Come on boys, we're all friends here ain't we ..... Well at least that's what Armandii said when I promised to give him a fiver every month.
I am struggling to understand the EU and don't understand the mechanism of not being a sovereign state. We have trade agreements and pretend accords for various world causes but no marching orders from other countries as far as internal affairs, I think. My goodness, we only need one stupid prime minister to screw things up. Not the heads of many countries. Gee, I wonder if Obama and Justin had an after gala Pink Lady.....
Hooray! This thread has eventually got around to gardening (apple varieties). My parents were staunchly anti-Common Market because they hated the Golden Delicious apples imported from Europe that swamped our native Cox's.
Golden delicious is a prime example of a breach of the Misrepresentation Act, in that theyare not golden, and are about as far from delicious as you can possibly get. They were the defacto standard when I was a kid, and probably the reason why many of my generation don't eat enough fruit. Thankfully though proper varieties are back in abundance, and the Not golden Not delicious seems to be quite rare in the shops.
Now we are on the important stuff, food! There are only two apples for me - the fantastic Bramley and the equally glorious Granny Smith. Having said that there are some really lovely russet types out there as well.
Yes, all three of Cox's Orange Pippin died of shame when that happened! The only tree left in my garden, of that family, is my Laxton's Epicure (planted in 1951 and still going strong ). Although we also have another similar tree but it hasn't been identified although it came from the Rivers Nursery (just down the road) http://www.rhso.co.uk/history.php We also have two cooking apple trees that were bred by Rivers but not identified and we still have an original, 70 year old, Conference pear tree (Conference was originally bred by Thomas Rivers) that gives a heavy crop ever year.
Quite correct. Reception centres are closed, and do not allow free movement outside of the facility until the case has been proven. Regarding the article. The article printed in Östersunds local newspaper states only "men." There is no mention of any migrants. Once more. Vellinge is to the south of Malmö, but is an inland community. The caption under the photos of the beach huts is misleading. They are not even in the council area, but an adjacent one. We have this really strange concept of crime in Sweden. When one is committed, someone has to be arrested, charged, tried, and found guilty in a court of law. They are not found guilty without trial on the pages of a sensationalist newspaper.
Oooh you guys are all much smarter and more knowledgable than I am! As to the immigrant/crime topic, I don't really know what to say, exceot to liken it to something that happened the last couple of weeks where I live - The local nature reserve two minutes away from me saw around 50 travellers turn up in caravans and set up all over it. The majority of people I spoke to about it were up in arms, raging about the "filthy thieving gypsies" who needed to be sent packing as soon as possible. Now I went to school (a while ago now admittedly) with a girl whose family were travellers who bought a house and settled down and they and their family were the nicest people you could meet, so from the start I was defending the travellers, we shouldn't judge people, yes they shouldn't really park there but what harm are they really doing. I was genuinely upset about how aggressive locals were being about it. So... The travellers made the most horrendous mess of the once gorgeous park, they smashed everything that could be smashed, horrifying amounts of litter were everywhere, I actually saw three of them publicly defecating (yes, pooing!!) and the whole area just smelt terrible and looked disgraceful and was a complete disgusting mess. It was horrifying! My friends little girl had turned 5 the day before and while she was on the slide a group stole her brand new bicycle then got aggressive when asked for it back, my friends daughter was crying her heart out - and I mean who could do that to a little girl?! Lots of ducks etc were actually killed, local homes had windows smashed and things stolen, and the local Morrisons and similar saw travellers literally just walking out with armfuls of things and the police said there wasn't much they could do as they need a postcode to prosecute, so no one ever got arrested or charged with anything, large gangs of traveller youths were roaming around bring abusive and threatening to women, and at the end of it all when the council finally got a court injunction to move them on, they just left, with no repercussions and the council spent days trying to clean up the mess. It took truck after truck laden with black bags to clear all the filth!! Now I try very hard to be kind, and open minded, and objective, and to give people the benefit of the doubt, but what happened here was despicable. Completely unjustifiable. Obviously I'm not saying that the immigrant camps etc are the same situation, I don't claim to know the reality of it, but what I experienced with the travellers did make me less naive about how a relatively small group of people arriving with poor intentions and a lack of respect for laws and the local residents can cause severe harm and upset. I think as with all things, it's easy to have an opinion from the outside looking in. The immigrant issue is so hard, I cry looking at photos of drowned children, and I know if it was (God forbid) my family I would want somewhere nice to go and live our lives free of fear and full of new opportunity, but at the same time now, I can appreciate that some of the things you read/hear may have elements of unpleasant truth to them. Sorry if that was rambling, didn't get much sleep last night and a little bit out of it today!
Aargh, but you see Shiney, yours is a bit more complicated. With you I miss out the middleman...... It goes straight to Mrs Shiney.
Main point I threw that in was because the police were afraid to react due to not wanting to appear racist, had the perpetrators been white it might well have got shut down a fair bit earlier. It appear most people in the area knew what was going on. Dont think Fred West and his wife really come into it
Mostly grow Discovery,Gala, Cox and Bramley where I work, Golden Delicious it not on the menu. Buy British, but if not available, then go for NZ, or South African. I've been told Golden delicious is actually delicious if its allowed to ripen on the tree, unfortunately, nothing you buy in a supermarket will have done so. So even the british ones taste bland in my view.
Attempting to lighten up this thread somewhat, and with tongue stuck very firmly in cheek... To grow your own apples is anarchistic, as it takes profits away from the big supermarkets. If only British varieties are grown, then it could be considered racist....WOW! We gardeners are Anarchistic Racists!
