Links - 19th February 2019 (2)

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Behind the (Food TV) Scenes - "‘When you're talking about ghost writing cookbooks, are you writing the recipes for dishes that [celebrity] chefs have already invented? Or are you coming up with the whole thing from scratch?’
‘It totally depends on who the chef is. Certain books I do, I make them up from scratch. Other ones I take a bit more of a brief or there's a bit more of a conversation going on. But actually the last few that I've done you just end up writing the whole thing yourself. It actually makes my life a lot easier if no one else gets involved. I can just sit down and get on with it’"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Don't Panic! - "[On the assassinated Maltese journalist] At the time of her death she was facing 47 libel actions. In Malta weirdly you can still sue the dead so the corpse and its family are still facing 30 or so libel suits"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Keep America Great - "[On the caravan] He wasn't about to accept the offer of asylum the Mexican government had made overnight. It would be like being in prison, he said, of the stipulation that the migrants had to remain in the southern Mexican states of Chiapas or Oaxaca while their applications were being processed. For that he figured he may as well keep going and apply for asylum in the United States instead"
I guess if you don't need to fear for your life, you can choose your country

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The Next Move - "Even today, my audioguide explained, the mustache carries with it a symbolism of what it means to be a Rajput, a fierce and proud warrior. This, it seems, has permeated through Indian society. Many men may still hold on to traditional notions that the mustache carries connotations of masculinity and power. As I leave the grounds I pass a few of the palace workers, all with mustaches themselves. Some years ago in the southern states of Madhya Pradesh, police were officially encouraged to grow mustaches to confer command respect and honor, but there is a darker side. Last year lower caste men in Gujarat were beaten up by Rajput men for simply sporting mustaches it was reported. The argument of the assailants it said was that they believed the right to have a mustache was the sole preserve of the upper caste martial clan"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Nationalists and Patriots - "[On educational graffiti on pavements] They chose to paint on pavements rather than walls because people today walk looking down at their smartphones. I'd seen it done outside some shops in Milan and noticed how it captured people's attention he explains, so last year they tested the idea outside schools. We did graffiti featuring maths formulae, like an advertising campaign for revision. Everyone liked it a lot but unfortunately we didn't think about social media. But this year they did. With phone in hand passers by already perfectly positioned to snap and post"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, From Our Home Correspondent 18/11/2018 - "This intergenerational group has sprung from the vision of nursery director Judith Ish-Horowicz… Concerned that the very young and the very old were having almost no contact in 21st century Britain she cooked up this extraordinary fusion project, convinced that the two seemingly disparate groups had much to offer the other. Judith tells me how she's watched the children develop social skills way beyond their years and a touching empathy. She's been astonished to see how the little ones have adapted their movements around their elderly friends to make sure they don't knock over a Zimmer frame or kick away a cane with boisterous play. In turn, the geriatric play group members have found not only new energy, but a new purpose. A care home can be a lonely, isolating place Judith reminds me, but when you know you're spending the morning teaching reading or numeracy skills to a small child, well, you've got a social use again. It's called creating a community she explains"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Irish Abortion Referendum - "Watching the Irish referendum campaign from the outside, I was struck by how little discussion of abortion as an act, as a medical or scientific reality there really was. It was conducted almost entirely at the emotional level... The problem is, when you say that, history only moves one way, progress only looks like one thing. It's okay for people to make this kind of decision to repeal the Eighth Amendment. But if you look at another country like Poland, which is moving towards a less and less happy settlement on abortion, then that's anti progress, and that's bad, even though that might be the settled democratic will of the people"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Cold War 2.0? - "People don't go to Russia seeking asylum in the same way that they do come to Britain. There is actually a moral difference here...
At one point we were talking about, arguing about whether NATO would really have gone up to Russia’s borders… And then someone saying, well, they opened an office in Ukraine. Well there’s a big difference between opening an office in a country and invading it... the [arguments] that say you did this, and that's why Putin is behaving in this monstrous way."

