This Damsel in Distress Needs More Than Tea and Sympathy, though she is entitled to both.

CUP THAT CHEERS, but can it placate Aussie immigration controls?

MAY KING TSANG is a young woman from Bolton in Greater Manchester who has made a name for herself, and I'd say a good one, in the Antipodes, having stepped out of her previous role as an  IT  instructor in order to bring sophistication-seeking Aussies the fine art of brewing, tasting and supping tea.

Tea in all its varieties, on which May King has become an expert and enthusiast, and on which she has built a business. Tea for your health, and tea as in tea parties, tea for which "everything stops", as we used to sing in the good old pre-Thatcher days when England was almost civilised, and tea in the tradition of the Chinese Gong Fu ceremony.


I.T. to High Tea?  The invention of Afternoon Tea in England is attributed to Anna Russel, the 18th century Duchess of Bedford, but as May King and friends show in this photograph, they can blend old and still older traditions. 

"Gong Fu Tea-tasting is an art form in which many Chinese people take their daily beverage.  Gong Fu or Kung Fu may conjure up images of martial arts but the translated words merely means the art of doing something well.  Drinking tea is not just about the fluid intake but it’s about the admiration of the dry leaf, the aroma of the liquor (the liquid derived from the making of the tea) and, of course, in the final tasting of the tea.

 "Here is a little insight into what a Chinese Gong Fu Tea Ceremony entails.  This is my version of the Chinese Gong Fu Tea Ceremony which I call “Chinese Gong Fu Tea Ceremony with a Dash of Milk” as a tribute to my BBC (British Born Chinese) upbringing


http://maykingtea.wordpress.com/

As May King jokes, "Gong Fu or Kung Fu may conjure up images of martial arts..."
but I first met her in London through the anti-war movement. It was a wet and windy night in Wembley and we were the only two volunteers who turned up to leaflet outside Wembley Park tube for a meeting of the Stop the War Coalition.

Strangers in the night soon got along fine, as I discovered May King was from Bolton, just up the road from my home town Salford, and our shared greater Manchester imperviousness to the rain was reinforced by her cheerfulness and sense of humour. 

At this time May King was working as an IT instructor, and her job with the Swedish firm Ericsson took her out of the country sometimes, but I met her again at a fundraising quiz night in Willesden, and later with her partner Euan, also a tekkie, at the 'Skies Are Weeping' concert in Hackney (dedicated to Rachel Corrie). Each time I remember for her geniality and ready laughter. Right now she needs more than that resilient sense of humour.

I remember another friend telling me Euan and May King had wed in a Scottish castle (though they started married life in the less noble London Borough of Hackney).  That choice of venue might show their romantic imagination, but along with creativity May King has kept her common sense and feet on the earth. "Whilst we all love tea many questions are poised with accompanying bold statements and at times we often forget that our own opinions may not be held by others.  I was brought up in a working class background; my parents didn’t have two pennies to rub together.  I was also brought up in a Chinese household which meant no hoighty-toighty-ness; simple as you like with no fuss.  These two influences have also lent themselves into my business."

The lass from Bolton certainly seems to have carved out her own niche since traveling via Brent (and Hackney) with her spouse to Brisbane. Invitations to speak at food trade fairs, worldwide contacts exchanging tea lore, a Facebook page turning into a group promoting Queensland businesses and training. Seeing her enthusiastic and colourfully illustrated postings about different teas and fresh travels, one could not help but share her joy and wish her continued success and happiness.

But starting after a change in her personal circumstances, May King has also had an albatross hovering over her in the shape of the authorities wanting to take away her visa, and permission to remain in Australia. I had noticed lately that she seemed a little preoccupied, not her usual jolly self, even slower to laugh at my jokes. It seems that having been persuaded to extend her time once, the authorities have returned to the visa topic again, so that just when everything seemed to be going well and Queensland society to have accepted May King with pleasure as one of its own, she could have only days to start packing her bags and get thrown out.

Why? I know nothing about Australian immigration laws, apart from the news that after Labour and "Liberal" leaders competed in inhumanity, arguing whether to sink boats or send people to Papua New Guinea, the country has been rewarded with a government not unlike our own. But I had not heard of any hoarding vans parading Brisbane as one did through Brent, telling people to "Go Home".    
What has May King Tsang done wrong?  She has not, so far as I am aware, committed any crime. She is not even unemployed or taking benefits. She has not been peddling drugs, unless Lapsang Souchong has been reclassified. Like most immigrants, in Australia or here, far from taking anything away from society she is giving it something, in more ways than one. In fact, I'd say May King Tsang   is the sort of person any society should be glad to have, and I only question whether Australia, particularly Queensland, deserves her!  But my prejudices apart, May King Tsang deserves the right to stay and pursue her career, I hope my friends in Australia and all fair minded people there will agree and give her support.


  May King makes appeal

Online Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/keep-may-king-tsang-where-she-belongs.html

Olympic Security Shambles. When capitalists cock up, they send for the Army!

MISSILES on two blocks of flats (though, as fellow blogger Madame Miaow notes, "none on the posh blocks lining the Thames"), a warship, HMS Ocean, in the river, and thousands of troops -some fresh back from Afghanistan - drafted in to man checkpoints and guard the Games. No wonder some people are renaming the London Olympics the East London Military Tattoo.

That's an extra 3,500 troops on top of those already planned, a decision taken with only two weeks to go after it became clear private security giant G4S just has not recruited enough personnel.

'The home secretary, Theresa May, has insisted the late decision to call up 3,500 troops to guard the Olympics was not a shambles and claimed that the need for the extra military personnel "only crystallised 24 hours ago".

She repeatedly refused to spell out what penalties the private security firm G4S would face for failing to provide the necessary trained security guards to meet their 10,000 target, insisting that the £283m contract was with Locog, the Olympics organising committee, and not the Home Office. She added that the taxpayer would not face an extra bill for the decision"

The news prompted one Facebook friend to post this sympathetic letter:

Dear Serving Soldier,

I appreciate that you may be a bit busy at the moment, but just before I give you the sack would you mind awfully helping out at a small sporting event we are holding in London this month. You see I have just spent £475,000,000 on a private firm to do the security but they trousered the money and cannot commit. I have managed to wangle an old warehouse for your accommodation & some rat packs for food, but you should be used to that by now.(Gotta keep the cost down L.O.L).

Many thanks,
David Cameron.

P.S. You're my favourites!

Apparently those squaddies who were expecting some well-earned leave have been told they will have to wait until some time after the Games, and by way of making it up them there will be another 14,000 Olympic tickets made available to the forces. Bet that cheers them up no end.

Meantime, beside geting used sooner than we expected to the sight of soldiers on the street, we are having a grandstand view of how marvellously private enterprise can be trusted to run massive publicly-funded projects.

We've been hearing more about G4S prepared for the Olympics.

Guards told how, with 14 days to go until the Olympics opening ceremony, they had received no schedules, uniforms or training on x-ray machines. Others said they had been allocated to venues hundreds of miles from where they lived, been sent rotas intended for other employees, and offered shifts after they had failed G4S's own vetting.

The West Midlands Police Federation reported that its officers were being prepared to guard the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, which will host the football tournament, amid concerns G4S would not be able to cover the security requirements.

"We have to find officers until the army arrives and we don't know where we are going to find them from," said Chris Jones, secretary of the federation.

G4S has got a £284m contract to provide 13,700 guards, but only has 4,000 in place. It says a further 9,000 are in the pipeline.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/12/london-2012-g4s-security-crisis

A former police sergeant who signed up to work for G4S at the Olympics has told how he withdrew his application over fears the recruitment process was "totally chaotic" and the firm was simply looking for cheap labour.

