According to this article Marks and Spencer are now selling more British cheeses than they are French cheeses. They are now selling two British cheeses for every French one with sales of British cheese increasing by 30%. The figures were considerably different five years ago with French cheese being much more popular. It appears the rise in popularity may be down to the fact that during the recession consumers are more inclined to buy British to support British businesses and farmers. However, British cheeses such as cheddar and stilton are also becoming more popular abroad with Neal’s Yard Dairy now exporting about 35 tons of cheese every year to France.

According to this article 65% of supermarket chickens contains a bug called campylobacter. The bacteria causes around 55,000 people a year to fall ill every year and causes symptoms such as diarrhoea, cramping and stomach pain which usually last for about a week. People with weakened immune symptoms can be at risk of the bacteria spreading to the bloodstream and causing a life threatening infection. The illness can however, be prevented by properly cooking food. Surprisingly Free range and organic chicken are actually more likely to carry the bug than battery birds.

According to this article sales of quality beers are on the rise and it is claimed that beer could be the new wine. It appears that sales of quality bottled beer are up as is keg and cask beer. One brewery Hepworth and Co has seen an 18% rise in sales on last year. If the article is to believed beer especially the quality varieties is also becoming more popular with women. If this is the case and beer is experiencing something of a revival I wonder why so many pubs are closing down. Personally I like beer but prefer to sample real ales rather than drinking lager which is many peoples first impression of beer and perhaps what puts them off trying others.

Scientists are studying an outbreak of squirrel pox in the hope that it might provide information to help stop the red squirrel  from dying out. Whilst an epidemic of the squirrel pox virus may be bad news for red squirrels in Liverpool it is hoped that studying how the virus is spread and what makes the red squirrels particularly vulnerable to it may help to save the species and ensure its long term survival. The virus is carried by both red and grey squirrels but the greys seem to unaffected by it whilst it is lethal to red squirrels. In 2007 there was a major outbreak of the disease in Formby in Lancashire which caused a 90% fall in the number of red squirrels in the area and is still affecting the population today. Scientists from the University of Liverpool will monitor the squirrels as part of a four year project. They hope to find out how the squirrels became infected and whether the surviving squirrels have developed any immunity to it. They should then be able to determine how the infection progresses and look at how to halt the spread.

I am well aware that many schools do not receive enough funding but things must be bad when pupils are instructed to bring their toilet rolls to school. That’s what pupils at St John’s school in County Cork have been told. Parents with children at the school received the request last week. It is part of a cost cutting exercise caused by a black hole in the country’s public finances.

These realistic looking creatures are made by origami expert Sipho Mabona. Despite the intricate designs surprisingly they are each made from just a single sheet of paper. Each piece takes around 20 hours to fold and can take more than six months to design so it doesn’t come as a surprise to find that they sell for around £1,500 each. The preying mantis and stag beetle are just two of his many designs with others including grasshoppers, tigers and fish.

This giant bread and butter pudding has been made by the bakers at Hovis to celebrate British Food Fortnight. It weighed an impressive 3,300lb that’s as much as two baby elephants and measures 7ft by 5ft. It took 49 hours to make and included more than a thousand slices of bread, 70 apples and 56 eggs.

On a recent trip to my local Co-op I was surprised to find that all of the ingestion remedies and the majority of the cold and flu ones have all sold out. Judging from this I can only assume there is an evil bug going affecting the part of Sevenoaks where I live.

This interesting looking snack is called the Craz-E Burger. It contains a bacon cheeseburger with a buttered grilled and glazed doughnut instead of a bun and has 1,500 calories.  It has recently become a huge hit at a major fair in Massachusetts where visitors brought 1,000 of them on each day on the 17 day event.

I can understand a supermarket refusing to sell someone alcohol but this is slightly unusual. Its an incident where a member of staff at a branch of Sainsbury's refused to sell cheese to a woman because she was pregnant. Supermarket bosses have since admitted that the member of staff got it wrong and the the woman should not have been questioned regarding the cheese, which she was eventually allowed to purchase providing she promised to eat not to eat it. I find it interesting that a member of supermarket staff feels it is within their power to prevent someone buying a harmless product. What is further amusing is that the advice given was flawed, as the offending cheese was a piece of cheddar, and is considered perfectly safe to eat when pregnant, in fact the advice is not to eat soft unripened cheese. I wonder if this is the start of a growing trend with individuals trying to impose their views on others or simply a one off incident. Pregnant or not the lady in question should be able to choose what she wants to buy.