Geriatric OE

The weekly musing of a couple of Kiwis on their geriatric OE in The UK






Saturday, 11 May 2013

saturday thoughts....


The Man and I had an interesting day out today.

No, not doing touristy things.

So where did we go?

One of The Man’s work colleagues had recommended a particular campervan and caravan yard that has a very good selection of the particular brand we are interested in. It’s called Bailey. No not the yard the brand.

The Man had some very specific questions about specs that only a face to face chat would answer.

And was he satisfied with the answers? Yes he was. So we are even more settled on the type we will ultimately wind up with.



Later this evening we watched a very sobering documentary about the South Pacific. It made me never ever want to buy another can of tuna fish again, regardless of how sustainably it has been caught. Not that I buy a lot anyway, but I won’t buy anymore.

So why.

Well after having just about fished out the Atlantic Ocean those greedy take everything commercial boats are now gobbling up the fish stocks in the Pacific. The most sobering footage was shot within a purse-seine net that took an entire school of thousands of skipjack tuna. As the net was tightened around the ever panicking fish many were caught in the mesh of the net causing them to bleed. This created a huge oily bloody slick that you would have though would have attracted hungry sharks.

And did it?

No it did not.

Why…?

Because, according to the programme, shark numbers have been dramatically reduced in numbers potentially by as much as 90%!

The Man and I were shocked speechless.

And it seems that the Asian hunger for sharkfin soup is the culprit. Many unscrupulous fishing boats catch the sharks, cut off the fins and throw the now helpless and still very much alive fish back to drown.

So how tasty is the sharkfin in the soup. Apparently all the aforesaid fin provides to the soup is gelatinous tasteless texture the flavour comes from the other ingredients.  

I think one of the most horrifying things about the programme was that it had been made in 2009, so the situation can only have become worse since then.

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