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EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you an evening longread to enjoy. With the news cycle dominated by the coronavirus situation, we know it can be hard to take your mind off what’s happening.
So we want to bring you an interesting read every weekday evening to help transport you somewhere else.
We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.
While we’re all spending a lot more time indoors, some of us are turning to bread baking as a way of distracting ourselves (or showing our family love). Meet the people obsessed with bread baking.
(The Guardian, approx 20 mins reading time)
But in the past couple of decades, new movements have begun to challenge the prevailing food culture. In the early 2000s, activist and journalist Michael Pollan wrote about how what we eat had lost its link with the land and the farmer. Leading the revolt against processed food, in 2010, Pollan came up with the line that became a catchphrase: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food.” Dan Barber, a chef on a mission to bring back the links between sustainable farming and taste and nutrition, delivered a Ted Talk in 2008 in which he described modern industrial agriculture as “an insult to the basic laws of nature”. He and others have popularised the farm-to-table movement that is changing people’s eating habits, encouraging farmers to grow varieties for deliciousness over yield, efficiency of transport and shelf life.
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Good man Hugh. Can I suggest that you circulate this to some of your younger colleagues who have posted articles over the past few days which have suggested that the fans were responsible for this tragedy.
Hi Eamonn, can you give me any specific examples here?
@ Hugh. Sure, check out an article posted 22 hours ago in the Score section. The original wording was amended after I pointed out the facts of the Taylor Report but in the discussion below the article the writer repeats the assertion that " fan irresponsibility" was the cause of the tragedy. This is totally untrue. The Taylor Report clearly states poor crowd management and Stadium design as the key factors. Thanks Hugh.
@Eamonn: I understand this is a highly emotive subject, and I accept your point re:the ambiguity of the original wording, but your claim that I blamed the actions of fans for the tragedy is grossly inaccurate. I think if you re-read my comment, you’ll see that’s the case.
The significance of the Commons debate lay in its attempt to dispel the myth of fan irresponsibility once and for all, bringing the official, government narrative in line with the experience of supporters and victims. The PM is contemplating a public apology because that never really happened, even in the wake of the Taylor Report.
@ Conor. My concern is that comments like “The question of official blame, however, has historically been reduced to one of fan irresponsibility” is just simply untrue and unfortunately, only helps perpetuate the myth. I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to read this. This is totally at odds with the only official inquiry into the events leading up to the tragedy. That’s my point, nothing personal. Over and out. Thanks Conor.
Another of Thatcher’s legacies.
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