Horse Meat - what price convenience??

What price convenience indeed....
Well, to be fair, other than cultural preferences for what meat gets put on the table, there is nothing wrong with eating horse meat. Plenty European countries eat it and it was common in the UK as recently as the 1940's.
So what's the problem then? For me there are two problems....
The media - who on one hand are making this out to be a huge public safety issue and then in the next breath telling us all that the horse meat is perfectly safe. The ludicrous BBC sending a reporter to stand on a country lane in the middle of nowhere to tell us all about the fact that wagons full of meat drive down the lane was priceless. What you don't hear from the media is the second problem I have with the whole thing and probably the most important...
Being told what we are being sold! I wouldn't care if my lasagne was made of horse meat if that was what was on the packaging and that is what I had intended to buy. But to buy something and then find out that you actually got something which you neither wanted nor find acceptable as a meat for consumption is totally different. How long I wonder has horse meat been used to bulk up beef products? I have just heard on the news it has been at least 2 years! What else is being used as a substitute for what it is meant to be? There have been reports of pork being used in supposedly halal meat supplied to prisons - so this company was not just breaching the law but offending religious beliefs. Do we really know what is in your favourite burger or fried chicken nuggets? What about the toppings on your pizza? Or the filling in your sandwich? Come to that, what is the bread made of (apparently sliced white bread has ground chicken feathers in it but that could be urban myth).
I was under the impression that food labeling was very strict and if so how have companies been able to get away with it? Well - to my mind it is the pure dishonesty and greed of the producers. Horse is cheaper than beef and we are still in recession - if they can get away with it and make more profit then they are going to. But why has there been such a widespread problem? Well that's simple - supermarkets pricing and convenience foods.... I (quite smugly) have no concerns - I haven't eaten a ready meal for many years. Our meat comes from a local butcher who can tell you exactly where the meat has come from, our bread is home made and our eggs come from our own chickens. Our milk could be from the Fat Tony Rat Dairy - who knows! But many families eat ready meals and processed food pretty much every day - whether due to convenience or finances. It's so much easier to get everything from the local superstore than go to a butcher and get decent fresh meat, and so much easier to get frozen meals than buy the ingredients and make things yourself. There may not be a health issue with eating horse but there are a large amount of people in the UK who don't want to.
This is a huge wake-up call for the food industry. Butchers are already reporting increases in sales - I'm not surprised... but how long before the supermarkets get their customers back by selling poor quality cheaper 'real meat'?
It has to be remembered that the government have only ordered testing for horse meat... so the beef lasagne made with horse will be detected, but a cottage pie made with dog meat will not. I think there may be bigger scandals than horse meat in the near future.....

And while we're speaking of Bowie

Many people have asked me what my favourite Bowie track is. Well, it's not an easy question to answer - preference depends on mood and therefore my favourite may not always be the same. I tend to prefer album tracks - although many of his singles have been masterpieces I think there are many album tracks which are ultimately better...
So anyway - I thought I'd put together a top ten. The positions of these 10 would not always be the same but I think most of these would always figure somewhere in the list -

10 - The Lonliest Guy - from Reality... a great ballad and confirmation of Bowie's song writing ability.

9 - Moonage Daydream - Ziggy Stardust has so many good tracks but to me this is the best... freak out!

8 - Lady Grinning Soul - the final track on Aladdin Sane and well worth waiting for.

7 - Wild is the Wind - So, this has been recorded many times before  - Johnny Mathis to Nina Simone, but Bowie puts his mark on it and makes it his own.

6 - Station to Station - Ten and a quarter minutes of sheer brilliance. I don't think I can say any more!

5 - Look Back in Anger - Lodger was pretty under-rated for a long time but there are some excellent tracks on it. The extended version of this which is on some CD releases is worth finding - it was re-recorded in 1988 and is near as damn it 7 minutes long....

4 - Loving the Alien - from Tonight. One of my least favourite albums starts with one of the best tracks Bowie has recorded. The album version is good, but the version on Reality Live is better and Bowie admits that it was perhaps the way that it should always have been done.

3 - Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing - a brilliant track from Diamond Dogs... And it has the lowest note ever sung by Bowie on any recording. OK, so it's technically 3 tracks but I always consider it to be 3 movements of the same song.

2 - Heroes - but please - the proper album version and not the version you always hear on the radio or TV. Many people are far more aware of this song since the olympics. I have loved it since the first time I heard it. A very simple message is contained in the song, but it is put across so well. When I pop my clogs I will have this played at my funeral and just hope that there is something in my life I have done which will make it relevant.

1 - The Wild-eyed Boy from Freecloud - Maybe an unusual choice and possibly not rated at all by many. To me it shows Bowie's talent for narrative and bundles it together with a damn fine tune. You are transported into the song and it becomes more than a piece of music. I also get the opportunity to put a link to what I think is one of the best live medleys I've heard (although sadly I was too young to have been there). Bowie at this time must have been something special to have seen - and he snatches back his own song from Mott the Hoople and shows them how it should be done http://youtu.be/B58jucquCgo (yes - I know Bowie worked on the Mott the Hoople single and did backing vocals on it but you can't help thinking that his own version is how it should have been).

Where Are We Now??

OK, I'm a Bowie fan. A big Bowie fan. I have been for the best part of 35 years. So it was with some apprehension that I clicked on the youtube link I'd been sent on his 66th birthday. After all, it's been a fair while since any new material and there have been a lot of rumours about Bowie's health.
So... first impressions?? Well - I thought the video doesn't do Bowie any favours - he looks awful. The song itself? My first thoughts - a bit whiney... (Sorry David if you happen to stumble across this!)... that's not to say I didn't like it. No - it doesn't come out and grab you, but it's a ballad - it's not meant to. I found it to be a beautiful piece of music  - introspective, yes - but I think also optimistic and full of hope. I may be wrong but I think Bowie is saying 'yeah - it's shitty now but things will get better' and he puts this as a parallel to his own life back in the 70's when he was living in Berlin - when he arrived in Berlin he was hopelessly addicted to cocaine but he broke his habit and produced 3 of his best ever albums (in my opinion) whilst there... It's growing on me with every play - I don't think it has the lasting appeal of Lady Grinning Soul, Wild is the Wind, or Loving the Alien but then again, I thought that about The Loneliest Guy which is now one of my favourite Bowie ballads and that is probably closest to the style of Where Are We Now.
So - don't listen to the press who have been so quick to herald this single as the bell tolling for any musician over the age of 20, listen to the music. Bowie still has the same creativity he always had. He can still write songs which have meaning and which are still in your head more than 10 minutes after you heard them. Perhaps it's not the best thing he's ever done - so what? Did you buy Never Let Me Down? Just because it's not the best thing he's done doesn't mean that he's past it.
Me? I'll be playing it to death and looking forward to the album in March!!