Robert Brown, who served for 30 years with Kent police, claimed he knew many other retired officers who had decided against working at the Games for the same reasons.

He said he had been given verbal commitments that staff would be paid £14 an hour, but that the contract he received said he would be entitled to £6.05 an hour for working outside the venues, and £8.50 for working inside the stadium.

"It is actually very sad," Brown said. "I was looking forward to working at this historic event, but it would have been a waste of my time. The public needs to be aware of this."

Brown has grade one private security qualifications and worked for the Home Office, advising on covert operations, after he left the police.

He said he applied to G4S when the adverts started to appear in November last year. But he was not called for interview in Stratford, east London, until February.

"They were trying to process hundreds of people and we had to fill out endless forms. It was totally chaotic and it was obvious to me that this was being done too quickly and too late," Brown said.

The first training day involved presentations on how to be polite to members of the public, and follow-up training on how to pat people down.

"The instructors had been given a script that they had to stick to, and if you asked a question, they would not be able to give you an answer. The training was very basic and minimal. Having undergone their training I realised that they only wanted cheap labour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/12/g4s-olympic-security-recruitment-chaotic?intcmp=239

It was reported tonight that the government knew, or should have known, G4S was having problems, back in April. Not just in the last 24 hours, as claimed by Theresa May. Evidently they were reluctant to admit that a capitalist company - the world's biggest security firm, and second biggest employer, just could not cope.

It could be worse. We could be talking about education, or the National Health Service. Matter of fact, in some parts of the country G4S is running the ambulance service. The company lost some work deporting immigrants after a man called Jimmy Mubenga died from asphyxiation while being handled by two of its guards. But it still runs some detention centres, including including the Cedars where families including children are detained. (Isn't it charming the way such places retain names that sound like comfy country homes, or places where elderly relatives are left to die?)

In Lincolnshire some police functions have been 'outsourced' to G4S, though Surrey police are reported to be having second thoughts about such an arrangement with G4S.

Meanwhile firms like Prospects which sent young people up to work for Jubilee security for nothing are being allowed to run schools, while Labour - or at least its MP Stephen Twigg - thinks that job too could be handed over to the army. It would be too much to expect our top politicians to have learnt anything from the shambles they have helped create.

Meanwhile, if all that sport - or manning security - makes you thirsty, you can forget your London Pride ...

...GOING for Exmoor Gold, or any other decent ale. As that esteemed journal, the London Drinker, published by the Campaign for Real Ale here in the capital, informs us:

The 2012 Olympics, a showcase for London and the rest of Britain, will be dominated by one beer brand – Heineken lager brewed in the Netherlands. Heineken’s domination extends beyond the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, to all the venues for the games, including Lord’s, the home of English cricket.

Heineken has “sole pouring rights” at Olympic events. The London 2012 Organising Committee has three tiers of sponsorship deals for the games. The committee won’t reveal the sums of money involved but it’s understood that Heineken is a “tier three” sponsor, costing the Dutch firm £10m.

The package gives Heineken the rights to also sell two other brands in its portfolio, John Smith’s Smoothflow and Strongbow cider – but neither of the brands can be named. John Smith’s will be labelled “British Bitter” and Strongbow will be called “Cider”.

At Lord’s where Marston’s has the beer concession to sell Pedigree Bitter and is the official sponsor of the England cricket team, handpumps will be removed while the archery competition takes place during the Olympics. Portraits of cricketer Matthew Hoggard, Marston’s “beer ambassador”, will be covered up.

Visitors to the world-famous cricket ground, with its long tradition of ale drinking, will be offered Dutch lager and anonymous keg bitter and cider. But cask Pedigree will be available in the Lord’s Tavern, the bar and restaurant complex alongside the main entrance to the ground.

http://www.camralondon.org.uk/viewnode.php?id=1268

Workers win Freedom from McFries

It seems workers have won one small victory for freedom and good taste against the tat of sponsorship and monopoly.

Chip-hungry Olympic workers celebrate freedom from McDonald's monopoly

Staff working on opening and closing ceremonies allowed to eat chips served outside branches of fast food chain

The great British chip claims partial victory over McDonald's.

The great London 2012 Olympic chip embargo has cracked. No longer will hungry workers at the games be denied pie and chips, chicken and chips or even just chips because of a monopoly enforced by McDonald's, a major sponsor.

On Wednesday, the London Organising Committee responded to plaintive cries of caterers who had grown tired of receiving "grief" from chip-hungry staff working on the opening and closing ceremonies and allowed chips to be served outside branches of the fast food chain McDonald's.

It all results from one of the stranger twists of Olympic planning. McDonald's sponsorship deal included the exclusive right to sell chips in and around Olympic venues. Other caterers had negotiated special rights to serve chips with fish – but not chips on their own, or with anything else.

Cue frustrated scenes at the lunch counter in the ceremonies catering area where staff were toiling over the staging for Danny Boyle's 27 July opening extravaganza. "Please understand this is not the decision of the staff who are serving up your meals who, given the choice, would gladly give it to you, however they are not allowed to," read a notice pinned up by staff. "Please do not give the staff grief, this will only lead to us removing fish and chips completely."

"It's sorted," said a spokesman for Locog. "We have spoken to McDonald's about it."

But the embargo will hold in other areas. That means no chips with anything other than fish anywhere else in the park unless spectators dine at McDonald's.

On Wednesday catering staff in the media centre were taking no risks. There were hash browns and dauphinoise, but no chips. A server explained why: "Because McDonald's own the rights, so we're not allowed to".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/11/mcdonalds-olympics-chips

They may not call them "French Fries" anymore ( for which I am sure many French connoiseurs of les frittes are glad), but whatever McDonalds serve they are fries, and not chips.

It may have been an immigrant from Holland to the East End who hit on the idea of selling fried potatoes with fish, but since then as everyone in Stratford knows, chips have become thoroughly British, even if the best ones I've tasted in England, apart from my Mum's and my own, were from Greek Cypriot or Italian-run fish restaurants.

I'll give McDonalds marks for chutzpah, and the Olympic organisers for obseqiousness in allowing them and the aforementioned multinational brewers to pass off such travesties.

Apologies to those of you already put off by the Bhopal and sweatshop aspects of Olympic sponsorship if you feel I've only dealt with lighter aspects.


Another blogger, and her almost an East End girl (well from Hackney) comments on the Olympics:

http://madammiaow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/london-olympics-2012-pastoral-opening.html

And another aspect of Group Four-Securicor (G4S)'s global empire:

http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/israel-palestine-olympics-429149

(Go West-Bank young man, and Grow Rich from Someone Else's Country)

IF CARLSBERG MADE PROFITS......Baltic trouble brewing

THE well-known Carlsberg beer ads alomg the "If Carlsberg made ...(e.g. cars)" theme, suggesting that whatever the Danish brewery turned its mind to would excel, were amusing. Its lager isn't bad either, I've got a few cans waiting in my fridge right now. But as Carlsberg has gone global in pursuit of greater profit, its reputation as an employer is going a bit off.

Carlsberg is attacking trade union rights in Lithuania with the support of the country's legal system, which has declared beer production an "essential service". Since they were not only freed from the Soviet Union but brought into the European Union, the Baltic states seem to have become a laboratory for undermining workers rights, so we best sit up and pay attention.

Here is a report from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel and Allied Workers(IUF):

On June 10 last year members of the IUF-affilitated Lithuanian Trade Union of Food Producers (LPMS) voted in favour of strike action at the Carlsberg brewery in Lithuania in support of their demand for a decent company-level collective agreement.

