• About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Awards
  • Classifieds
  • Login
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
Membership
Quota Media
Omnibuzz

Food systems news

Monday March 27 2023

Great minds think aloud

  • News
    • All
    • In the news
    • Features
    • Opinion
    eco-labels

    Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study

    The “Inflation Reduction Act” marks a new chapter for America’s climate policy. Pic: PA

    New US act encourages low-carbon purchases

    Economist chart: Sources: UN Comtrade; UN joint coordination centre; Ukrainian

    Nine cargo ships have left Ukraine

    Smog is so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

    The UN just declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment

    carbon-neutral eggs

    Hens fed insects to lay carbon-neutral eggs

    Oleksiy Vadatursky was worth $450m (£369m), according to a 2020 estimate by Forbes

    Ukraine grain tycoon killed in Russian shelling

    General Assembly Meets on Peacebuilding and Human Rights. Photo by UN

    UN right to a healthy environment “is ammunition for campaigners”

    Grain exports

    Ukraine war: Grain exports could restart ‘within days’

    Protests in Nairobi as Maasai activists deliver a petition to the Tanzania High Commission, in Kenya, 17 June 2022. EPA-EFE/Daniel Irungu

    In northern Tanzania, the government is trying to evict thousands of Maasai

    Dr Roberto Mukaro Agüeibaná Borrero uses air quotes: “Indigenous people are being kicked out to ‘protect’ the animals and land”

    Indigenous Peoples side lined at UN, opening the door to land grabs under 30×30

  • Business
  • Policy
  • Research
  • Sections
    • All
    • Retail
    • Data
    • Society
    • Environment
    • Economy
    • Health
    • Food Safety
    • Governance
    • Security
    • Sustainability
    • Agriculture
    • Rights
    • Tech
    eco-labels

    Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study

    The “Inflation Reduction Act” marks a new chapter for America’s climate policy. Pic: PA

    New US act encourages low-carbon purchases

    Economist chart: Sources: UN Comtrade; UN joint coordination centre; Ukrainian

    Nine cargo ships have left Ukraine

    Indigenous communities are raising awareness about how the proposed lithium mine at Peehee Mu'huh (Thacker Pass), NV, will impact their ancestral burial grounds, water resources, and wildlife. Photo by Chanda Callao/ @Peopleofredmountain.

    Free, prior and informed consent required as clean energy threatens Indigenous Peoples

    Smog is so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

    The UN just declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment

    carbon-neutral eggs

    Hens fed insects to lay carbon-neutral eggs

    Oleksiy Vadatursky was worth $450m (£369m), according to a 2020 estimate by Forbes

    Ukraine grain tycoon killed in Russian shelling

    General Assembly Meets on Peacebuilding and Human Rights. Photo by UN

    UN right to a healthy environment “is ammunition for campaigners”

    Grain exports

    Ukraine war: Grain exports could restart ‘within days’

    Trending Tags

    • Covid-19
    • UK
    • Retail
  • Comms unit
  • Shop
  • Events
  • News
    • All
    • In the news
    • Features
    • Opinion
    eco-labels

    Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study

    The “Inflation Reduction Act” marks a new chapter for America’s climate policy. Pic: PA

    New US act encourages low-carbon purchases

    Economist chart: Sources: UN Comtrade; UN joint coordination centre; Ukrainian

    Nine cargo ships have left Ukraine

    Smog is so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

    The UN just declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment

    carbon-neutral eggs

    Hens fed insects to lay carbon-neutral eggs

    Oleksiy Vadatursky was worth $450m (£369m), according to a 2020 estimate by Forbes

    Ukraine grain tycoon killed in Russian shelling

    General Assembly Meets on Peacebuilding and Human Rights. Photo by UN

    UN right to a healthy environment “is ammunition for campaigners”

    Grain exports

    Ukraine war: Grain exports could restart ‘within days’

    Protests in Nairobi as Maasai activists deliver a petition to the Tanzania High Commission, in Kenya, 17 June 2022. EPA-EFE/Daniel Irungu

    In northern Tanzania, the government is trying to evict thousands of Maasai

    Dr Roberto Mukaro Agüeibaná Borrero uses air quotes: “Indigenous people are being kicked out to ‘protect’ the animals and land”

