I’d like to know how far sarf the Northerners should go to pick fruit. Cape Town is a possibility this time of the year or Queensland for a few bananas perhaps?

fred this is your ultimate post ,is north past watford ?????

The only fruit we pick is the “cherry” from yer daughters….lol.

Typical tory response.

The man’s clearly an idiot and not fit for public office (then again……….).

He’s plainly not considered the likely detrimental effect upon the fruit.

and where does he think these northern lot gonner stay ??..can’t see eastern europeans and the joe daki’s giving up their creature comforts..for people that talk funny and steal anything they see.. ~naughty

It’s just “hate the poor” rhetoric. It’s a good myth to perpetuate, that there are bands of feckless people spoiling it for everyone else. The North/South bit just makes it more palatable.

Either way, and wherever they live, people are about to be shafted to pay for the economic crisis, and the further down the scale you are the more it’s going to hurt.

There’s been plenty of north/south banter on here over the years; nearly all of it good natured. Might be worth cooling that for a while and remembering who our friends really are.

I don’t know what would be worse:

Knowing that the fruit in my fruit-bowl had been picked by someone who was born in Wigan

or

Eating anything that was grown in Enfield

@youngy wrote:

The only fruit we pick is the “cherry” from yer daughters….lol.

Typical tory response.

~clap ~clap ~clap ~clap ~clap

They will have to get king size hair nets for their perms.

would,nt work ~naughty ~naughty they,d eat all the fruit~shh ~shh

No bites chaps ~hand

On yesterdays news The Middlands is officially the obesity capital of Europe ! Who figures these thing out ? Does somebody actually get paid to study such crap ?

Yes, people do get paid to study such matters. It is quite important and indicates all manner of issues not just overeating.

@Anthonywaters wrote:

On yesterdays news The Middlands is officially the obesity capital of Europe ! Who figures these thing out ? Does somebody actually get paid to study such crap ?

Obesity is pretty important! Have a look at this in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine (one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world).

Body-mass index and mortality among 1.46 million white adults. Berrington de Gonzalez
BACKGROUND: A high body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) is associated with increased mortality from cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, but the precise relationship between BMI and all-cause mortality remains uncertain.

CONCLUSIONS: In white adults, overweight and obesity (and possibly underweight) are associated with increased all-cause mortality.

In addition, obesity is partly something to do with individuals and partly to do with the environment they live in. In which case identifying places with more obese people flags up that something needs to do about the place (eg making it easier to exercise, improving school meals, restricting the sales of unhealthy foods and so on).

Sad that we have to pay for a study to establish something that is obvious to anyone with common-sense.

No wonder this country’s skint.

Perhaps a study should be undertaken into the demise of common-sense?

Nothing wrong whatsoever with a study on obesity which is becoming an alarming problem and a real drain on the resources of the NHS.

@caster rob wrote:

Sad that we have to pay for a study to establish something that is obvious to anyone with common-sense.

No wonder this country’s skint.

Perhaps a study should be undertaken into the demise of common-sense?

Actually Rob I simplified the whole arguement so that it wouldn’t take up too much space but people could understand the signficance.

Looks like I wasn’t universally successful.

@pr@ngler wrote:

@caster rob wrote:

Sad that we have to pay for a study to establish something that is obvious to anyone with common-sense.

No wonder this country’s skint.

Perhaps a study should be undertaken into the demise of common-sense?

Actually Rob I simplified the whole arguement so that it wouldn’t take up too much space but people could understand the signficance.

Looks like I wasn’t universally successful.

Perhaps you weren’t, but I can’t imagine anyone with able senses and an IQ of three figures wouldn’t be aware of this bit:

“CONCLUSIONS: In white adults, overweight and obesity (and possibly underweight) are associated with increased all-cause mortality.”

What else do they need to know?

Let me see ~think

The Geographical distribution and thus to be able to target funding / education / treatment to the point where it is of greatest benefit.

I cannot believe Rob does not advocate the Public Sector spending his money wisely 😉

Rob, whilst there is individual choice about lifestyle (and hence body weight), the data consistently show (and the Con:Lib White Paper on Health actively acknowledges – see http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Healthyliveshealthypeople/index.htm) that at a population level, lifestyle is socially patterned and determined by the environment in which people live and work.

Of course, if you want to say that the new government’s policies are cr@p, then we’ll all be interested to hear.