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, The Morality of Big Data - "‘What you're basically saying is that there's a group of people who’ve decided that there's a good use of the manipulation of big data for nice medical ends, but not in other instances. That's nerve racking, because I was bemused about the fact that the data mining techniques we used in the Obama campaign, and he was called hip and modern. And when Labor did it in the last election, everyone was saying, oh, that's what we need to be - a digital new party. And then now suddenly, data sharing and big data manipulation is not a good thing. It's bad. Why? Because apparently it led to the terrible Brexit outcome and so on and so forth'"

The Independent - Posts - "White influencers are being accused of using makeup to 'pretend to be black'"
Comments: "Is it worrying? I mean, who is worried? Syria, worrying. Climate change, worrying. Plastic in oceans, worrying. US new alignment with dictatorships, worrying. Refugee crisis, worrying. Ongoing poverty & starvation etc, worrying. White women taking selfies with the wrong shade of makeup, distinctly not worrying."
"So using white makeup is white privilege, using darker make-up is blackfishing, getting tan is insulting to the aborigen people, get you hair straight is coping asian culture, if I draw a black point on my chin Marie Antoniette will come from the ground telling me I'm fking coping the french beauty, if i do rasta i'll be insulting rastafarian and doing afro hair i'm coping africa hair, if I place a pair of cat ears my cat will come to smash my face accusing me of cat fishing. And I can go on and on."
"Well i guess we should get offended by Geisha make up and clowns and any black person lightening their skin, or straightening their hair..??"
"Does Michael Jackson fall into the category for white fishing ?"
"First there is criticism that western beauty standards are too white. Then when people recognise the beauty of black women and wish to emulate that beauty, it’s not appropriate and comes from a place of white privilege. Perhaps I’m ignorant but acknowledging the beauty of women from different backgrounds to ourselves is surely a good thing?" [Ed: This is a good argument against "cultural appropriation" too, especially when it's concurrent with demands for representation/inclusivity]
"What about those who get a tan? Are they ‘brownfishing’? 🤦"
"idiotfishing is a more worrying trend people online pretending to have a valid point."
" Stop.Seriously.No one cares. For people who are supposedly about letting people be what they identify as--- they seem to be awfully intolerant of people who do exactly that."
"Why is this a problem ? If it acceptable nowadays for men to wear make up and women wear trousers, why is this even being talked about ?"
"What about the Indy masquerading as journalists?"
"Everyone should mind their business.And let people be."
"Say 20 years ago when I was 17, I wore clothes that would be considered as ‘black fashion’ because I liked then or liked celebrities that wore them. I wouldn’t have been accused of culturally appropriating I’d have just looked silly (because they didn’t suite me) and move on. Nowadays the world is up in arms"
"So no ones gonna wear a blond wig anymore ?"
"Whatever happened to "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" ?"
"What about these who use lightening cream to get light or white colour? Are they brownfishing?"
This suggests that some people just want to get offended at anything they can

Walter Ralegh: enemy of the state - History Extra - "Did she love him? Did they love each other? I think, I think I've ended up describing as an eroticized political relationship rather than a political erotic relationship. And that isn't just hair splitting. It's amazing, I mean I wish, I wish I had a fiver for very time I'm asked did he have sex with Elizabeth?... I'm pretty sure no, why would she risk it? But she was attracted by the man and he got away with things that other people couldn't because of his charm and his charisma and we're back to the thing about his truth telling. His lack of conventional deferrence in some ways... Though he wrote an awful lot of stuff, it's not the stuff we now read, I think my mom, you know, being educated in the 30s, 40s, was the last generation to be forced to read those big thick Decline of the Roman Empire, Macaulay things and indeed the History of the World."

