At the risk of blogging about nothing but chicken, I came across this story about how Tesco has now managed to produce a chicken that costs only £1.99. Previously their cheapest chicken which cost £3.30 had been criticised for the poor conditions in which the birds were reared. I wonder what corners have been cut to produce this cheaper £1.99 chicken. Although Tesco have also increased orders for free range birds by 30% they have been criticised for this latest cut in costs. A spokesman for the National Farmers Union has said that Tesco are “devaluing the product and doing it at a time when, overall, the market is strengthening and chicken prices are rising”. He also said that unless Tesco were going to subsidise the cheap chickens that it was not a sustainable price. Tesco say that the price cut does not mean that welfare standards have been lowered and that its birds are “raised in the highest welfare environment”. The £1.99 chicken fared worse in a recent taste test carried out by The Daily Mail.

The blue Smartie was dropped by Nestle about three years due to concerns about artificial ingredients. At the time Nestle were able to reformulate the other coloured Smarties to get rid of the artificial ingredients and colours. However, they could find no way of recreating the distinctive blue Smartie. It appeared that Smarties have now found the answer and can create the blue sweet using a colouring from seaweed.

We made pancakes last week. As always the first pancake was slightly disappointing but all the rest were perfect. Rory has even perfected the art of tossing the pancake without dropping it on the floor or on his foot as he has done in the past.

Chicken has been in the news a lot recently with Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall highlighting how battery hens are kept. This article details an experiment where five chickens of varying price were cooked in the same way and then served to a panel who rated them on taste. Not surprisingly the Tesco’s cheap £1.99/kg chicken fared worse scoring only 3 out of 10 and with the panel disliking both the taste and texture. Next came the basic butcher’s bird at £2.09/kg which fared slightly better with 3.5 out of 10. This was followed by the supermarket corn fed chicken which once again only scored 3.5 out of 10 but cost more at £4.49/kg. The supermarket organic free chicken did slightly better scoring 6 out of 10. The winner was Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s special chicken which costs £4.99/kg but scored 7.5 out of 10. The panel described it as “juicy with light fresh flavour”.

Looking back on some old posts I noticed that my blog is one year old today. I think I have done quite well in the past year as I have managed to write a post nearly every day. I wonder whether I will manage to post so frequently in the next year.

Monty is one lucky cat. After Monty fell asleep inside the rear bumper of a car, his owner drove off, not knowing Monty was there. The cat managed to cling on for 30 miles before eventually falling off when the car reached 60mph on the M60. Monty then ran across the lanes of traffic to the embankment where his owner later caught him. Despite his adventure Monty’s only injuries were a black eye, a few cuts and some missing teeth.

No unfortunately I am not a millionaire but I did manage to win £30 on the lottery this weekend. As someone who plays a line of numbers every week, I have so far had three wins, all of them rather small. The first was £10, then a rather more acceptable £80 and now £30. I think I am just saving up for a big win, it is sure to be the jackpot next time. At least my £30 will pay for my lottery ticket for the next few weeks.

A Malaysian burglar was caught after he took time out from robbing a house to help himself to some cookies. As we all know, after eating cookies you really need a good nap and that’s just what the burglar did next. Needless to say when the family who owned the house arrived home the burglar was quickly discovered and was arrested for trespassing.

I read this article that suggests British people are unable to distinguish between real historical figures and fictional characters. The article highlights a survey carried out by the British TV channel UKTV Gold. The results make interesting reading, people thought that Robin Hood, Biggles and Sherlock Holmes were real people but that Winston Churchill was a fictional character. Two thirds of people questioned thought that King Arthur was a real person with 58% saying that Sherlock Holmes was also real. 47% said that Richard the Lionheart was a myth and 23% thought Winston Churchill was not real. The TV channel said that the findings of the survey showed a fascinating insight into the role that fiction has had in this country over the last 50 years. Funny, I thought it was just a shocking example highlighting a lack of education.