Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

Are you talking individually or collectively?:D

I and a lot on here are still poor but not quite as bad as you mentioned.

I think DW said the true Britons who were Celtic, ended up in Wales. There so much Latin within the Welsh language because of the Roman occupation. So the Celtics were so more advanced because of the Roman occupation and they considered the Anglo Saxons to be barbaric when they came to England.

History was not a subject I liked, in school, but now I am!;) I loved geography.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

My DW GF worked for General Electric which was union job and they were able to take people in during the depression. They were good Catholics and they owned their own home free and clear. Her GM was a companion to Helen Keller in Massachusetts and before that she took care of the disabled Kennedy child.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

Collectively. There is a HUGE difference between being poor now and being poor then and I meant that as a society we have come a long way.

My family didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, but we always had food, we had a car (even though it was second-hand), we had a television - we had luxuries that those poor immigrants living 30 to a tiny house couldn't even have imagined. You do too. Unless you walk 8 miles each way to work 12 hours a day laboring on a farm while your wife lines up for poor law help, you're rich compared to my ggg grandfather :)

My point was that society has come a long way from those days thanks to unions and labor laws. My gg grandfather was just one example of how it happened.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

I think I was trying to agree with you.

So true about our conditions today. I think I was talking tongue in cheek.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

I never liked history in school either and barely squeaked by on my GCE in that subject. :( But, like you, I now find it really interesting. I am particularly interested in the Celts and pre-Roman history. DW is right. The Celts originated in Northern India, spread throughout Europe and the British Isles, being driven back by those pesky Romans until their last outposts were Cornwall, Northern Wales (Anglesey), Scotland and Ireland. I wish I had paid more attention when we studied Caesar's Gallic Wars (in Latin - yeuch :blink: !) Problem was they existed as individual tribes and did not operate as a cohesive unit.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
 

That's fascinating :thumbup:.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

pescatarian is a new word on me. french word for fish is "peche" so can see link. I am sure somebody will call me hypocrite but can't stand Red Lobster. Folks eat like it's a seafood orgy cracking and hammering at crab legs etc. Ugh..

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Yes I'm the same. I can't even watch people fishing on TV because it's so cruel and yet here I am eating fish. I stay away from dairy too most of the time. But I try hard to eat a healthy, low fat diet and it's even harder to do that without sea food, but I hope eventually I'll find a way to give that up too.

I don't miss meat at all - in fact, if I ever had to eat it, I'm pretty sure I'd be sick. There's really no difference between meat and fish so I don't know why I can't go the whole hog.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I had read that PETA is funding bio-engineered (think thats what it's called) meat, sort of like growing fake skin and organs in the lab. Might be hope there. If I was a better cook it would really help.
Sometimes I think I took to heart all the animated cartoons, movies and books where Bambi has a mom who is not just a lump of venison, that sort of thing. Even when I go to a 2nd hand shop and see abandoned soft toys I feel sad. Abandoned.....really? What a mess I am.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Just read this when reading about Steve Jobs, who is a pescetarian:
Turns out if you compare pescetarians with regular meat-eaters they have a 34% less chance of dying of heart disease. And if you compare vegetarians with meat eaters, they only have a 20% less chance of dying of heart disease.
However it doesn't help with the guilt.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

Hi all,
I was reading this with interest and have never joined in before because I am a guilt-free omnivore, who tries to eat organic, humanely slaughtered food though admittedly that is not always the case. But today I was pondering the guilt phenomenon and I realised that as a professional organic gardener, and a person who studies herbal medicine, who connects strongly with nature and the plant beings that I care for, for me there is really no difference. Plants are no less living beings than fish, animals and the like. Scientific research has detected the complex communication systems that plants have. They feel, they communicate both among themselves and with bees and other insects. After working as a gardener for a few years I noticed that my connection to their communication system was strengthened and that they would communicate their needs to me. When a client asks me to rip out a plant, I always do so with respect for the plant and will find it a new home rather than throw it on the compost heap though obviously I cannot do this with every weed, which is said to be a plant that isn't being used yet.
I recognise and respect the rights of each person to eat in the manner that feels right for them but do have a hard time with people who only consider the, often temporary, decorative value of a plant and have no recognition of the fact that they are living, breathing parts of nature.
I had a conversation with Dorothy Maclean (who started the Findhorn garden) about trees. I was feeling quite bad about taking down a tree to use for firewood and she said that it needs only to know that it is being useful within the scheme of things, i.e. it is far better to make sure that the tree is taken for a necessary use rather than just to be destroyed for no reason, or to clear to a burn pile. This is the way that I look at the places of humans, animals and plants in the total scheme of things. Just a perspective.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I absolutely understand your perspective. Back in the day, maybe 25 or 30 years ago, I was a vegetarian. For some reason I learned, or heard about plants taken on airplanes, and plants that they had grown up with were hooked up to some sort of sensors, and the plants left behind reacted when the planes took off or landed. I hope I made that clear. Anyway I thought, "who am I to judge the level of feeling among plants and animals. So I stopped being a vegetarian.
I still can't throw plants away, but I've come back to to a place where I can't endorse killing something that could be a pet. It's complicated. Just so much compromise. Gotta eat something.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

It's such a personal choice. The main thing is that we make that choice consciously and know what we are eating. Hopefully it is good live food filled with good nutrients and energy (she said with her box of Thornton's toffee on the desk :lol:).

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I've worked on a farm and I personally feel there is a definite difference between animals and plants. All the animals I ever knew had distinct personalities and I could no more eat them than I could eat my own pets. And when we eat vegetables, we don't kill the plant. When we eat apples, we don't kill the tree. When we eat meat, we take a life.

But I don't lecture other people - especially as I have my own fish issues. People can eat what they want as long as they don't make me join in.

Re: OVER 50's & 60's MOVING BACK TO THE UK-Silly Chit-Chat & Daily Catch-Up Thread
 

I'm fine with eating plants. Yeah, I tend to just cringe inside and not look at what other people are eating. Personal choice and just a matter of perspective, don't feel I should be judging anyone since I've so many faults myself.