    Indigenous Peoples side lined at UN, opening the door to land grabs under 30×30

  • Business
  • Policy
  • Research
  • Sections
    • All
    • Retail
    • Data
    • Society
    • Environment
    • Economy
    • Health
    • Food Safety
    • Governance
    • Security
    • Sustainability
    • Agriculture
    • Rights
    • Tech
    eco-labels

    Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study

    The “Inflation Reduction Act” marks a new chapter for America’s climate policy. Pic: PA

    New US act encourages low-carbon purchases

    Economist chart: Sources: UN Comtrade; UN joint coordination centre; Ukrainian

    Nine cargo ships have left Ukraine

    Indigenous communities are raising awareness about how the proposed lithium mine at Peehee Mu'huh (Thacker Pass), NV, will impact their ancestral burial grounds, water resources, and wildlife. Photo by Chanda Callao/ @Peopleofredmountain.

    Free, prior and informed consent required as clean energy threatens Indigenous Peoples

    Smog is so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

    The UN just declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment

    carbon-neutral eggs

    Hens fed insects to lay carbon-neutral eggs

    Oleksiy Vadatursky was worth $450m (£369m), according to a 2020 estimate by Forbes

    Ukraine grain tycoon killed in Russian shelling

    General Assembly Meets on Peacebuilding and Human Rights. Photo by UN

    UN right to a healthy environment “is ammunition for campaigners”

    Grain exports

    Ukraine war: Grain exports could restart ‘within days’

    Trending Tags

    • Covid-19
    • UK
    • Retail
  • Comms unit
  • Shop
  • Events
No Result
View All Result
Quota Media
No Result
View All Result
Home Topics Society

With the Local closed how are the locals doing?

London author Robert Wainwright is missing his pub and the neighbours it draws together

by Robert Wainwright
June 2, 2020
in Editor's picks, Business, Society, Opinion
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Robert Wainwright asks how the regulars are doing, now his local pub is closed

Pic: The Mirror/Getty images

182
SHARES
2k
VIEWS
Share on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Facebook

I went past my local the other day as I walked my dog as part of the lockdown exercise allowance. The Hermits Cave sits on a street corner with a curved glass façade from which, if you sit in the right place, you can see the action outside like a fishbowl.

Not today. The glass is shuttered, the bar silent and dark. I stop to peer through a gap, wondering if, as some on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group have suggested, that the licensee Brendan has been staging lockdown lock-ins with some of the liquor-hardened locals.

Nope. No sign of activity in the front bar where the stuffed wildebeest head stares down amid the array of weird displays that sit gathering a little more dust. I peer hard and confirm that the Knob Creek whiskey bottle, half full or half empty depending on your mood, hasn’t been touched.

No sign of Brendan either although it’s clear that someone is living upstairs because a window is open and the curtain flapping, as if dismissing the smells of human isolation. Imagine being trapped in a pub for six weeks. Sounds great but if you have no-one to share the cellar with then it must be dreary.

Technology has served a great purpose but human contact adds a dimension that is irreplaceable

I wonder how the friends I’ve made here are doing. After all, their routines have been taken away from them. Not just alcohol, which, let’s face it, is be a good thing for all of us in this period, but their social existence and habits that make them feel safe and relevant.

I text old Bob, the retired butcher who has the impressive achievement of having twice won an award in the annual best sausage in England competition and twice been the world oyster eating champion. He managed the latter feat in the mid 1980s, jamming dozens of shellfish down his craw washed down with litres of Guinness. You’d think he was the size of the house but the bloke is so skinny he has to run around the shower to get wet.

Bob leans on the bar five days a week from 4pm until 7pm, then takes the bus back home about a mile up the road. He works part-time at a city provedore and eats just one meal a day – lunch – which he discusses in detail and with relish when he buys your first drink. Bob answers my text by sending a video, a send-up of a Hitler being told that lockdown restrictions are being lifted but he won’t be able to go to the pub for a pint until August. He (Hitler) explodes in fury.

A couple of days later I meet little Nicky in the street as I am on my walk. Nicky could have been a jockey, wears a bandana beneath his cap and took care of his ageing father until he died last year. He goes to the pub a few times a week, first for a quiet pint – invariably Fosters – while he does the crossword. After this he looks for a political discussion, the more heated the better. He’s doing okay, he says, but the crosswords at home bore him stupid and there’s no-one to argue with now his Dad’s gone.