Dan Snow on shell shock - History Extra - "The symptoms manifest themselves in various different ways. But they could be an aversion to loud noise and very bright light… artillery, high explosives, supersonic shards of razor sharp steel flying through the air, shrapnel... but also the issues around movement and I don't know if people have ever seen the video archive of people with shell shock. But they have very spasmodic movements, they went very stiff, they walked in a very pronounced way. And what's really weird is that the people I talked to say that no one can really explain why those were the symptoms of psychiatric shock in the first, in the early part of the 20th century. And now people who have battle fatigue, battle shock, PTSD don't seem to exhibit those. The only reason that they could give me... it's a kind of cultural response. So people who suffered a psychiatric wound had perhaps seen or seen film, seen something on the stage with jerky movements, with inability to control ones’ limbs and that leads to, that started to manifest itself through their trauma. And what's really interesting is that now today it takes the form of flashbacks and people think it's because in Hollywood when you see traumatized former veterans and Vietnam war films, or other ones, they have, they suffer from flashbacks, a disturbed sleep and things. So it is that the symptoms of the profound psychiatric damage that people were sustaining do seem to be dependent on the culture in which they exist at the time...
When I've met veterans, they tend to tell you the good stories… when you’re meeting a D Day veteran, it’s a kind self censored group, isn't it? Because the D Day veteran who wants to talk about D Day is probably one who's going to have had better experiences"

Tim Pool on Twitter - "2011: Facebook is allowing citizens in the Arab world to express genuine grievances with their governments and seek reform.
2018: Facebook caused the riots in France, not widespread anger over taxes cut for the wealthy and tax increases for the working class"

Lucas Lynch - Victims of anti-semitism in Europe describe the... - "Victims of anti-semitism in Europe describe the perpetrators of such crimes against them.
51% of perpetrators are described as having a "Muslim extremist" view or a "left-wing political view."
"Far-right political view" clocks in at only 13%, "Christian extremist view" at 5%."
12 country average: 30% are Muslim extremists, 21% are left wingers

Meme - "Tired Of Waking Up To Take Medication? Learn Braille"
"You shouldn't learn braille if you aren't blind it's rude Go die"
"deer diary today i got a death threat for learning a language"

Imam Tawhidi - Posts - "Dear liberals and leftists. There are only two genders: Male and female, nothing else. Because I’m a Muslim and the Quran says so. If you attack me, then you’re a hateful Islamophobe according to your own laws and logic."

Quartz - Posts - "When it comes to pushing for gender equality, small actions can make a big difference. Five simple ways to be a better male ally"
Comment: "So work a little less hard so that women can have an advantage? Hilarious. I dont see how any woman can be on board with this."
" By JP Morgan Chase. Seriously, if you look for author, that's all you find."
"Male allies, because strong independent women need all the reassurance, favors, and help from men that they can get."

Study: Maximizing grain yields won't meet future African needs - "Even if sub-Saharan yields continue rising at the rate they have over the last quarter-century, the region’s existing farmland would still produce only between a third and half of the grain needed in 2050"
Surprisingly they didn't blame colonialism

The Hawaiian seals with eels up their noses are baffling scientists - "The picture - taken this year in the remote north-western Hawaiian islands - has gone viral, drawing attention to a rare phenomenon that continues to baffle scientists who are now begging the endangered seals to "make better choices"."

Why are there no Muslims in some sectors of the Singapore Army and Navy?

Why are there no Muslims in some sectors of the Singapore Army and Navy? - Quora

J Cheng: "During the communal riots, the partiality of the army was in question. There are reports of soldiers siding with the Malays. The situation was so dire that bodies of victims were painted black to prevent identification of their race. There are also stories of how soldier forced doctors to treat Malays instead of Chinese at gun point! In response, the British, confined these units to barracks and brought in the 5th Gurka Rifles from Hong Kong to patrol the streets. This restored order in Singapore and Malaya."


Terence Helikaon Nunis: "Singapore’s SAF does not discriminate against the Muslims. We have a lot of Muslims in sensitive positions. I am, myself, a Muslim convert, and I have never felt that I lacked opportunities because of my religion. The issue was Malays, for historical reasons. The real reason why there were no Malays in much of the SAF is not found in our history books. It is no longer classified, but it is a forgotten episode, just like much of the events during the period of our Separation from Malaysia and the Konfrontasi. For those interested, there are people around who lived during that period, and were there when it happened, although all of them are very old. Or, they could look through the archives, and wade through old reports.

