Organic-Ally

This time of year, every year, I dread having to do my accounts for tax purposes. I am fairly numerate, but when it comes to accounting, I wallow in the abyss between the debits and credits. My dear husband, trained in accounting, thankfully tolerates sitting down with me to sort out the numbers. Always we row over my poor book-keeping(??), my lack of analysis, and ... O dear! So last year, for Christmas, I was given Book-keeping for Dummies which I attempted to read, and even did exercises, etc. Last Saturday we sat down to do the accounts. I had made a start on the Trial Balance and the numbers on various bank accounts were adding up properly, etc. But still I managed to put some DRs and CRs in the wrong columns -- which he spotted, and I failed to find a record of my last payment to the accountant (!). But, BUT, we managed to balance the account without getting too cross with each other. Whew! Profit/Loss? Apparently I made a tiny, teeny profit, not enough to buy a half-decent han...

I am often not sure whether to worry about climate change given all the conflicting evidence, lobbying and mud-slinging. (See earlier post.) But I believe that doing something positive for the earth, to preserve its fertility cannot be bad. After all, the earth "belongs to the Lord". As my son once said when he was six: "There is no right in doing wrong and there is no wrong in doing right." So these two Telegraph articles are interesting: Britain facing food crisis as world's soil 'vanishes in 60 years' and Spend more on food rather than holidays, says organic lobby . When it's gone, it's gone. No soil to farm with. No water to irrigate. No food is to be grown. What good is the ability to buy cheap clothes when you cannot farm food to eat? Can you eat your cheap clothes? We are looking forward to our "holiday" (aka visit to my home country) which we try to do once in two years. My son knows no other "foreign holidays" apar...

Sometimes we feel guilty even thinking such thoughts: People in Africa are starving from famine. But giving them food and money alone is not going to help them. Why is it that knowing that famines will occur they do nothing about it? Why is it that governance and infrastructure remain so bad in so many countries on that continent that the people cannot help themselves? Why are women still treated as bearers of children and objects for sex? Why don't they start educating their people and women especially in order that they could reduce their population issues? How is it that for countries which are supposed to be so poor they cannot feed themselves every time there is drought, leading to famine, leading to displacement, leading to atrocities, etc, etc. that the governments (or some sort of ruling elite) have money to go to war? That their wives and children can afford the best clothes and shop in the most expensive stores in London, Paris, etc? I have written about women , education...

This morning I woke to the end of the an interview with Mr Martin Narey. What he said is basically: 'More babies should be taken into care to protect them from poor parents' . I don't think the sub-editor meant "poor parents" as in financially poor, but parents with "poor" parenting skills. This comment was raised following the awful, awful case of two brothers who pleaded guilty of torturing two other young boys. The previous post was referring to this case. Martin Narey speaks the unspeakable. Remember the furore he last raised about 'feral children'? Husband and I discussed this case at length and we said exactly that: take the babies away and put them up for adoption. Yesterday I witnessed two incidents which left me wondering what sort of people become parents. At a busy shopping centre a little girl, perhaps two years old was lying prone on the floor, having a tantrum. The parents -- big people, both bulky six foot something -- and anoth...

It's a bit like the British troops in Singapore pointing their guns in a southerly direction and the Japanese troops attacked from their north, via Johore, on their push-bikes. I was talking about the bird flu a lot and now we hear the pandemic is of swine flu. My husband is permanently on immuno-suppressant and you can understand some of the anxiety in our household. He also goes to work on the Tube every day. He is very vulnerable. The authorities have been promoting the use of tissue paper, something about binning it after we've blown our nose. My instinctive feel (rightly or wrongly) is used tissue paper left in open bins are just as great a health risk. Of course I have vested interests. I want people to buy my lovely organic cotton hankies (now with embroidery!!). The thing is if one is not mindful of one's hygiene, paper tissues and hankies are equally bad. At least, one's cloth hankies are usually isolated in one's pockets. I remember my first impression of ...

Nicked this from Straits Times ============================== March 30, 2009 5% off meals if you bring own container By Goh Yi Han IN THE past, many Singaporeans would carry along their own tiffin carriers when they bought food from street hawkers. Now, foodcourts in Singapore are helping to revive the practice of using one's own containers for takeaway food. Most local chains already charge customers an extra 10 or 20 cents for takeaway food in plastic microwaveable containers. This is to cover the extra costs incurred by stallholders. However, at least one operator is now offering a discount on food purchased if patrons provide their own containers. Banquet Holdings, which runs the Banquet chain of halal foodcourts, gives customers a 5 per cent discount if they supply their own containers. This promotion is available at most eateries owned by the company, including more than 10 Banquet foodcourt outlets located across the island. 'This is a step that we have taken in order to...