Management sought to stop the strike and applied to the court with a petition to declare the strike ballot procedure invalid and the strike illegal, and demanded compensation for litigation costs. The company not only tried to stop the strike and declare it illegal but also argued that no strike action was possible until the "high season" had passed.

The Klaipeda district court on June 20 suspended the start of the planned strike for 30 days based on a dubious determination that the production of beer was recognized as 'vitally essential' in Lithuania.

On the July 5, 2011 the Klaipeda city district court ruled that the strike was legal. Carlsberg Lithuania management appealed this decision. On August 5, 2011 the Klaipeda regional court annulled the decision of the lower court, ruling that the brewery strike announced in June was illegal.

The court decision to rule the strike illegal is based on the following astonishing grounds: "The collective agreement is in compliance with the Labour Code because the wages of Carlsberg employees are above the market level, jobs are maintained and wages are not reduced." With this absurd ruling, the court is attempting to legitimize Carlsberg's attempt to freeze wages for three years by declaring a legitimate strike unlawful.

The union has appealed the regional court decision to a higher court, where it is still under appeal, and submitted a complaint to the ILO which the IUF has formally supported and which will now be examined by the Committee on Freedom of Association.

The brewery sector is unlikely to be considered an essential service by the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association! We therefore expect the ILO to condemn a court decision to suspend a strike for an unreasonable period as denying the right to strike in contravention of international labour standards

Carlsberg Lithuania management has stepped up its anti-union aggression by pressuring union leaders and activists at the plant through disciplinary action. Furthermore the company initiated a police enquiry against workers who joined the picket line to protest the suspension of the strike. Since then, 9 workers who were active in protest actions have been dismissed on the grounds of 'lost production'. These 9 dismissed workers are now reengaged, but on temporary contracts, punishing them for their union activities in the plant.

Carlsberg's healthy 2011 profits have produced global job cuts and attacks on trade union rights in Lithuania. You can support the Lithuanian beer workers' struggle by sending a message to Carlsberg, the 4^th largest global brewery, and the government of Lithuania calling on the company and government to stop violating fundamental trade union rights in Lithuania. Use the form below to insist they act to ensure that rights are respected.

Click here to send a message.
[1]

Apparently Carlsberg's subsidiary in Cambodia has also run into trouble. Women employed to promote the brew demanded overtime payments, and thanks to support from hotel workes and bars deciding not to stock the disputed brew, and the local authority in Phnom Penh saying the workers should be paid in the interest of public order, the workers appear to have won.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php?option=com_jcs&view=jcs&layout=form&Itemid=458

http://www.scandasia.com/viewNews.php?coun_code=dk&news_id=9289

If we don't want workers' rights in the European Union to fall behind those in poor Cambodia then the Lithuanian brewery workers must get wide support. And whatever we think about beer as an "essential service", I don't mind doing without my Carlsberg if need be to help the strike.

Spot the Difference!

UNITE the Union has issued this statement about Thanet Earth, a company that supplies many of our supermarkets, and like much of Britain's agri-business, employs a lot of migrant labour:

Investigation finds major supermarket supplier breached labour guidelines
August 5, 2011

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) has concluded its investigation into agency labour suppliers at the Kent-based agricultural producer Thanet Earth and found that legal guidelines have been breached.

Unite welcomes this investigation, but calls on the supermarket clients - including Asda, M&S and Sainsbury’s - to go further and uphold the commitments they have signed up to under the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI).

The GLA found that the agencies failed over the payment of wages and failed to have adequate grievance and disciplinary procedures in place. They also criticised Thanet Earth Marketing Ltd for failing to take complaints over pay seriously, despite Unite helping over 70 workers make complaints.

Unite has been pushing the ETI organisation and the supermarkets to take action over wages, union rights and security of employment, that goes beyond the legal, minimum standards upheld by the GLA and meets their own, enhanced commitments.

Unite regional officer, Dave Weeks, said: "It is time for Asda, M&S and Sainsbury’s to take their ethical commitments seriously and help us ensure that Thanet Earth cleans up its act.

"We welcome the serious way in which the GLA has gone about its duties. We now wish to see the same seriousness from the Ethical Trading Initiative and the supermarkets that are signed up to it.

“These big High Street brands claim to uphold the rights of all workers in their supply chains. Yet Unite has complained that the majority of workers at Thanet Earth are still in insecure employment, and the agencies bypass legislation to avoid paying industry rates. The company has also gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent our organisers from speaking to workers. The GLA has even found evidence of illegal breaches of its code.”

Recently dismissed worker, Vanda Sefer, added: "In my third year of employment at Thanet Earth, and as a known union member, my work was stopped when I took paid holiday. I had no dismissal hearing and no right of appeal. This is how the agency scares people from taking holidays and from joining the union. The supermarkets should not let this happen to people."

Notes to editors:

The GLA concluded that the method of calculation of holiday pay and entitlement was neither transparent nor compliant with guidelines; no one they talked to knew their entitlement or how it was arrived at; and there was no clear statement of holiday pay included on wage slips.

It also conceded that due to the numbers of complaints that were made, Thanet Earth Marketing Ltd clearly knew there was a big problem and should have acted on it. The company has been instructed to improve on this.

The GLA also failed the agencies on a lack of grievance and disciplinary procedures. Unite has helped over 70 agency workers take grievances out, none of which have been acted on formally.

http://www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/investigation_finds_major_supe.aspxAnd

And now here's how the BBC reported the matter:

Agencies supplying staff to the UK's biggest greenhouse complex have been cleared of wrongdoing after complaints by a trade union. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) investigated three agencies used by Thanet Earth in Kent after Unite said they breached legal guidelines. It found no issues with two agencies. A third was asked for more evidence and re-issued with a full GLA licence. Unite said it welcomed the serious way in which the GLA had investigated. Thanet Earth staff agencies 'did not breach guidelines'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14419628

And naturally the company giving its side says:
"Thanet Earth fully exonerated by impartial investigation

http://www.thanetearth.com/uploads/pressReleases/19899894/GLA%20results%20statement%203rd%20August%202011.pdf

This is not the first time I have noted faulty and less than impartial reporting by the BBC, and particularly in the South East, so I suppose I should not be surprised by this example. However the previous cases bore the marks of accepting governmental spin or being swayed by an influential political lobby. In this case so far as we can see the corporation is taking the side of a private business in the way it reports things.

Ewa Jasiewicz who has worked for Unite as an organiser as well as being a professional journalist is angry that the BBC quotes the union to support its report when in fact it is saying the opposite to what Unite said. But Ewa feels strongly also because of her own experience. "As a Unite organiser I have worked on this campaign and personally worked with workers involved who have had their rights violated by agencies and Thanet Earth. This is a total stitch-up and we must expose it."

Ewa is urging supporters to contact the BBC complaints department. "Send them links to the Unite release and challenge them on their skewed reporting.. https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/ Also, contact Thanet Earth direct and complain. Judy Whittaker mailto:press%40thanetearth.com and 01892 831 280

Background info can be found on the Unite website,
http://www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/investigation_finds_major_supe.aspx
and the blog www.stopsweatshopgreenwash.blogspot.com

Pont-Saint-Esprit and the Strange Affair at Woodstock

THIS is the Marlborough Arms, at Woodstock, near Oxford. An old coaching inn, nowadays spruced up and advertising its grills. No, I've not decided to turn this blog into a pub and restaurant review, and nor is this respectable establishment in the news.




(right)
Betty in Pont St.Esprit, 1952.


It was 60 years ago that the Marlborough was the scene of strange occurrences. The landlord back then was himself an unusual character. Lancashire-born Dr.Donald McIntosh Johnson had worked as a GP in Thornton Heath, Croydon, and abroad, when he decided in 1936 that he wanted to run a licensed hotel.

