[HPFGU-OTChatter] Breakfast and foot and mouth...

[Simon]

Simon wrote: <<Ah breakfast, that first meal of the day. I have got into
the bad habit of not having any and then just having a larger lunch to
compensate. I really do not cope well with eating early in the mornings, or
maybe I should write that I just do not cope with mornings.>>

Neil replied: <<<I could have written that.  The difference would be that I
consume a flagon of very strong cafetiere coffee as soon as I get in the
door of my officeand you probably infuse a strong cup of leaf tea at the
earliest opportunity.  A fry up is a rare luxury these days - always great
in a local caff after a night on the pi.... er, at a party, with some
mates.  If I eat anything, it's cereal or toast or something
Continental.>>>

Have got my mug of tea (Assam tips) with me as I type this. It is quite
rare for me to have a cup of tea so early in the day. I normally wait until
mid morning, preferring to drink water instead.


Amanda: "Well, my father wrote a very chatty-style cooking guide for
Tex-Mex, when a good friend moved to Michigan...I can send you a copy of
that, but no help with the pizza."

Yes please.


Me: <<Have just been reading all the stuff ont eh foot and mouth outbreak.
It does not look good. I was not pleased when I noted that the major
outbreak of '67, I remember it so well being as I was 12 at the time, took
9 months to be stopped. Going home will not be good if they are burning
animals - I live in a rural area.>>

Neil: <<<It's horrible and it's having an impact everywhere.

Earlier this week I had to take two Americans and a Dutchman for lunch (for
some reason that sounds like it was a challenge someone had set me).  One
of them asked about foot and mouth and the risks and we discussed it for a
while.  I didn't twig at the time, but all three then ordered vegetarian
meals and said how nice they were.  These are people who, I imagine, would
normally go for something more carnivorous than linguine with roasted
vegenetables and pine nuts.

My other story sounds quite comical, but it's not.  The bloke who does my
accounts also does the accounts for a man who set up a business
distributing sausage skins (as Bill put it - "He's a sausage skin broker").
The earlier BSE scare had really affected business for this man, as demand
dropped off dramatically.  The foot and mouth scare has finished him off.
Bill rang him while he was at my office and he was, apparently, in tears:
his business, that once had a turnover of 625,000, is finished.>>>

Starting slightly flippantly - how were the Americans and Dutchman? So you
are happy to eat people but not meat? ;)'s at Neil.

Having been worried about how long the outbreak lasted in '67 I looked into
some more details of the outbreak and was even more concerned. In '67 F&M
was confined to 4 counties (Cheshire, Stafford, Shropshire and a bit of
North Wales that borders onto those already mentioned). This time we have
already had cases from Northumberland, Devon, Essex and Anglesey (For those
unsure of where these places are in the UK we are talking about the
northern most part of England and nearly the furthest south west & south
east you can go in England). It is also believed to have spread to Ireland
(both bits), but at this moment this is unconfirmed.


Simon
--
"When you don't know what to do, get moving. Make a mistake if you must;
just move! If you make a mistake you can correct it, but you'll never get
anywhere if you don't start." Arikan - Emerald House Rising by Peg Kerr
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