The Thamesmead Grump

free the yeovil one

That champion of free speech, defender of white supremacy and all round hero of Britishness, Joshua Bonehill-Paine has been arrested and thrown in jail after promoting an anti-Jewish demonstration in Golder's Green organised by the "New Dawn Party".

Remember, without Joshua working tirelessly for freedom of political expression through his website "The Daily Bale", we would never have known about the kidnapping of that poor child, Amy Hamilton from a shopping centre in Croydon; we would never have learned that a pub in Leicester had banned armed forces members in case it offended immigrants; nor would we have been able to prevent bodies being dug up out of a Church in Wiltshire so it could be turned into a Mosque.

The Police, obviously with nothing better to do than persecute innocent people have decided that just because Joshua is already subject to a suspended prison sentence for incitement of racial hatred of a Member of Parliament, they would lock him up.

Surely, it is time for the voice of the people to be heard. Write to your MP now and demand his immediate release.

the cider revolution

Once upon a time, cider was drunk out of large plastic bottles by men (and sometimes women) sitting on park benches and by 13 year olds in bus shelters. These people were not considered to be much of a fashion icon so cider drinking was, by association, not very fashionable to drink.

This all changed around 10 years ago when the cider producer HP Bulmer launched a very slick and professional advertising campaign, offering a premium product under the Magner's name which the company owned. The commercial showed an idealised bucolic, pastoral Irish scene in which what were clearly not the park bench fraternity sampling the delights of "Magner's Real Irish Cider". 

Visions of the "in crowd" gently pouring the golden (and therefore very healthy) drink into glasses over ice, with fields of golden corn, rolling hills and wildflowers in the background appealed to the young, fashion and health conscious, modern drinker who was beginning to suspect that alcopops were going dreadfully down market and needed something to replace them.

Suddenly, cider became this ideal replacement and you can now drink the stuff without being expected to shout at buses going past, going to the lavatory in your trousers; or, worse still, finding a grown-up to buy it for you.

While the Magner's/Bulmer's revolution is little more than a demonstration of the power of advertising, it has had a surprising knock on effect.

There has always been a small cottage industry, turning out specialist ciders which would usually be found on sale at country fairs, farmer's markets and the like. Now, they can't make the stuff fast enough. My local supermarket has a whole wall dedicated to them with names like Merrydown Medium Vintage, Thundering Molly, Old Rosie Cloudy Cider and Suffolk Premier Cru.

It's ironic that the traditional cider crowd who take great pains to slag off commercial products like Magner's and Bulmer's actually benefit from the big companies making their product more popular.