Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Anecdata - but - today's Ocado order had eight 'missing items'. Three from Ireland, two from France and one fresh meat. And bread products, like last week.

This is an issue which has been growing in recent weeks and months. Some ranges are no longer stocked*, and others have seen significant price increases.

It'll be surviving on bacon and pease pudding before long.


*I now have to make my own galettes forestière.

Finding items going off quicker. Local Morrison’s is stocking extra bags of carrots and potatoes to obscure empty shelves. Last saw that trick in the Eastern bloc.

We ate the peas we grew ourselves tonight. Very nice, but not sure it's a plan for the economy as a whole.

Peas, peas, peas. Oh my!

We stewed some squid at the weekend in white wine with spuds and Lampedusa capers. Ten minutes before serving, in went a goodly handful of organic Brandenburg peas. At six euros a kilo, they aren't cheap but they are worth every penny.

We can't get Kentish cherries any longer which is a pity. They reminded me of my childhood.

Every silver lining, eh?

I should be pulling the garlic up soon, and the gooseberries should be approaching readiness for beermaking. Not a soluyion indeed.

Gooseberry beer, never thought of that and like the sound of it.

More blood boiling stupidity. Where are the loud mouth racists now? The Express version: Supermarkets foil Brussels red tape with imports.

Fruit and vegetables are being left to rot in England as Brexit deters migrants from taking up picking jobs.
Farmers have told Euronews that restrictions to freedom of movement have had a "devastating" impact.

Brexit -- the effects of which kicked-in at the start of the year -- means hiring migrant pickers from eastern Europe is now much harder.

Barfoots of Botley, a farming company based on England's south coast near Bognor Regis, said 750,000 courgettes were being left to rot.

They say that's because they can’t get the staff and if the situation continues it will force them to make difficult decisions about their future.

“Restricting free movement has had a devasting impact," said managing director Julian Marks. "But not just on agriculture and horticulture – on pretty much every sector where people from abroad have been working in those sectors for years and now. They’re going home."

Marks said as a consequence the firm is struggling to fulfil the demands of the supermarkets. He thinks it's inevitable either shelves will be left empty or the likes of Sainsbury's and Tescos will turn to EU imports to fill the gaps. https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/14/dev ... 0VqBYb3vcg

Where're all of the British people who were complaining that immigrants were Coming Over Here (TM) and taking jobs that British people were apparently entitled to?

Oh, they didn't mean those jobs. Right.

According to the big, Googlicious box of facts, it takes three to four months to take a courgette from seed to harvest.

Who, in their right mind and knowing what was already demonstrable fact about acute labour shortages, would have sown commercial quantities of the things in April?

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:35 pm According to the big, Googlicious box of facts, it takes three to four months to take a courgette from seed to harvest.

Who, in their right mind and knowing what was already demonstrable fact about acute labour shortages, would have sown commercial quantities of the things in April?

Somebody who thought:

Things are looking a bit tricky, but the great minds in charge of our nation will certainly have found a solution before this courgette seed reaches picking size.

Somebody rather suggestible (gullible is such an ugly word).

For a spot of context, I spend much of my time these days running a furniture business. It happened by accident but it is what it is.

As happenstance would have it, we stumbled upon some Bulgarian lads who can make terrazzo out of basically fuck-all with amazing skill and quality, and with artistic dexterity which often leaves me quite short of breath. That was a couple of years ago. They have helped us take our artisanal, experimental efforts with the products to levels which we simply couldn't have done on our own. According to the archi-style press, we're pretty good at it and it fits well with our sustainability ethos. If we can create and flog 90 m2 of that stuff monthly, we'll be quids in. Double it and, well, things could be very positive indeed.

With a view to settling into a more robust, long-term future, I this week accepted an invitation to go to the family home of our BG partners near Plovdiv - the most educated city in Europe - to nut out a relationship which will mean jobs, guaranteed manufacturing capability, and freedom from the clutches of the bank.

Like a twat, I went to book the flights, only to realise that BG is not in Schengen and, ahead of my DE papers being issued, I don't want to risk an entry stamp in my passport. I am being forced to wriggle out of that and delay to some promised but ill-defined point in the future, Christmas, New Year?

Christ, I hate Brexit and all those who sail in her. Not for the first time, I am mortally embarrassed.



Shameless product plug;

That looks very good.

Didn’t know anything about NZ’s Irish diaspora or aspirations for EU partnerships but had a feeling they would trump Brexit Britain’s interests.
This is the best week politically I can remember (or worst for the Tories).

But but but we're practically cousins and we love Neighbours and Kylie and Lord of the Rings...

Youngian wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 8:30 pm More blood boiling stupidity. Where are the loud mouth racists now? The Express version: Supermarkets foil Brussels red tape with imports.

Fruit and vegetables are being left to rot in England as Brexit deters migrants from taking up picking jobs.
Farmers have told Euronews that restrictions to freedom of movement have had a "devastating" impact.

Brexit -- the effects of which kicked-in at the start of the year -- means hiring migrant pickers from eastern Europe is now much harder.

Barfoots of Botley, a farming company based on England's south coast near Bognor Regis, said 750,000 courgettes were being left to rot.

They say that's because they can’t get the staff and if the situation continues it will force them to make difficult decisions about their future.

“Restricting free movement has had a devasting impact," said managing director Julian Marks. "But not just on agriculture and horticulture – on pretty much every sector where people from abroad have been working in those sectors for years and now. They’re going home."

Marks said as a consequence the firm is struggling to fulfil the demands of the supermarkets. He thinks it's inevitable either shelves will be left empty or the likes of Sainsbury's and Tescos will turn to EU imports to fill the gaps. https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/14/dev ... 0VqBYb3vcg

You doubt my mystical powers, Earthlings?

The bastards, forcing us out.

Brexit’s going brilliantly and the EU is to blame for it being shit. Don’t ask me how that works.

Heart goes out to the Remainer voters at Honda. Purely with a journalist hat on, Professor Graves's quotes are the headline hook. Take my hat off to Nissan for staying put and muddling through as more of this shit comes to light.

Honda workers in Swindon to face 'reality check' after it closes
The loss of Honda in Swindon is not just bad news for the 3,000 people who work there, but will send ripples out through the local economy, with about 1,800 jobs ending at two local firms that supply the plant. As 35 years of manufacturing history comes to an end, staff have been sharing their feelings about the end of an era.

For workers like Michael Poole the announcement, in February 2019, that Honda was to close the Swindon plant was "a huge shock".

He was a year into an apprenticeship and was in a training session when his team leader came in with the news.

"I felt like I'd got my foot on a ladder of a career I was really interested in, so it knocked us for six really.

"There were tears, from people you don't normally see cry. We were just left swinging in the breeze."

Friday 30 July 2021 was set as the last official day of car production, and the last day of most workers' contracts.

Professor Andrew Graves from the University of Bath has worked in the car industry for decades, from mass-production firms to Formula One.

"Honda came because Britain was in the European market," he said.

"When they arrived, standards were terrible in the British car industry, but they improved fast."

By 2019 Honda Swindon was one of the company's most productive plants.

But sales were falling across Europe and growing in America and Japan, while the company faced the challenge of electric cars - a complete re-invention of the industry.

"The Swindon factory was world-class but because we chose to pull out of Europe, which was the most important market to Honda, they chose to stick with America and Japan.

"Brexit was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Even so, analysts and workers were taken completely by surprise when Honda's Chief Executive in Tokyo announced they would close the Swindon plant. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-w ... e-57987601

A plant that survived being handcuffed to the corpse of Rover back in the day, if memory serves

I'm not entirely sure that this one can be laid at the feet of Brexit.