@pr@ngler wrote:

Rob, whilst there is individual choice about lifestyle (and hence body weight), the data consistently show (and the Con:Lib White Paper on Health actively acknowledges – see http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Healthyliveshealthypeople/index.htm) that at a population level, lifestyle is socially patterned and determined by the environment in which people live and work.

Of course, if you want to say that the new government’s policies are cr@p, then we’ll all be interested to hear.

Forgive me for not reading the whole monumental work and replying anyway.

All political parties and governments pay lip-service to this sort of trendy-jargon, buzzword-stuffed hocum because they’re afraid not to due to populism.

In that regard, I wouldn’t say that the new governments polices are absolutely crap, more likely lacking in balls, but it is a coalition so it’s going to be a bit soft in some areas.

This bit:

“that at a population level, lifestyle is socially patterned and determined by the environment in which people live and work.”

I take the view that people themselves determine the environment in which they live and work. Just because a colleague stuffs his face with doughnuts all day doesn’t mean anybody else has to.

“Forgive me for not reading the whole monumental work and replying anyway.”

I will forgive you, but it does fatally undermine your position

@pr@ngler wrote:

“Forgive me for not reading the whole monumental work and replying anyway.”

I will forgive you, but it does fatally undermine your position

Agreed.

I’ll check it when I’ve got more time.

@caster rob wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Let me see ~think

The Geographical distribution and thus to be able to target funding / education / treatment to the point where it is of greatest benefit.

I cannot believe Rob does not advocate the Public Sector spending his money wisely ]

If these people are too stupid to realise that they are their own worst enemies then I don’t think any amount of public spending (shouldn’t that be investment?) will be of help.

In fact, it looks more like a prime area for savings.

Unfortunately Rob they are indeed their own worst enemies but they are also everybody elses worst enemy with the financial drain on the state. By all means people / the State can argue personal choice, do nothing but people (an alarming % of the nation / some in every family) become a bigger drain upon the cost of running the NHS with serious life threatening diseases brought on or exacerbated by obesity.

Hence, by taking action early, by being pro-active the State / NHS is making a fabulous investment that saves you and I and every other tax payer a large amount of wasted money.

It was proposed last year that in most cases obesity is self inflicted, as are many other health issues and that those patients should make a financial contribution to the burden they place on the NHS / State.

Sometimes you invest significantly in the short term to make a big saving / killing in the long term

Looks like expenditure to date is yet to give us much of a yield:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1338788/A-quarter-children-overweight-obese-age-FIVE.html

“I’ll check it when I’ve got more time”

Good on you. At least I get paid to read it!

@pr@ngler wrote:

“I’ll check it when I’ve got more time”

Good on you. At least I get paid to read it!

I’ve bookmarked the page but I’ll probably have to speed-read and precis for myself.

If I’m snowed in on Saturday it may help to hinder the onset of Cabin Fever!

I’m sure I saw something on TV where it said not to give fruit to northerers as they were afraid of it ~naughty ~naughty
😉

Only if there’s no gravy on it Roy.

The heading of this thread – The last straw –

Was it the jobless and starving northern monkeys who ate it or the obese west midlanders?

~clap ~clap

Not the Yams.

They’d have wanted a whole bale.

What’s fruit?~think

The best thing for the northerners to do would be to draw a line on a map just south of the humber estuary across to the southern border of cheshire, call it Norhumria and declare independance (renaming anything south of the border Shandyland). We’d have along with scotland most of the oil, coal, spare land and water. We could stop being so driven by a small number of people making too much money in a few square miles of london and start making stuff again. And we would have a miles better football team.~clap

As Above!…the republic of the north..

As above the above ~clap ~clap ~clap

Liverpool is still far too close to Manchester though ! LOL

@gazmalman wrote:

The best thing for the northerners to do would be to draw a line on a map just south of the humber estuary across to the southern border of cheshire, call it Norhumria and declare independance (renaming anything south of the border Shandyland). We’d have along with scotland most of the oil, coal, spare land and water. We could stop being so driven by a small number of people making too much money in a few square miles of london and start making stuff again. And we would have a miles better football team.~clap

Go ahead, but check out the total gov revenues by region (including oil) before you do…. ~shh ~shh

Draw a line from Southampton to Reading to St. Albans to Southend and see how it all works out then? Then maybe do some models on the price of importing coal (including transport) as opposed to digging it yourself on minimum wage? Welcome to a global world market.

“You starve if you want to….”