I've been thinking a lot -- off and on -- about the current 'economic crisis'. Some thoughts have been well covered. Eg: it has made many people re-think their priorities. For many, out of necessity, having had an income disposed of, a disposable lifestyle comes under re-evaluation. This past weekend we were at a sewing machine shop. And my! it was busy. Suddenly it seemed everyone is thinking of sewing their own clothes. Then we read about allotments coming back into fashion. Both because people are more concerned with what goes into their food as well as saving those few pennies (which add up to pounds) and what a lovely way for a family with young children, for example, to do something together and literally see the fruit of their labour. It's highly recommended. Today we were woken up by news of a van manufacturer (Russian owned) facing financial woes. Whilst no one is surprised by that I cannot help but think: what audacity! To ask the government (ie me the taxpaye...

OK, I must confess I am a Strictly Come Dancing fan. As I started this post I thought of Heather Small because I could hear her song, "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" Or something like that. Our freezer continues to be rather bare and we are wasting much less food than we used to. Amongst other things I learned that though sliced bread is convenient a whole loaf of bread keeps better. Like many people I know I am hopeless at slicing bread. It usually looks OK when I start at the top but 'it' usually disappears before the knife gets to the bottom of the loaf and I'd have a slice of bread with no crust on the bottom half. Not any good for toasting as it would burn. It was interesting then to hear mum-in-law congratulate herself on being able to slice bread quite well when she was over to mind our child over a weekend. "Your bread knife is nice and heavy and it goes straight down." Even mum-in-law who had difficulty slicing bread found it ...

It was interesting to read Waste watchers: Save cash and the environment . If there is one up-side to the 'credit crunch', recession, whatever you choose to call it, a wave of belt-tightening seems to be having a positive impact on the environment. Our bills, like other households, have been going up and up. But there is nothing we could cut from our shopping. We buy roughly the same every week. It reminds me of the 'epiphany' I had years ago. I made an undergraduate mission trip to Thailand. I was there for a month and packed everything into one bag. Then I went to an undergraduate conference which lasted about five days. I still needed that same bag to carry the things I needed. I chided myself for a few minutes for having packed too much for the conference. Then it dawned on me: Did I carry too much for my five-day conference, or was I travelling really light for the month that I was in Thailand? The 'muchness' really came out the 'very little' in m...

Interesting headline and report this: Exposed: the great GM crops myth "Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger. "Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."" Do read some of the stories related to this report. Compare with The city-dwellers who are becoming front garden farmers Back to Organic-Ally .

O dear! It is happening. Riots because people cannot get their staple foods at prices they can afford: Starving Haitians riot as food prices soar The other global crisis: rush to biofuels is driving up price of food According to the latter report: "All across the world, cereals, meat, eggs and dairy products are becoming dearer. "Food prices are now rising at rates that few of us can ever have seen before in our lifetimes," said John Powell of the World Food Programme. Prices are likely to remain high for at least 10 years, the Food and Agriculture Organisation is projecting." ... "Government policies do not help: the rich world subsidises agriculture not to feed the world but to enrich its farmers." Environmentalists have long warned about food shortages when farms and resources are diverted to produce fuel, which is hardly carbon-neutral. Meanwhile in Singapore, we are told that there is enough rice. A government minister insists that for as long as Sin...

Haven't we heard it somewhere before? Rising prices threaten millions with starvation, despite bumper crops Warnings over future food crisis Who knows there's a food crisis? Back to Organic-Ally .

Today I woke up to my old mates at RGS telling me about the rise in price of tauhu (soya bean curd, a staple food). I recalled what I wrote in a comment to the Straits Times report on 2nd June 2007. The PM pronounced " climate change as long-term security threat ". My response is reproduced here, copied from the ST 'Discussion Board': [8th March 2008: OOps! How embarrassing! I just realized that I had copied this onto an earlier post . Sorry for the repetition. Sign of ageing, I'm afraid.] ============= June 02, 2007 Saturday, 08:01 PM It is good to see that the Singapore government is at last (or is it?) waking up to the ramifications of climate change on our little red dot. For me, climate change is not only about the use or abuse of plastic bags, it is not only about burning fossil fuels, it is not only about the haze (for example). It is about food. It is about food security, and along with that access to water, and yes, many wars have been fought over food ...

I chanced upon this article about the rising cost of food in Singapore. It caused me to search out a comment I left on the Straits Times Discussion Board some time ago. (For some reason this board does not let me log back in. ) ======================== DrLeeSiewPeng Posts: 4 June 02, 2007 Saturday, 08:01 PM It is good to see that the Singapore government is at last (or is it?) waking up to the ramifications of climate change on our little red dot. For me, climate change is not only about the use or abuse of plastic bags, it is not only about burning fossil fuels, it is not only about the haze (for example). It is about food. It is about food security, and along with that access to water, and yes, many wars have been fought over food and water (along with opium and tea, etc). Singapore has long worked on a trouble-shooting/fire-fighting mode of policy-making. Too many babies, make it difficult for some children to get to a school of their choice. Too few babies, offer cash/tax incentiv...