Between catering for locals, the county set, coach parties and the racing crowd, he found time to stand as a Liberal candidate for parliament, and was quite undeservedly smeared as a "Red" when he took an anti-Appeasement stand.

During the war, while the Marlborough was invaded by upper-class idlers avoiding the London Blitz, Dr. Johnson was found work as a Military Medical Liaison Officer. As Captain Johnson he stood as Independent in Chippenham, Wilts, coming third.

Before he took over the Marlborough Arms, Johnson had made a holiday trip to Moscow with his wife Chris, in June 1936. While there they met a young "Mr.Jones" from the American embassy, who expressed decidedly fascist sympathies. This turned out to be Tyler Kent, later transferred to London, where he joined the Right Club, led by Tory MP Archibald Maule Ramsay, and was convicted of espionage for stealing documents from the embassy.

During his wartime political wanderings Donald Johnson was briefly in contact with Tom Wintringham, ex-International Brigade commander, and founder of the Commonwealth party. Later, Frank Pakenham tried to draw him to the Labour Party. But Johnson's course was to the right-wing of the Liberal Party, looking for an alliance with Tories, opposing the National Health Service, and being a founder of what became the Society for Individual Freedom. He gave up the pub and became Tory MP for Carlisle in 1954.

None of which helps explain the incident described in his book "Bars and Barricades", in the chapter headed "A Psychotic Episode". On October 7, 1950, Johnson had a sort of mental breakdown, possibly brought on by worries about the hotel, with staff deserting to a rival establishment. But it took a peculiar form. He became convinced that the bedroom was bugged, and his mail was being intercepted. The odd thing was that his second wife, Betty had the same feeling. It got worse. Betty was convinced the laughing cavalier in the picture on the wall was winking at her. Eventually they were taken to Warneford hospital.

Johnson after being troubled with "sexual imaginings of the bawdiest and most intimate kind", began to think he was in gaol "a prisoner in the Cold war" . Unsure whether those holding him were criminals or Communists, he feared he was going to be killed. From this anxiety he next passed to thinking that "Some powerful secret organisation -maybe it was MI5, maybe it was some organisation more powerful still -had taken me in here from the ken of the world at large for some special dedicated reason".

He was going to be sent to Central Asia, and all the other folk in the ward were to be his picked companions, though cunningly disguised inmates of a mental ward. His imagination continued. He was being groomed to become Britain's representative at the UN, or Princess Margaret's husband (no accounting for fantasies).
Eventually, Betty came to see him.
"Hello, sweetheart, you're not insane."
"I know, " I said, "I'm doped."
"Sh-sh. Don't say that here. They'll keep you here for ever"
He began to get better, to co-operate with his medical attendants, and after six weeks was released.

In January 1952, Johnson and Betty went to Pont St.Esprit in France. This is the famous town where people suffered a mass outbreak of mental illness on August 16, 1951, with people having hallucinations, jumping from windows, trying to kill family members, or just thrashing about helplessly on their beds. Several people died, and others were injured, or had to be taken to mental asylums.

There had been cases like this back in the Middle Ages. They might have been attributed to witchcraft or the devil, but there is a more material explanation. Ergot is a fungus disease affecting grains, particularly rye. Ergotism, its poisonous affect on the central nervous system. The Johnsons met a doctor who had treated the people in Pont St.Esprit. All of them had eaten bread from the same baker. It seemed that in a time of shortage and austerity he had mixed some rye flour into his dough, not realising it was infected. This has been the explanation accepted till now for the Pont St.Esprit outbreak.

Yet Dr. Johnson became convinced that he and Betty had been poisoned, by persons unknown, and that the cause of his troubles was cannabis, or "Indian Hemp". He wrote about the evils of this drug, and later he asked questions in parliament about criminals from the United States who might be bringing it to Britain.

This may seem odd, because there is a drug that closely resembles ergot chemically and in its possible effects. But then back in the 1950s, Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, or 'Acid', was yet far from being the well-known 'recreational' drug it was to become when promoted by Timothy Leary and others a decade or so later.

It was known however. First synthesized from ergot by Dr.Albert Hoffman, in Switzerland, in 1938, and developed by the Sandoz laboratories, it was tried on children with epilepsy after the war, and sold to US institutions for psychiatric research. In 1952, a Dr. Sandison began trying it on psychiatric patients at the Powick hospital in Worcestershire.

The previous year, the US government had agreed to purchase LSD from Sandoz, on condition the company would not supply communist countries. This was not about possible therapeutic uses. The US army and the CIA were interested in its possible use in chemical warfare (for instance if it could be added to food or water supplies) or in brainwashing and interrogation techniques. Experiments were made on unwitting GIs and other guinea pigs.

Were there other experiments? Yes, a quite big one, if we are to believe a story published recently in the Daily Telegraph:

"French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment", said the report bylined Henry Samuel in Paris, on March 11.

'A 50-year mystery over the 'cursed bread' of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment'.

The Telegraph report is based on a book by American journalist H.P. Alborelli, and its story is not entirely new nor as yet confirmed. But its publication in a relatively serious Conservative newspaper has been the cue for a lot of comment, and the French government has reportedly asked for an official statement from Washington. After all, you are not really supposed to try your chemicals on citizens of a friendly ally, and with fatal results.

This makes me wonder whether any similar experiments were carried out in Britain, and perhaps if Donald McIntosh Johnson and his partner Betty could have been picked by chance by someone wanting to experiment with the drug. Why them? Well, come to that, why Pont Saint Esprit?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7415082/French-bread-spiked-with-LSD-in-CIA-experiment.html


And here is Abirelli on Pont St.Esprit and Olsen case:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article164447.html

Don't panic, everyone; but is this the pay-off for treatment of pigs?

AS the government and media advise us not to panic over swine 'flu, and the UN warns of a pandemic, some of us are wondering whether we've been told everything. Questions are being asked about things we'd normally feel better if we did not know - like how our food is produced. In connection with this unappetising information we start to hear not about Farmer Giles or his Mexican equivalent, but big corporations with which we are unfamiliar. Just as firms often spend millions on advertising to get their names into the papers, they sometimes employ lawyers to keep their names out of it. But truth will out..

Writing in the Guardian,on Tuesday, British Green Euro-MP Caroline Lucas notes that Dr.Michael Greger, a US authority on public health and humane farming has pointed out, this is not the first time the hybrid virus has been uncovered. "The first was found in a North Carolina industrial pig farm in 1998, and within a year it had spread across the United States".

"Dr Greger has highlighted how some experts blamed the emergence of the original 1998 virus on intensive farming practices in the US, where pigs and poultry are raised in extremely cramped conditions, in adjacent sheds – and tended to by the same staff.

"North Carolina has the densest pig population in North America, with around twice as many swine mega-factories as any other state. In 1998, North Carolina's pig population had hit ten million, up from two million just six years before. Yet the number of hog farms was decreasing, with more and more animals being crammed into fewer and fewer farms. Since the primary route of swine flu transmission is thought to be the same as human flu, the increased potential for the spread of disease in such conditions is clear.

"More research is urgently needed to explore the potential link between industrialised animal farming, and the spread of disease. Some elements of the Mexican media are already pointing to the potential role of intensive pig farming in Mexico, which has grown substantially in recent years, with some giant operations raising tens of thousands of pigs at a time.

"Since news of the epidemic broke, reports in Mexico City daily La Jornada and Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha have detailed how a number of community residents in the affected areas have expressed concerns over the operations of Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork packer and hog producer. According to these reports, in Veracruz – where the outbreak originated, a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol raises 950,000 hogs per year in intensive conditions.