When Singapore separated from Malaysia, the divorce was painful. In the election prior, when the PAP campaigned in Malaysia for a “Malaysian Malaysia”, instead of a “Malay Malaysia”, UMNO were outraged and played the race and religion card.

The main instigator was Syed Jaafar Albar, the so-called “Lion of UMNO”. He was a radical Malay supremacist, despite the fact that he was clearly Yemeni Arab, and not Malay. He was vehemently against Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, and resigned as secretary-general of UMNO in protest. He went as far as to advocate that Malaysia militarily occupy Singapore.

At the time of Separation, almost half of the troops based here were from Malaysia. When the British gave control of the various units to Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, they neglected to consider that the units were recruited from all over the Malay Peninsula. We had Singapore-born Malays and Malaysian-born Malays in the armed forces and the police.

The 4th Malaysian Infantry Brigade consisted of two infantry regiments of about 1,000 soldiers each. Just over half of them were Malaysian, and they had divided loyalties. They were commanded by Brigadier-General Syed Mohamed Alsagoff, a relative of Syed Albar, and another Yemeni Arab. To say that he did not get along with Lee Kuan Yew is to put it mildly. He claimed it was a joke when he told Lee Kuan Yew that he could have had the PAP leaders arrested and shot. Lee Kuan Yew and his family moved out of the Istana and borrowed the Gurkha Regiment to guard them.

The Malaysian troops, all ethnic Malays, mutinied. Just over half of them supported Malaysia. One of the Singapore officers was killed. It was Col. Alkaff, BG Alsagoff’s cousin, who negotiated a withdrawal of the Malaysian troops. The 4th Malaysian Infantry Brigade withdrew from Singapore by November of 1967. The murderers of the Singapore officer were arrested. Two were hanged, and the others were only released from detention a decade or so ago.

As a consequence, Lee Kuan Yew used the Land Acquisition Act to dismantle the Alsagoff family landholdings in Singapore. Conscription was instituted, but no Malays were conscripted at first. The reconstituted Commandos, once dominated by Malays, now had none. The Singaporean Malay officers and NCOs, even though they did not mutiny, were either never promoted or were let go. This included the entire ethnic Malay cohort of officer cadets. And of course, Singapore invited a few countries to come and train our soldiers. Only Israel accepted. They stood by us when we had nothing, and we do not forget our friends.

Over the decades, that has slowly been eased. One of the reasons is because we have forged our own destiny as a nation, and there is no longer any real reason for us to doubt Singaporean Malays. This generation should no longer pay for the sins of a generation that has almost died out. Even the Malay community is ignorant of this. Another reason is that due to the low fertility, we need every Singaporean, every citizen counts. We cannot disregard qualified people simply on the lottery of birth. Now, even madrasah students have to serve National Service, which should be seen as a sign that they are trusted to serve their country.

Will we have Malay commandos? We already do. Malay fighter pilots? We have one, and I still remember that there was a huge discussion behind the scenes about whether we could trust him. Common sense prevailed. One of the reasons we do not have more Malay pilots is simply because they fail the selection test - particularly the mathematics test. We have Malays in many sensitive positions, from SIGINT to MINDEF itself. As long as you are qualified and determined enough, the SAF will take you, regardless of race or religion.

We do not have Muslims on naval vessels, but that is due to logistics, not religious discrimination. RSN’s policy is to not have vegetarians, Hindus who do not eat beef, or people who have any sort of food allergies. Our naval assets are meant to be ready for extended deployment. We do not have the luxury of stopping in the middle of a war to look for halal food. In any case, I personally do not condone this exceptionalism and religiosity."


Daniel Tan: "If it’s any comfort to you, though, the army places similar scrutiny on anyone with foreign relatives, has lived overseas for a long time or is otherwise “suspicious”. Such people are generally not allowed into sensitive divisions like Intelligence or Armour."


Weili Chiu: "During my national service, When I served as assistant manpower officer at headquarters singapore combat Engineers in 1996, I discovered that SAF has a manpower code for Muslims. It is ‘02’. ‘02’ personnel then were not allowed in the combat Engineers as it was deemed a sensitive unit. At that time, an Indian conscript declared himself a Muslim half way during a combat Engineers course. He had to be removed from the course as a result, due to his ‘02’ code. That was 1996, I am not sure if the situation is the same now."