Someone responded to my last letter in the press and my response was published on 5th May 2007. Spread the 3R message - reduce, reuse, recycle MR CHIA Hern Keng raised a very good question to my letter, 'Live without plastic bags? Here's how it can be done' (ST, April 28) about whether biodegradable bags are any better. I, too, have my doubts. Older versions of degradable bags require light to degrade. So putting these in landfill is no good. Newer bags made from corn starch are touted as a greener alternative. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, however, the biodegradable bag is 'better' than the conventional. But I think it woeful that food that can be grown to feed the starving millions is used instead to feed our insatiable habits for convenience. By the same token, I think it is undesirable that bio-fuels are promoted as the alternative to fossil fuels. It is not ethical that even more (subsistence farmers on little family plots) will starve as their lands...

This is the first time ever that I’m spending Christmas at mum-in-law’s house. I was really looking forward to a 'restful' time as recent poor-ish health has made me irritable and quite depressed at one point. It was nice that we could look out of the window and see sheep wandering on the Devon hill-side. When we did go out, it was not unusual to see tractors (real ones, not Chelsea versions) holding up long lines of traffic. There was no internet service. Ah.... There was also a lot of food. We had brought with us a lot of fruit from our weekly organic fruit bag, not wanting it to go to waste. My ‘job’ on Boxing Day was to make a fruit salad. With all that rich food, ultra-sweet Christmas puddings and all that, husband and I thought a refreshing and detox-ing fruit salad might be a good idea. So it was a bit strange, as far as I am concerned, that mum-in-law kept asking whether she needed to make a (sugar) syrup for the fruit salad. No, I said. And thought, 'Syrup on fresh...

Cousin took us out to lunch as she normally does during her stays with us. We went to Oriental City in Colindale where there is a 'food court'. It's a concept familiar with us Singaporeans. Different stalls sell different types of food in a 'court' (ie large hall) and we can purchase from any of the vendors, pay for it, wait for our order number to be flashed up on an electronic board, collect the food, and eat it any where we could find room to sit. There's a wide range of foods ranging from Vietnamese to Japanese, different types of Chinese to cuisines from different parts of south-east Asia (Malaysian 'nasi goreng', Singaporean 'Hainanese chicken rice', Thai green curry, etc). We had our greasy fill -- we do indulge once in a while -- but found that we could not finish the Shanghainese ('little dragon') dumplings that cousin ordered. To be honest, I didn't like it all that much. Usually, that would have gone to waste. Not today. To...

Went to the French Market happening around here last weekend. Bought some chestnuts for son as we could not find any conkers around here for him. Thought I should roast some of these in the oven, it being a cool-ish evening. BANG! went one. Oops! Better get the rest out of the oven quick. Retrieved the tray, put in on the hob, and BANG!! went another one right before my eyes. Bits of chestnut every where in the kitchen. Bother! Back to Organic-Ally

The title to this section of Letters to The Times is 'Poor kids can't have their cake and eat it'. One letter-writer pointed out that the 'humiliation of poverty is a reason for truancy' as poor families 'are unable to respond to the peer pressure in the playground that results from brand targeting by advertisers'. When in my first year of school in Singapore I was asked to bring in twenty cents to buy a plastic cover for a workbook. My mum could not find those twenty cents. Instead my eldest sister sacrificed an old plastic cover from one of her old books. A wealthier girl at school laughed at me. I was so embarrassed I went home and cried my heart out. The following week, Mum squeezed twenty cents from the housekeeping money and I had my new plastic cover like everyone else in class. So I understand where this letter-writer is coming from in terms of peer pressure. But he goes on to note that the same single mother of four children on unemployment benefi...

Would you believe me if I said my son has never had a M... hamburger? He's had their chicken nuggets and fries but never a hamburger. He only had those nuggets because we were a 'captive market' at the Science Centre in Singapore. From a very young age we talked about 'junk food' and 'good food'. Maybe too much. For a long time he had problems with children's party food. Took him a long time to bite into his first pizza. Now that he has tasted it, he likes it. He's also not allowed fizzy drinks and salty crisps, especially if they are laden with MSG. Are we weird parents or what? Thankfully I've found other parents who are just like us. We sit around at parents' committee meetings enjoying the crisps and hula hoops, etc, because 'We don't get to eat these at home.' It all goes back to one blue M&M. Took son to a Christmas story-telling session at the local library. He was coming up two. A kind lady there gave him one blue M...