"Smithfield has released a statement denying any link between the outbreak and Granjas Carrol's operations in Mexico. It said the company routinely administers influenza virus vaccinations to its herds and conducts monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza. It said it had found no clinical signs or symptoms of swine influenza on its farms".

Swine flu: is intensive pig farming to blame?, Caroline Lucas, Guardian April 28.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/28/swine-flu-intensive-farming-caroline-lucas

If you'd asked me last week whether I'd heard of Smithfield, I would have said "of course", thinking you meant the meat market by the City of London. I'd never heard of the big US corporation which has taken this reassuringly traditional name. But now I'm learning it operates in more than one country, and supplies much of the pork meat we receive in Britain. Some people have been watching it for some time. A friend passes me an article from The Ecologist, December 1, 2003:

"We ignored the ‘no entry’ sign at a recently opened Smithfield pig factory, clambered over wire barriers and wrenched open the ventilation shaft of one of three vast concrete and corrugated iron sheds. Inside, 5,000 squealing pigs were crammed into strawless compartments. Outside, effluent from cement cesspits, though now frozen, had over-flowed and sent a small stream of brown stinking liquid into the lake below. In a large plastic bin (empty the previous night) we found 20 dead pigs. Astonishingly, it seems that the entire operation is illegal.

Who are Smithfield Foods?

"When Robert Kennedy Jr wrote ‘pig factory farms are more dangerous for our lifestyle and democracy than Osama bin Laden and global terrorism’ he was fined $128,000. Why would he make such an allegation? Because of the growth of factory farming, Iowa has lost 45,000 independent pig farmers in recent years. Joe Luter told The Washington Post that Smithfield will turn ‘Poland into the Iowa of Europe’.

"A spill from one pig lagoon killed a billion fish in North Carolina’s Neuse River in 1995. Bulldozers had to be used to plough the dead fish clear. Today 100 million fish die in the river every year. The Virginia-based firm Smithfield Foods is one of a handful of multinationals that are transforming global meat production from a traditional farm enterprise to a factory-style industrial activity. It is the largest pork producer in the world, controlling almost 30 per cent of the US pork market. The Smithfield style of industrial pork production is a major source of air pollution and probably the largest cause of water pollution in the US.

"Smithfield and its fellow industrial pork producers have driven tens of thousands of family farmers off the land, shattered rural communities, poisoned thousands of miles of US waterways, killed billions of fish, put thousands of fishermen out of work, sickened rural residents and treated hundreds of millions of farm animals with unspeakable and unnecessary cruelty. In 1999 Smithfield began buying slaughterhouses and state farms in Poland. On 22 July this year the firm’s vice president promised Poland’s Senate agricultural committee that Smithfield will ‘modernise’ Polish agriculture and bring prosperity and jobs to rural communities.

"For 20 years Smithfield and its allies have made identical promises to the people of the rural US state of North Carolina. The North Carolinan Senate subsequently passed legislation to make it much easier for Smithfield to do business in the state. With encouragement from these politicians, Smithfield built the largest slaughterhouse in the world in Bladen County. The plant butchers 30,000 pigs each day and has triggered a boom in factory-style production of pig meat in North Carolina.

"Factory farms Smithfield used to be a simple meat packer with no experience of owning a pig farm at all. Its CEO Joe Luter began buying up farms so that the company could control all aspects of pork production – ‘from piglets to pork chops’. Luter describes himself as ‘a tough man in a tough business’, but surprisingly doesn’t live near one of his pig farms. Instead, his home is a $17m Park Avenue mansion in New York. He is known for a ruthless approach to business that maximises profits by industrialising agriculture and eliminating both animal husbandry and the family farm".


Two articles on Smithfield:
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/

http://www.theecologist.org/PAGES/archive_detail.asp?content_id=387


It may be argued that these are Green sources, and bound to be biased. Maybe, though if there is another side to the story, or anything they have said is not true, I should think Smithfield and the rest of the pigmeat industry would not be lacking resources to answer it. There have been a stream of comments answering Caroline Lucas, but they seem short on facts or arguments, other than asserting that small-scale farming in poor countries is more likely (contrary to the evidence) to cause new diseases; and sneering that Caroline Lucas is a "Luddite". Since the MEP has only said the links ought to be investigated, I wonder what they are worried about?

I expect that if they had been writing in the 19th century they would have been telling us what a big improvement the new factories and slums were, and how working people were much better off than when they lived in old cottages. Cholera, or tubercolosis - nothing was proven. As though criticising the down side of anything means you want to go backward.

I'm no hand-knitted muesli and home-grown sandals man myself, and nor am I squeamish enough to give up my bacon or become a vegetarian. But nor am I foolish enough to believe that progress moves inevitably in one direction, or that maximising profit is synonymous with progress.

People used to talk naively of the "conquest of nature", but in the long run we can only work with nature, learning how to turn it to advantage. Treating it with contempt in a rush for private profit brings disasters. Soils destroyed by monoculture and reliance on chemicals,forests cleared ruthlessly without regard for the consequences,animals fed indiscriminately with anti-biotics which breed super viruses, grass-eating animals fed animal matter that gave rise to CJD ...we should have learned the lesson. Be wary. Don't trust anyone who tells you to just accept anything as progress.

My limited experience of farm work did not include working with pigs. But from what I've seen and heard, they are sentient animals, who try to keep relatively clean when they can, and whose flesh has something in common with that of human beings. Without even getting into the territory of "animal rights" or farming ethics,I would venture to suggest keeping pigs in concentration camp conditions is likely to cause problems. And the thing about mistreating nature is that the consequences can fall on us all, innocent or guilty.

there is certainly something to investigate.

Scoring a Try at Taybeh

Not content with confounding Western stereotypes by brewing good beer (as I can testify) and hosting a beer festival this month, the Palestinian town of Taybeh is also pioneering with a new sports fixture.

I'm grateful for this report from Iraq Solidarity News(al Thawra), forwarded by Hussein al-Alak, an Iraqi who opposes occupation of both his own country and Palestine., and has worked to draw attention to the desperate plight of Palestinian refugees from Iraq. Besides his writing, Hussein is a keen sportsman and youth worker, who taught boxing to youngsters in Baqaa refugee camp in Jordan.

People sometimes regard sports as a diversion from fighting oppression.
But the row over the British government's refusal of visas to a Palestinian under-19 football team reminded us that sport can be an important way oppressed people can assert their humanity, raising morale, and winning long overdue recognition from the outside world -reaching over the heads of governments to people.

Rugby Match at Taybeh

The community of Taybeh, in the West Bank is going to keep its leading role this year by continuing to make history in Palestine. Along with introducing the first Palestinian non-alcoholic beer at the 2008 Oktoberfest, Taybeh will also host the first time ever Tag Rugby Match in Palestine between the Ramallah Blue Snakes and Beit Jala Lions RFC at 1 pm on Sunday, October 12, 2008 at the Taybeh Soccer Field, North entrance of Taybeh. If you like to see amazing and extraordinary things just come to Taybeh. As a side note, October 12th was the first Oktoberfest ever held in the world in Bavaria in 1810.

The first Rugby Club in Palestine was founded in October 2007 in Beit Jala when a group of young men set up the first Palestinian Rugby Team with the help of Kevin Kelleher and Leam O’Brain who continue their current support from Ireland.The team consists of twelve official passionate players from the age of eighteen to twenty-eight.

