Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Food and stuff...

I've been on a bit of a crusade of late. I have this thing about food you see.

Good food.

Proper food.

I hate the fact that our modern society is willing to throw everything away for the sake of convenience, stainless steel knives are a great example but I'll get onto that another day. I'm talking about mass farmed meat.

You walk into any supermarket these days and you see row upon row of chickens and bits of chickens, these poor creatures are farmed in their millions, crammed into barns so tightly that they can't move, force fed growth stimulants laced with prophalactic antibiotics to try and prevent the diseases we cause by forcing them to live that way. Their legs fail because they are unable to use them and they end up kneeling in their own crap. Not surprisingly they end up with ammonia burns on their knees. Take a look at the rows of chickens next time you're in a supermarket, check out their knees, you'll see brown patches, that's scarring from the ammonia. I'm not even gonna start on "smothers"

My problem is this...

I like animals, not as food, just as animals. I love dogs, I've never really met an animal I didn't like, ok quite a few of them didn't like me but hey, thats life. When I was a kid I thought a lot about becoming a vegetarian, I didn't.

I'll try and explain why.

I hate animal cruelty, I am passionate about it. I just can't quite equate death with cruelty. If I could I'd have to give up milk (what do you think happens to the male calves of milkers? They only need one or two for breeding purposes). I'd have to give up wearing leather, (you wanna get on a bike without leather?). I'd have to give up white sugar (the charcoal filtersthey use to purify the sugar are animal products). I'd have to give up beer (Ha! Like that's gonna happen - Isinglass if you're interested). So I was never gonna be a veggie.

If I accept that animals die for my pleasure (and lets be honest, they do) then Itruly feel that I am responsible for their welfare. Animals don't have to be kept in such cruel ways. There are farms specialising in truly free range food, they even sell to the public. OK a chicken costs pretty much three times the price of a broiler from the local supermarket but the first time I tasted one I was hooked. Not only does this satisfy my need to opt out from animal cruelty but it tastes GOOD! I have never (and I mean NEVER) had roast chicken as good as the Organic, free range bird I cooked the other day. It was stunning. You simply have to try it. Get an organic bird, cook it slowly and make your own gravy. You will thank me I promise you.

Now this brings me back to where I started. Sacrificing our integrity for the sake of convenience.

When I am forced to cook with broiler meat I am always disappointed. It is tasteless, chewy, pulp. I have to marinate it for hours to make it worth eating, I save £3 at the shop and waste hours of my time at home.

I think I should stop now, I was going to start on pig farms but I think I'll leave it for now.

J

Posted by Martin Austwick 2005-01-11 16:50:06

Sunday, January 9, 2005
Martial Arts

Ever since I was a kid I've been interested in Martial Arts, I guess it comes from the time when my dad let me watch Enter the Dragon on Betamax. I have no idea how old I was but it was an X not an 18 so it must have been a long time ago... I was enthralled, this was GOOD stuff. I nagged and nagged my mum for years but she wouldn't let me start. I eventually had the courage to join a club anyway when I was 16 (if you'd ever met my mum you'd understand). It was an Aikido club in Oxford run by Peter McGann, a student of Sensei Kanetska. He's was pretty damn good. I loved it, of course I moved to Yorkshire a year later and couldn't find an Aikido club so that fell by the wayside.

On the spur of the moment I went to visit an old friend I hadn't seen for years and he told me a Karate club had just started round the corner, we both went along and that was the next eight years. After three trips to casualty, three months in plaster and a year of physio I began to wonder if this was really the thing for me. I'd been hearing rumours of European Martial Arts and even heard of a guy teaching them in London so when my second Shotokan instructor left I packed it in too.

I spoke to the guy in London, an ex Kung-fu instructor who now taught "English Martial Arts", he gave me a lot of clues and I eventually tracked down some manuscripts from the middle ages. With my old karate buddy we started working through them. Four years later I was running my own club teaching C16th English swordwork and C14th German sword and buckler combat. I helped set up HEMAC, the largest European organisation dedicated to Historical martial arts.

Then of course I moved back down south.

I've recently started training in Bujinkan, the only surviving form of Ninjutsu with a recorded lineage back to the C13th. It's a lot of fun and I'm training under Peter King, the highest ranked instructor outside of Japan. I do miss teaching though, I'd like to start up my own club again so if you're interested in sword fighting and live in the home counties let me know...

Posted by Martin Austwick 2005-01-09 15:23:48

Thursday, January 6, 2005
Oooooh a Blog! :)

I've only just b noticed that this Bsite lets you Blog. Now if only I had something interesting to say...

Posted by Martin Austwick 2005-01-06 12:01:35