Can't Spell, Can't Count...

...that's the 'Mail' for you!

Staff at his restaurant were filmed preparing the fish in a video on social media. But a wildlife campaigner said Stein should be ashamed of himself for cashing in on 'these rare incredible fish'.

A campaigner? Then why the plural in the headline? 

Dominic Dyer, a wildlife campaigner, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: 'Why are fishermen being licensed to catch these incredible fish? Also, what is Rick Stein thinking, promoting the catch of this rare 150kg specimen to feed to tourists in his hugely expensive Padstow restaurant?

'There is no such thing as sustainable management of these rare incredible fish and Rick Stein should be ashamed of himself cashing in on killing them.'

*sighs* No such thing, eh? 

Fishermen were banned from catching bluefin tuna – the most expensive fish in the world – after overfishing of herring and mackerel depleted its food supply and it vanished off Cornwall in the 1950s. But it has now returned, due to rising sea temperatures, and the ban was relaxed in 2021.

Seems there is indeed such a thing! So global warming ain't all bad, is it?

A spokesman for Stein's restaurants said the fish was caught by 'one of ten boats with a licence to catch some of the small quota allowed by the Marine Management Organisation – a quota that's been carefully decided upon following detailed tracking and research of tuna in our waters'.

And the fishermen caught it because it's their job. Just as it's Stein's restaurant staff's job to feed tourists. 

What have you got against employment, Dyer? Was it your 13 years as a civil servant at MAFF that put you off?

Is The Answer ''Because They Are Always Up In Arms Over Something'..?

It is, isn't it? But actually, this time, it appears to be beetles.

Hold on, isn’t all fruit vegan? Don’t be a plum. Of course it isn’t. Have you not heard of the female lac bug, who thrives in the forests of India and south-east Asia?

I rarely think of anything else. What’s she got to do with the story? She secretes a resin that is used to make shellac, which helps make lemons shiny.

But surely the lemon juice inside is still wholesomely vegan? Possibly, but lemon rind – which, as you know, is essential for perking up vegan risotto and other cruelty-free meals – isn’t, when it contains shellac.

So...eat something else? Or wash the lemons? 

What does Guardian food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe have to say about this? She noticed that a Pizza Express menu said a glass of Coke would only be vegan if served without lemon. “Wtf,” she tweeted, understandably. The restaurant replied that the wax on its lemons might contain shellac.

So vegans, you bleated about getting any 'contaminants' fully documented on menus and now you see all the things you can't eat, are you satisfied? 

Reader, you know they aren't, don't you? 

I Suppose This Was Inevitable...

...not content with lab-grown 'meat', now we can look forward to lab-grown fur:

Luxury fashion house Fendi, part of LVMH, wants a sustainable alternative to fur. Researchers from Imperial and Central Saint Martins are on the case. Finding an integrative alternative to fur in the fashion industry means replicating the luxury qualities of the original material. If it feels fake, then it is a failure. Professor Tom Ellis in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial thinks he has part of the answer: use genes from fur-producing animals such as fox and mink to grow substitute hair fibres in the laboratory.

I'm all for the appliance of science, but this is as crazy an idea as the idea of lab-grown 'meat'; we have a natural, sustainable source of both, and we are throwing that overboard to satisfy the squeamish. 

Is it me, or..? 

Together with LVMH and Fendi, Professor Collet will look into the market-fit of a new kind of fur such as this, what designers would make of it, and how the public might react. The expectation is that it will be more luxurious than fake furs made from plastics, with better environmental credentials. This will be explored with a thorough life-cycle analysis of the new product.

We already have a process to grow meat and fur - they are called 'farmed animals'. This is a waste of science. 

Aren't Schools Already Little Activist Factories..?

...decolonising the curriculum isn’t about burning copies of Macbeth, or chucking Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations in the bin. It’s not even about only studying writers from marginalised identities.

Says who? Why, says Nadeine Asbali, a secondary school teacher in London. And I guess she should know, eh, Reader?

As a mixed-race English teacher who believes strongly in diversifying the English syllabus, for me, it’s about re-examining the lens through which we view canonical texts in the first place – shifting it to become more critical, more aware of the systemic forces at play both within and around a text.

So much of Shakespeare is about power: who holds it and who doesn’t and why.

I wonder who it is that doesn't, in the gospel according to Nadeine? 

Decolonising the study of Shakespeare is to take these questions one step further, removing them from the text and applying them to the world around us. To teach students, through literature, to challenge the status quo.

What..? 

Call me a biased English teacher, but literature is the perfect medium for this.

I really don't need to call you anything, do I? You're doing a fine job there all by yourself... 

Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to put into words how it feels to meet yourself in a book for the first time.

That's not why people read books, is it, Nadeine? Not ordinary people, anyway. 

I want to read about international spies, buccaneers on the high seas, daring spaceship pilots, FBI agents catching killers... I don't want to read about a middle aged middle class woman going to work in an office every day. 

The first time I did, I was an A-level student faced with Othello, whose contested “Moorish” background was the closest to my north African heritage I’d ever encountered on the page. And who did I meet? A man whose violence was likened to a wild beast and whose race rendered him a savage, a danger to white women.

Did...did you get to the end of the play, Nadeine? Because, ummm, no spoilers, but...