there.
The fully catered option was functional. Some days it was good, some it was bad. It was mostly traditional food done OK, memories of the spagetti withstanding (it used to congeal together in a way I have never seen since).
It was also mainly prepared on site. Food companies have now got in there and produced basically preprocessed meals. These are apparently cheaper. I am not convinced that it hasn't more to do with the risks associated with fresh food - storing it, preparing it etc. The food companies can calm head's nerves by saying "we take on the risk of any problems, if you serve our products". In America this is probably a greater problem than here, but the pond seems to be getting smaller all the time...
I do, however, think kids need more fat and "bad" things that most people are willing to admit. After all most office workers do not spend as much time running around chasing each (or at least shouldn't). Putting a kid on a vegan diet I think is tantamount to child abuse, as they have to grow upwards too. Dieticians often still seem to be in the snakeoil game, so its hard to know who to trust.
Modern farming has brought about better food than ever before and it would be nice to see that reflected into the diets of the next generation.
So on to soldiers, and the deepcut thing. Was most amused to hear that complaining was not encouraged in the army. Not that I don't think events like this shouldn't be investigated and people brought to justice, but can and, possibly more importantly, should we really be trying to foster a complaining culture in the Army? "Sarge, my packs too heavy", "Sarge that was a really bad decision attacking that gun mount".
Seems to me officials are loosing focus on what the army is there for: to (almost) unquestioningly follow orders from their superiors - however distasteful they may be. Trying to compare this to a company's duty of care over its employees seems to be misguided in the extreme.
No, things will always happen in the army and the investigative post mortem is the only way to deal with the problem unfortunately.
The Police, however, are a different matter. They have to deal with the public. Institutional racism and homophobia should not be allowed in. Having had only minor brushes with the law, I can say that the position is a harrowing one.
Reporting crimes is one area I think they could do with further training. A few years ago I was assaulted in a pub. The Police could not be bothered to turn up, and when pushed told me I could file a report if I liked. The questioning procedure was unpleasant, and made me feel like I had done something wrong. The final result was no useful follow up, even though the barman said he knew where the individual worked.
A few months later they called me to ask me if I'd like to close the case. I said no, I was not going to improve their open-closed case figure. The whole thing felt like a total waste of time. Having later got stopped for speeding I know now where their attention lies...
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