On most days people can watch the Beit Jala Lions practice on Wednesday evenings at the Beit al-Liqa Playground and Sunday afternoons at Al Khader International Stadium. Martin Bisstrai, Coach and Dr. Nassar Khamis, Chairman of the Rugby Club have a dream to begin building a network of tab rugby in Palestine thereby encouraging youth, scouts groups, and sports clubs to organize their own teams. The Rugby Club was founded with the main goal of developing Rugby in Palestine with the great challenge of playgrounds being rare and equipment hardly available.

Tab Rugby sport contains the main elements of real rugby but does not contain the full contact tackles. It does not need special equipment or soft grass covered playground.Martin was asked how he feels being the first team established in this sport in Palestine under oppressed conditions: “At first we are very-very proud, because this is our team; this is the team of our society, a simple successful local initiative. Our conditions are incredible, but because we have incredible players we could survive. Hard work and the love of rugby overcome any kind of difficulty. I know it sounds very ideological, but this is the reality,” responded Martin.

Why should Palestinians care about Rugby?“ Rugby is a great sport and it’s a battle without weapons. That is what Palestinian (and any other) youth need. Do sports, and spend your unused energy,” said Martin.The Beit Jala Lions became capable of having their first rugby match in March 2007 and began looking around to connect with other teams in the Middle East. A group of volunteers in Ramallah facilitated setting up a second team in Palestine, the Ramallah Blue Snakes with Jason Lomax in charge. The two teams spent most of April and May in training sessions last spring.

Martin explains why this past month the Rugby Club travelled to Cyprus: “We reached the level where we are able to play our first full-contact match, and because we are the only team we have to travel abroad to have this experience. By the generous donations of the Irish Representative Office, Bethlehem University, and our society we could finance a rugby tour to Cyprus…three clubs invited us to play against their teams.”

When Martin was asked what he thinks of the Taybeh Oktoberfest, he said: “Simply love the idea.” All international and local media invited to Taybeh this 2008 Oktoberfest to watch the first tag rugby match in Palestine. The Taybeh Oktoberfest is a two days event, Oct 11th & 12th, promoting local products with music and dance groups preserving deep cultural roots in ancient Palestine.Pray for us that it passes in peace!

Support the Beit Jala Lions RFC
http://www.beitjalalions.com

http://iraqsolidaritycampaign.bl...

I was going to speculate on the Arabic for "Up and Under", but viewing the Irish part in promoting Palestinian rugby, how about "El Garryowen"

And for more about Taibeh beer:
http://www.taybehbeer.com/
and a couple of video items:

1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0IWqBE0lY

2. 
   www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ-rESgazCM&feature=related - 66k -

A pub historian protests...

DID Belgians discover the New World more than a century before Columbus set sail? Before we go sailing adrift into speculation about Madoc, St.Brendan or Eric the Red, let me quickly explain that the reason I'm asking is the new Stella Artois advert.

It would seem the line about this lager being "reassuringly expensive" is no longer effective, if it ever was, though I thought the second word was true enough. The admen had hoped it would give the brew a snootier upmarket image to get rid of its "wife beater" reputation, which I am sure was unfair though I'm no expert.
Maybe they have now started to sense that with times getting harder, the number of pillocks prepared to tell themselves that something must be good because they paid more for it is becoming limited, along with those who go into the pub to flash money around.

The new theme is wholesome. Since May we have had an advertising campaign assuring us that Stella only contains four ingredients - water, barley, maize and hops. Fair enough. There are also yeasts and fines from isinglass to make the beer more clear and sparkling, but let's not get all anorakish.

What I'm objecting to is a new TV ad which tells us that back in 1366 when the world seemed a frightening place, with seas flowing over the edge, and the sun sinking beneath the waves in the West, the inhabitants of Leuven decided to create the finest possible beer with only the best ingredients they could find - the best malted barley, finest maize and hops, and purest water - and Stella Artois was the result.

I don't know what's special about the Leuven brewery's water. (and as I type those words an ad comes up on television about hard water and limescale in washing machines. Spooky, what? And now we have an old episode of Inspector Morse with a family brewery at stake). In some places it is minor impurities that make a difference to the beer - gypsum at Burton on Trent, small quantities of which have been added elsewhere to produce a similar ale.

But if they really put in maize in 1366, that's remarkable, especially when as we are told people still believed the esrth was flat and if you sailed too far you'd fall over the edge.

Maize, as we used to call it when grown for a winter feed for cattle, corn on the cob when we took some of the best heads up the kitchen, was first grown by the natives of Mexico and Central America - hence Indian Corn as people here used to call it, referring to American Indians. It did not reach Europe or the Old World generally until the late 15th century.

Unless someone at Leuven had made a daring secret voyage, and brought back the mystery ingredient.

But though the date "1366" appears on a Stella label, referring to the year when the Leuven brewery first gets mentioned in tax records, Stella Artois was first brewed somewhat later - in time for Christmas sales in 1926 in fact. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this bit of important research). It' has been quite a successful lager since, and is brewed under licence in Australia. I'm not going to knock it, though I am not much of a lager drinker and can find more interesting brews to sample in Belgium (anyone wants to start a fund to enable me to pursue my research?).

But in the interests of maintaining standards in historical discourse, the good name of my pub quiz teams, and the reputation of licensed establishments as fountains of learning, gentlemen of the advertising industry I must protest! With your "reassuringly expensive" salaries I am sure you will care about accuracy.

All the Answers

MOUSEHOLE (pron."Muzzel) Cornwall. Where the pilchards may gaze at the stars, but these two harbour watchers are looking out for a fish supper.


WELL, hope you all had a nice holiday and are fully recovered.
If you tried our quiz, and could not be bothered looking up all the knowledge on the Internet, here are the answers you have been waiting for:

Literary Landscapes

1) Malvern hills

2) Lyme Regis

3) Kent

4) Cranford, as in recent BBC serial.

5) Hardy's "Wessex" was his native Dorset and places nearby.


Who Dunnit?

1)Agatha Christie

2) Raymond Chandler

3)Dorothy L.Sayers

4) Georges Simenon

5) Ruth Rendell

Who said it?

1) Benjamin Disraeli

2) Winston Churchill

3) Abigail Van Buren (1918- ), US advice columnist

4) George Jean Nathan (1882-1958), US drama critic

5) Leon Trotsky

Mind Your Language

1) Malta. Maltese, though it uses a Roman script, is a Semitic language.

2) Catalan

3) Yiddish and Russian

4) Paraguay

5) Brussels, like the sprouts. They are Flemish/French mixtures spoken in some old working-class neighbourhoods.

Talking of Food

1) Colcannon, made with potatoes and kale or cabbage, is a traditional dish in Ireland. There is also a Newfoundland and Nova Scotia version with carrots.

2) Stargazey Pie is made in Cornwall, particularly Mousehole. The fish, usually pichards, have their heads potruding from the pastry, hence star gazing.

3) Fabada is a tasty, nourishing stew of beans with sausage etc from the Asturias region of north-west Spain.

4) Knedliki are dumplings served in the Czech Republic (cf. Kneidlech, matzo balls in Yiddish).

5) Nasi Goreng is a popular fried rice dish in Indonesia, and neighbouring countries.

Something to Drink

1) Jamaica and other parts of West Indies.

2) Normandy. Calvados is an apple brandy, taking its name from the town.

3) China. A potent spirit distilled from sorghum.

4) Hungary, a plum brandy like the Balkan slivovic.

5) Argentina, though also other Latin American countries. A sort of tea drink made from mate yerbe. Originated with the Guarani Indians and was adopted by the gauchos.

Beer and Freedom

NOW here's a question for you, readers, as we move from the pious promises of peace at Annapolis towards the season of peace and goodwill, wishing good cheer to all men and women, and good beer to all as wants it.