Pubs are not merely drinking holes but community hubs in a world that’s increasingly isolating

There are two sisters, Marie and Jenny, who stand at the other end of the bar. Jenny works locally and on the nights they meet, is usually in her spot just after 6. Marie comes a little later, after a bus ride from the city where she works in publishing. They chat and laugh for another hour or so and then head their separate ways.

The sisters haven’t seen each other for six weeks and it’s becoming a strain; their Zoom drinks a novelty that’s wearing thin. Technology has served a great purpose but human contact adds a dimension that is irreplaceable.

That’s the thing about pubs. They are not merely drinking holes but community hubs; places of conversation and understanding where you can be recognised and welcomed in a world that has become increasingly isolating.

Brendan is outside having a smoke. The late afternoon light is beautiful and normally the footpath outside his door is crammed with drinkers meeting friends or on their way to a nearby restaurant. But today it is empty as Brendan sucks on the stub and glances right and left as if waiting for customers to magically appear.

“How’s it going?” My question is stupid. Of course it’s not going well.

His response is kind: “I can manage. It’s the people who live alone and have nowhere else to go that I worry about.”

Sign up for Best of Quota
  Thank you for Signing Up
Please correct the marked field(s) below.
1,true,6,Contact Email,2 1,false,1,First Name,2 1,false,1,Last Name,2
Tags: UKHospitalityPubs
Previous Post

Stanley Tucci joins London poem for food

Next Post

Green investment must drive Covid economic recovery

Robert Wainwright

Robert Wainwright

Robert Wainwright has won a number of journalism awards, most notably as a three-time finalist in Australia's Walkley Awards. He is the author of 13 non-fiction books, and winner of the Times Biography of the Year prize 2017. Robert brought to life the characters behind Australia's iconic confectionary brand in Rocky Road: the incredible true story of the fractured family behind the Darrell Lea chocolate empire.

Next Post
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown joins leaders is saying the G20 must prioritise a green investment in the post-Covid economic recovery

Green investment must drive Covid economic recovery

Please login to join discussion

Editor's Picks

Indigenous communities are raising awareness about how the proposed lithium mine at Peehee Mu'huh (Thacker Pass), NV, will impact their ancestral burial grounds, water resources, and wildlife. Photo by Chanda Callao/ @Peopleofredmountain.
Rights

Free, prior and informed consent required as clean energy threatens Indigenous Peoples

by May Davies
August 9, 2022
0
1.1k

A new coalition of Indigenous Peoples is calling for free, prior and informed consent to be negotiated without exception as...

Read more
Smog is so bad in Delhi at times that the government has closed elementary schools. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

The UN just declared a universal human right to a healthy, sustainable environment

August 6, 2022
1.1k
Protests in Nairobi as Maasai activists deliver a petition to the Tanzania High Commission, in Kenya, 17 June 2022. EPA-EFE/Daniel Irungu

In northern Tanzania, the government is trying to evict thousands of Maasai

July 23, 2022
1.1k
Mikkel Friis-Holm: "It was great to be the dad of real principle." Pic: Robin Skjoldborg

Mikkel Friis-Holm’s Chocolate War – free speech vs boycotts in Copenhagen

July 15, 2022
2.7k
Ecuador’s Indigenous peoples: we are protecting our territories “If we lose territory we lose everything. It’s that simple.” Pic: Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador

Ecuador’s Indigenous Peoples: we are protecting our territories

July 1, 2022
1.2k
Twitter Youtube LinkedIn
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Awards
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Classifieds
  • Events
  • Login

Popular Tags

Covid-19 United States United Kingdom United Nations Brexit 2021 Food Systems Summit European Union China Food and Agriculture Organization UK World Food Programme Nestle Climate Change COP26 Food banks Meat Farmers Slavery

Best of Quota

Our audience's free secret weapon, leaving others to ask, "What do they know, that I don't?"


Thank you for Signing Up
Please correct the marked field(s) below.
1,true,6,Contact Email,21,false,1,First Name,21,false,1,Last Name,2

© 2021 Quota Media Limited | All rights reserved | Registered Company Number 12581018      Online Web Fonts

Terms & Conditions      Privacy Policy      Ethical Policy      Cookie Policy     

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Policy
  • Research
  • Comms unit
  • Shop
  • Events
  • Membership subs
  • Awards
  • Contact
  • About

© 2021 Quota Media Limited | All rights reserved | Registered Company Number 12581018      Online Web Fonts

Terms & Conditions      Privacy Policy      Ethical Policy      Cookie Policy     

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In