Links - 19th February 2019 (1)

Captain Marvel Movie In Trouble? Drops Whopping 80M - "I previously wrote how Brie Larson is a huge gamble for Disney and Kevin Feige - especially following the failure of Star Wars: The Last Jedi - and now the Captain Marvel movie looks to be in big, big trouble, unfortunately.Back in January, following the NCAA trailer, it was reported that Captain Marvel was projected to have a massive $160 million opening weekend with some estimates even offering $180 million.However, the bad news for Kevin Feige and Captain Marvel is that those projections have now dropped upwards of $80 million (note: article has been updated to reflect million and not percent), as it is reported the flick may only open around $100 million... There is also a huge problem with Brie Larson who has been spinning Captain Marvel as a feminist movie, essentially isolating the audience, and she even recently came out against white males for some reason. I'm actually surprised and disappointed in Kevin Feige that he is allowing Larson to destroy the MCU audience, and that Disney and CEO Bob Iger haven't learned anything from Star Wars. It's never a good thing to split the audience or insult them. Do they not want white males to go see the movie? As I have been tweeting and responding to fans, the storyline surrounding the character is also cause for concern - something Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo have recently responded to - as the character's movie is not even out and already she is said to be this overpowerful character, the new face of the MCU, reason for the formation of the Avengers, new leader of the Avengers, etc. The same arguments apply to any male character as well, as Feige is retconning Captain Marvel as a be all end all character in the MCU, which is coming off as more and more ridiculous, especially as Larson does more and more interviews (with non-white males, because why - white males are bad?? Larson does realize her bosses are white males, right? Guess that didn't come into question when she signed her $5 million deal for Captain Marvel and her 7-picture MCU deal, right? Is Larson buying any young underprivileged girls tickets with that multi-million dollar contract??). Disney, Feige and Marvel Studios could be banking on having a zombie audience that will simply go see all their movies no matter what is said or how good they are; however, that scenario has been played out with the aforementioned Disney Star Wars movies and also Marvel Comics. As a result of The Last Jedi, Disney has put the movies on hiatus for what looks to be at least another two years (no movies are coming out after Episode IX that have been announced). Regarding Marvel Comics, the past seven years or so saw them insult fans and force characters onto fans - all shades of what is happening with Captain Marvel - which backfired big time for Disney as executives were fired and sales are dwindling (it's so bad that Disney's consumer products, which includes Star Wars and Marvel Comics, is the only division at the company to have reported a loss). So will the same happen with the MCU?"
Who knew, after Ghostbusters 2016 and The Last Jedi, that insulting your customers was a bad marketing strategy?

Blood Sword by Dave Morris — Kickstarter - "When I edited the series for republication in 2014, it soon became clear that the last book was going to take a lot more effort. The original ‘80s version suffered from having multiple authors working with different themes and tones. Worse, there had been minimal editorial oversight. The tactical maps were printed far too small to be usable, character abilities had been forgotten, and there were missing numbers that made the book almost unplayable. So I re-released books one through four and put the last one aside as a project to return to when I had a chunk of spare time. A BIG chunk. And that’s what this Kickstarter is about."

Ramadan: Woman attacked by Muslim on bus for wearing shorts in video - "University student Melisa Saglam was travelling on a bus in Istanbul, Turkey, when Ercan Kiziltas allegedly said to her: "Are you not ashamed to dress this way during Ramadan?"CCTV footage showed the man sitting at the back of the bus before standing and slapping her in the face.Enraged, she got up and attempted to retaliate, but Kiziltas violently wrestled with her before running out of the open doors and leaving her on the bus."