The United States wants a Two State Solution in Israel-Palestine, right? That's what we heard after the Oslo conference and that handshake on the White House lawn, and though we have watched its prospects shrink along with Palestinian lands as they are swallowed by Israel's wall and settlements, Two States is still on the agenda. Mr. Olmert says so.

So if the United States wants Palestinians to succeed in constructing their own state alongside Israel, how come the US authorities, just like any lumpen Zionists, insist there is no such country as Palestine? Where are they going to offer a homeland to the Palestinians, in Madagascar maybe?

A while back when things were looking optimistic for Yasser Arafat to lead his people to freedom a Palestinian family called Khoury returned home from the United States, bringing with them the business they had started as a hobby, and founding their own brewery.

Despite the difficulties of continuing Israeli occupation, and deprivations, and the rise within Palestinian society of political forces who tie national identity to a religion that's against alcohol, the Khoury brewery at Taybeh has succeeded in producing a beer of which Palestine can be proud.

What's more they have exported it. Taybeh beer is now being brewed in Germany under licence, and it being sold as far afield as Japan. It may be the problems imposed at home which made overseas production necessary, but bearing in mind the German regulations which lay down what you can put in a bottle and sell as beer, this success there is a tribute to the Taybeh beer's wholesome natural ingredients and quality.

As for pleasing the discerning consumer, I have tasted the future, and it works.
Someone wisely arranged for a quantity of Taybeh beer to be available at a Jews for Justice for Palestinians social and cultural event in north London a while back and I've been singing its praises ever since. Mind you, I've only sampled the pale, or blond, beer but I see from the publicity they do a dark beer as well. They are even prepared to brew an alcohol-free version to cater for the religious teetotallers.

Trading in alcoholic beverages may not be as easy for amateurs as selling Palestinian olive oil, but it's good to find ways of giving Palestinian exports a boost rather than confining ourselves to arguments about boycotts. Today I was invited to join a Facebook group of Taybeh fans, and did not hesitate, and I have also signed up a few friends.

There is one country where you can't get Taybeh beer though, and if you haven't guessed it's the place where the idea was born, yes. The Land of the Free will not allow its beer drinkers to enjoy the Palestinian beer, because the authorities object to the Brewed in Palestine label, insisting there is no such country as Palestine.

Maybe someone should defy this Prohibition and start smuggling in Taybeh like the rum-runners of yesteryear. Or will it have to wait till Palestine gets a New Deal? Incidentally, I'd be interested to hear whether Taybeh beer can be sold in Israel. I can see it competing successfully with the Israeli product, giving pleasure to some of my friends and relations, and displeasing the multinational s who have moved in on that market.

I've often scoffed at the worn tradition of British brewers and pub owners telling us their industry is all about our freedom and patriotism. But I think the Khoury family really do have a point, when they hold up their excellent beer as a symbol and earnest of the new Palestine struggling against oppression, to take its rightful place among the nations, as a free people building a modern secular state encompassing diversity.

So put away your stereotypes, step beyond the Israel boycott, and raise your glasses to all those Palestinians who are determined to gain the same freedoms as we all want. Cheers!

And here's the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0IWqBE0lY

Ladies Fingers in the Bindi Bhaji?

THESE sort are good for you. Okra, Bindi, or Ladies' Fingers. But they might not be all you get....

WATCH out for unexpected extras in your dips and atarters. Especially if you're a veggie! People in Britain spent £1.6 billion on ready meals last year and account for nearly half of all the ready meals eaten in Europe. There is a good chance that your tasty snacks came from a place like the one where Dimple Muit works.

Dimple, 27, lost the top of the middle finger of her right hand while using a machine that she had already reported as faulty. It was reported three times, but was still in use without a mechanic having been to fix it. When Dimple Muitt reported to a company nurse, they gave her some tissues to staunch the bleeding, but her manager refused to call an ambulance.

Eventually a manager took her in his car and dumped her outside the A&E at Central Middlesex hospital (Park Royal), leaving her bleeding heavily from one hand and holding a plastic bag with her severed finger in the other. By the time she arrived at Mount Vernon hospital (Northwood) for her injury to be treated the doctor had to tell her it was too late, two hours too late, for her finger to be reattached. Dimple would have to be off work for eight to ten weeks, and in constant pain.

Dimple's employer, Katsouris Foods, supplies top retailers such as Tesco, M&S Sainsbury and Waitrose. Every day the 2,500 Katsouris workers at sites in Park Royal and Wembley produce about 110,000 ready meals, 150,000 dip pots and 30,000 snack foods. But their pay and conditions are far from top, and nor is their workplace safety. Shortly after Dimple's accident a work colleague had the top of two fingers severed in another workplace accident. The GMB union says that every day there are three to four accidents at the company's three sites.

Besides fighting for decent pay and conditions, and compensation for those injured, the union is calling for more frequent and thorough inspections by the Health and Safety Executive(HSE), and enforcement of improvement orders. Workers say they know when an inspection is coming because they are ordered to clean and tidy up the factory. They also claim that improvement orders made little difference.

Temperatures, hot and cold, are important to food industry safety, for workers as for consumers. GMB branch secretary and safety expert Hiten Vaydia says thermometers and temperature probes are in short supply at Katsouris.

'Freezing cold temperatures are a major hazard in all three Katsouris sites,' Hiten says. 'In the blast freezer area temperatures can be as low as minus 18 degrees centigrade.' Although the Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations require employers to limit the time for which workers are exposed, this does not always happen. Workers who have not had time to don protective clothing kept some distance away can then find themselves having to climb over boxes and crates to get to freezer doors.

At the other extreme, a twenty-year-old kitchen worker had his foot scalded when the nozzle on a pan containing 250 litres of boiling water was suddenly opened. The scars remained months after his accident. 'There was no guard on the cooker when our member was burnt,' Hiten said. 'The company didn't even take him to hospital. The company nurse told him to wait in the canteen where he remained in agony from midday until 5.30pm when I collected him and drove him to casualty.'

"Getting compensation for people injured by Katsouris is not the point", says Hiten Vaidya. No one should go to work fit and healthy and leave it injured".
Hiten spoke to Brent Trades Union Council about Katsouris on Wednesday evening, explaining some of the difficulties trades unionists face in organising at the north-west London firm, where many workers are fairly new immigrants, having to overcome language difficulties and fears about their jobs and immigration status. Nevertheless the union members are determined to obtain recognition and improvements. They deserve whatever support we can give them.

You can hear about this issue on BBC Radio Five Live's
Worricker on Sunday programme at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning. Listen for a special Five Live Report - Blood on the Bhajis
909 and 693 am or online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive.shtml

A Rum Business

AMERICAN business, at least the section closest to George W.Bush's heart, is hotting up the competition in the world chutzpah stakes. What do you do when you come up against a successful competing product? Simple - pinch the competitor's brand name.
It helps if you have an understanding legislature. On October 21, 1998 at the request of the Senator Connie Mack of Florida, the US Congress passed a federal budget bill with a little amendment tagged on, known as Section 211.
It is also being called the Bacardi Law.

What it says is that the US authorities can deny the right to renew a trade mark in the United States. So any US company would theoretically be free to appropriate a brand name that has proved a winner and use for its own inferior product. That sounds to me like the counterfeiting we hear about, when trading standards officers descend on Delboy down the market selling dubious designer-label gear and Brut after-shave just before Christmas. Only this time, it's all legal, officer.

The World Trade Organisation(WTO) has a Dispute Settlement Board which decided a few years ago that Section 211 was incompatible with WTO principles. But it seems it's one thing laying down the law to poor countries turning out cheapo goods or otherwise infringing WTO rules, another when a poor nation protests at what American business is doing. Cuba's UN ambassador has complained to the WTO's Dispute Settlement Board over the actions of the Bacardi company.

