Stokes’ Fig Relish is what Branston Pickle would taste like if Branston Pickle tasted EXTRA nice. Sweet, sticky, smoky, crunchy, chewy, tart. All of the flavours and textures in one tiny jar of glory. Buy and try. You will not regret it.
Two things happened today. Firstly I saw a picture of the once supremely handsome (now vegan) Robert Downey Jr looking old, grey, and dusty as fuck; secondly, I realised that I can hang off callisthenic bars using one arm, including my bad arm/shoulder. This was previously completely impossible due to my shoulder injury. Both of these observations are related to diet. I turned vegetarian at the age of 13 or so for ethical reasons. I made the connection between the (delicious) lamb chops on my dinner plate, and the cute, fluffy lambs I would bottle feed in the spring time at my dad’s mate’s farm. I just couldn’t eat them anymore. I stayed vegetarian until I was in my mid-30s, after which I started eating some fish and meat as my health was clearly suffering as a result of spiralling food intolerances and allergies and the beginnings of IBS. (Side note,
Many things in life baffle me. Things like: why do people participate in a global capitalist system doing shit jobs they hate for a system which does not benefit them? Why do so many people wear such ugly shoes? Why are there no truly revolutionary people living in the UK? Why do so many women look like drag queens nowadays? Why does no-one care about (data) privacy? All baffling stuff. However, the Truly Baffling Thing which has occupied my thoughts most frequently over the last two years is: why, in the midst of a global pandemic which is disproportionately affecting the metabolically unhealthy, are people not making an effort to get healthy? Genuinely and truly baffling. It’s almost like people want to be ill and/or at risk.
As I have said elsewhere, and as should be evident from the fact that I am also a Personal Trainer, I care very much about my health and have approached it proactively since I was young. Thankfully, I seem to have some kind of innate orientation towards wellness and have always understood that to be well meant to actively work towards health in a continuous sense. Wellness and health have always been a journey for me, something I seek, and in seeking, largely achieve. In large part I think this orientation is because I have several chronic diseases – asthma, a very serious and rare form of eczema, and hay fever – which modern medicine can’t really do anything about. As such, I have had to learn how to minimise and control the symptoms of the diseases I am forced to live with. I have tried to do this, as much