A Week In Xinjiang's Absolute Surveillance State - "we got into the city and reality started to set in. The reports aren’t fake news. It’s all quite true"

Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley - History Extra - "[On Queen Victoria] In his will, he unusually left the guardianship of his daughter to the mother, because clearly he loved and trusted her. And normally the guardianship of the heir to the throne would have gone to the present incumbent. And you see this in the 18th century, sometimes kings take away their grandchildren from the control of their actual parents, because they want to bring them up according to what they think is the right royal way to do it. So Victoria was not, she didn't come out of the royal factory...
They always commented, well, many of them commented on her excellent figure. And one American gentleman said that her bust, like that of most English women is very good...
I think that widowhood suited many Victorian women to an extent, because it was the time in your life when, for the first time you were free of the power of your father and then of your husband, it was liberating. And I love the idea that there're all these Victorian widows dressed in black sort of hiding in plain sight, what new freedoms they were experiencing... It seems weird to us that they did this devotion to the black, but I can also see a lot of advantages in it. Firstly, you didn't have to dress for fashion anymore, you could dress totally for comfort. And secondly, it signals to everybody that you are bereaved, and therefore deserved special consideration. Today, when someone's bereaved, we don't know, do we, they're expected to act normally, to try to get over it, to come back to normal life. And it's sort of healthier in a way to show it so that it can be recognized and they can be treated accordingly. And also, in Victoria's case, the black wearing, it was the most fantastic visual branding. Everybody knew exactly what the Queen looked like, because she always looked the same...
Part of the reason that a lot of obsession takes place about these relationships [with men] is because of the Victorian medical understanding of what would happen to a woman going through the menopause and if you read the medical manuals, it is hinted that she will become a sex maniac, it's just going to happen, there's no escape from it. So that's why people are so prudently interested in whatever she did or didn't do it with John Brown"

Brexit and American independence - History Extra - "Loyalists... at least a third of people living in North America weren’t in favor of independence in the first place... there's plenty of good arguments for why you wouldn't want to leave the British Empire. The most important one is trade - exactly the same with the European situation. By far, the biggest trading partner for North American colonies was Britain and its empire, including its Caribbean colonies. Quite a lot of that trade is done illicitly. And of course, Americans who favor independence think well, we can just basically carry on doing what we've been doing and now we’ll have the opportunity to negotiate trade treaties with everyone else as well. Now we’ll be able to trade with Spain, we’ll be able to trade with France, it'll be great, very much like, you know, the Liam Fox School of Brexit, right?... most of the more realistic American politicians, American thinkers are looking at the situation and thinking with some worry, you know, how exactly are things going to work after we leave this trade bloc the British Empire which has been so crucial to creating prosperity in America up till now?… the most optimistic ones think that if Britain really knows what's good for it, they will continue to trade with America after independence"

The end of the First World War - History Extra - "The First World War has suffered in many ways in terms of it's sort of image if I can put it that way because it’s succeeded by the Second World War and in the Second World War it's very easy to come up with some binary opposites. The Nazis are wholly evil, in comparisons the Allies are good. Of course it’s a lot more complex than that, but that's the way it's often sold. Particularly if you're talking just about the British context. Britain against Germany, Churchill against Hitler. In the First World War things are more complex. The Imperial German state was brutal, aggressive, militaristic, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the Nazi state. It was bad enough, but it pales into insignificance in comparison to the Nazi state... We should not just remember the day, we should also remember those who came home however. Something like 89% of all British soldiers who went off to war came back again... we’re sort of airbrushing those who came back out of our commemoration of the First World War...
The war poets have a completely valid view of the war as individuals. But we should not imagine that their view was shared by every single British soldier or indeed, even the majority of British soldiers"

Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom - History Extra - "If a book comes out, which is a huge, tremendous success, 50 Shades of Grey, and then every publisher is dreading the moment when they're going to get a book which is called 51 shades of taupe or whatever...
Look, nobody forced me to become a writer. I'm tired of people saying: oh god, it's difficult, you know, writer's block. It's so hard. As if somebody put a gun to their head and said you will no longer be a bank clerk, you will no longer be a chartered accountant. You're going to be a writer. Oh, no. Please. No, no. It's a huge privilege. I spend my days telling stories. I make up people. I invent their lives. I am, dictate their fates. I give them love affairs. It's wonderful. It's, it's, it's amazing. You hear their conversations in your head when you go to bed at night. You can hear them talking to each other...
[If the Norman invasion had failed and England had continued to develop] Oddly enough, I don't think it would have been that much different. Because what you have with the Norman invasion, you, you've obviously got a new ruling class coming in that speaks a different language and is going to go on speaking that language for 400 years. But there comes a moment in the 14th and 15th centuries, where, where that ruling class begins to understand that if they're going to stay on top, they need these people underneath, which is the Hundred Years War. The longbow, and I mean, 1415 the year of Agincourt, I might be wrong about this, was the first year that English was used in the law courts. And suddenly if you like, it's taken them a long time. But the Anglo Normans have gone native. It might have been a nicer country, I mean, in the sense that I think that the Saxons had a greater sense of social justice. But the in the end that came back, I mean, in the end, the Saxons won. We won. You know, we assimilated the Normans and we civilized them. So I think in the end, it probably wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference."

Tales from D-Day - History Extra - "Rommel, who is in charge of the defence of the whole of Northern France, he had said right from the beginning, that if we don't defeat the allies on the day itself, the day of the invasion, then we've lost the war. He was quite categorical about that, and he knew that to defeat the Allies you had to get them when they were still on the beaches. These men were inexperienced, and they were very, very seasick when they landed, and so he wanted to attack them when they were on the beach. To do that he needed his elite divisions, the SS Panzer divisions who were stationed inland. Now, unfortunately for Rommel, they could only be released into the battle by Hitler himself, and Hitler was fast asleep, way away away in Bavaria. He’d taken a sleeping tablet, and no one dared to wake him. So it was not until after midday that finally they got permission to use the Panzer divisions and really I think that delay was absolutely crucial in the Allies being able to get ashore."

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Not Just a Rich White Woman’s Problem - "‘Do you think it's important that black South Africans with eating disorders can speak to black psychologists?’
‘What we know about therapy is that if a good relationship can be established any, any person talking to anyone from any race, you know, can find to be beneficial. But you do find patients often asking for same race therapists.’...
‘The exposure to Western culture is something that seems to influence the likelihood of one developing an eating disorder’…
‘But eating disorders aren't just about being thin, are they? Some of the people we’ve spoken to on this program have been really keen to emphasise that that is not what triggered their eating disorder.’...
‘A lot of patients will talk about different things around trying to control what feels external, like a very chaotic outside world. Being able to live independently without other relationships because people disappoint you and hurt you.’...
Some doctors are wary of putting too much emphasis on influence from the west when we talk about eating disorders in Africa...
‘Sometimes the attitudes that are held by the rest of the world is that they are not able to fully accept or see someone even from a rural part of an African country or just anyone from that part of the world as a fully whole and complex human being’"
Presumably it's good for blacks to ask for black psychologists, but not for whites to ask for white ones

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Aristocrats and Archaeo-Food Nerds - "‘I think it is absolutely impossible to recreate the taste of the past. We've altered genetic stock by crossbreeding. We've altered flavorings by changing the chemicals behind them, and using different techniques to synthesize different tastes. The atmosphere has changed, that's absorbed by plants and nutrients. We've bred animals to remove the fat content. Probably the only thing you can get that tastes the same is water. If you could defrost a glacier from the right deposit layer.'...
[The Romans’] flavor profiles were very, very bold, they used a lot of wine, they reduced a lot of wine in their cooking, so there's a pungent flavor. To some of their cooking they used a particular condiment called garum, a fermented fish sauce. It's like a salt component that they used to flavor their food, almost like an MSG. But they would also use this type of sauce in their sweets as well, or in their desserts...
Even 100 or 150 years ago people had massive respect for the food. The social media process, it's very dangerous. There the food started to looks absolutely the same in Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Tokyo at the same time. So we need to protect not just the flavors but also traditional of aesthetics as well, especially this time when food chains around the world looks completely the same. Keeping our heritage, knowledge about the product, cooking process, whole cultural aspects of food, it's probably more important than even in the past right now"