On July 28 the US Office of Foreign Assets Control denied a request for a specific license to renew the registration of the trademark Havana Club at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Havana Club is the Cuban rum which has been doing well in European and other markets.

Bacardi likes to use its Latin image in sales here, but even before the Cuban revolution it had transferred its distillery operations from Havana to Puerto Rico, in order to secure tariff benefits on US territory. The move allowed the firm to obtain a ruling in its favor to maintain the brand name when it left Cuba, registering its headquarters first in the Bermuda tax haven and then Miami.

Cuba had started to produce Bacardi rum again, but had to comply with international rules and stop using the name. Then about ten years ago, Havana Club overtook Bacardi sales in Italy, and became a serious competitor elsewhere. Claiming it had paid the Arechabala family for the rights to the Havana Club brand name, Bacardi began selling rum produced in the Bahamas by Galleon SA under the Havana Club name. Cubans say the Arechabalas went out of business long before and hadn't the name to sell. The company ceased production when Havana Club International, a joint venture between the Cuban Havana Ron y Licores company and Pernod Ricard of France took legal action to prevent the false use of its name.

I'm no connoisseur of rum. I rarely drink the stuff. But back in 1972 I spent a season working in what must be one of the country's biggest fish and chip restaurants, on the seafront at Morecambe. (Those familiar with my political background and the dramatis personae of post-war Trotskyism will be amused to hear it was the branch of the Blackpool-based Pablo's). Towards the end of the season as nights drew in and queues dwindled the manager would shut up shop and pour the Bacardi, in paper cups that we topped up with Coke or Limeade from the taps on the counter. Bacardi and Coke I found too sickly, so I preferred it with Lime. Even so, it didn't become my tipple of choice, but since it was buckshee, I wasn't complaining.

In 1992 I went on holiday with friends in the Czech Republic. Our little hotel in the sticks of Moravia had a limited range of bevvies, but Plazdroz (that's Pilsner Urquell to you, and what British pubs call a "Premium Lager") on draught at something like 20p a pint was fine. Only after my evening meal I fancied a "short" with my black coffee, and took to the local dark Tuczinska rum, which was cheap and cheerful, a bit like the sort of flavour you used to get in rum-and-butter toffee and similar confectionary.

"That is very bad", a relief barmaid called Renate said one evening when I was on my fourth or so. "Oh, it's not that bad," I assured her, feeling she was being unduly critical of her nation's product "No, all that coffee you are drinking, it is not good for you," Renate explained. At this I ventured to suggest she might like to accompany me back to England as a personal health carer, but she frowned that she did not understand my English and turned to another customer. My drunken leer has been known to have this sudden effect on comprehension.

Anyway, by way of a change, my drinking companions suggested we try the more expensive Havana Club which had pride of place on the top shelf. It was a clear, white rum. I can tell you it is definitely not confectioners' rum, and definitely not Bacardi. I'd say it was for the serious drinker. Even though, if I had to choose a rum it would be Cockspur, which I sampled at a party once, a friend having brought some back from Barbados (unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he had only brought along one bottle, or I could have developed a taste for the stuff). But like I say, I'm no rum expert.

In the case of Budweiser, the US company kept the Czech Budweiser-Budvar beer from being sold under its name for years (well, since 1939, which was a conveniant date for stopping Czechs doing business. Hitler had taken his prize from Munich, and the Bank of England was about to hand over the Czech gold reserve entrusted to its safe keeping to the Germans). After the fall of "communism" the US Budweiser company tried to buy the Czech breweries, but alerted by the Campaign for Real Ale the Czechs resisted, and now Czech Budweis-Budvar is sold in the US and Canada - but as "Czechvar".

Bacardi have mounted numerous court actions to get their hands on the Havana Club trademark, before taking advantage of the "Bacardi Bill". Meanwhile the European Union, which might conceivably have some brand names of its own to protect has let the United States keep setting new dates to comply with the DSB recommendations and regulations.
In 1999 Bacardi’s lawyers won a case in New York state using Section 211, but in in January 2004, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark decided in favor of Havana Club International, which now sells its well-known rum in 80 countries., and against Bacardi-Martini's efforts to sell its own, non-Cuban version of Havana Club in the United States.

Meanwhile the Washington Post reported in 2002 how Florida Governor Jeb Bush was taking up Bacardi's case with the Patent and Trademark Office. The rum producer reportedly donated huge sums of money to the Republican Party. Senator Mel Martinez has been accused by the CREW anti-corruption group in Washington of accepting over $60,000 from Bacardi. The Post also reported on December 4 that Rodríguez-Marquez belatedly presented the necessary federal report showing that he had spent $500 million on "lobbying" since 1998. Besides that, Bacardi spent another $2.2 million contracting "lobbyists".

The president’s brother then wrote to James Rogan, director of the Patent and Trademark Office on Bacardi-Martini's behalf. asking that the expired patent (from Cubaexport) should be cancelled immediately." Rogan, appointed by President George W. Bush, met secretly with individuals from the governor’s office. Rodríguez-Márquez himself has acknowledged that he met with State Department authorities, contacts of Vice President Dick Cheney and White House political advisors.
HCI demonstrated that Havana Club was not confiscated, but the Arechabala family simply failed to renew the trademark and gave up the business when it faced financial difficulties in 1955. The Cuban firm took control of a company that was bankrupt.

The TTAB ruled last January that Bacardi’s attempt to invalidate HCI’s registration of the trademark had no legal basis because Cubaexport had registered the trademark in the correct way in Cuba and had transferred registration to the United States in 1976, three years after the Arechabala family had permitted its expiration. In 1993, Cubaexport and Pernod-Ricard formed HCI and renewed the trademark name.

Democrat Charles Rangel – who together with 14 other Congress members from both parties endorsed the bill – stated at the time how "Cuba and the United States have respected one another’s trademarks for the last 75 years. It is shameful to think that Congress can liquidate this area of cooperation in order to benefit one particular interest (that of Bacardi), at the expense of hundreds of U.S. citizens with trademark names."

The U.S.-based National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), founded in 1914 by a group of US companies, and serving some 350 firms, is concerned that the Bacardi privilege could boomerang. NFTC president, Bill Reinshi has stated that more than 5,000 U.S. trademarks that have been registered in Cuba since 1918 and a further 400 registered since 1959 were at risk thanks to Section 211, "which infringes on the commitments reached with Cuba."

He added that U.S. trademarks that are registered in Cuba — including McDonalds, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Nike — and global recognition of the same "are vitally important for the economy of the United States." For the first time in 40 years, these trademarks are appearing in Cuban warehouses, he said, but they are at risk because of 211, given that it gives the Cuban government the option of not respecting international treaties that protect trademarks registered by the Untied States in Cuba. President Fidel Castro said in 2001 that Cuba could sell Coca-Cola, Bacardi rum and Cuban anti-AIDS medicines patented by U.S. companies.

But the Bush administration is looking after Bacardi. Under orders from the State Department, J. Robert McBrien, director of its Patent Office, refused the Havana Club International joint venture the necessary license to renew ownership of the trademark on its patent and trademarks register, despite the fact that the company has owned the right to do so since 1974, when it paid the $500 fee required on time. The decision was based on laws surrounding the so-called "embargo" of Cuba. In this way, last August 8 the rum manufacturer was then able to announce that it would once again bring a rum called Havana Club onto the U.S. market.

And now for some more on the authentic Cuban product. With sound:
http://www.embacubalebanon.com/havanaclub.html