Is Dave running scared of the Quango Queens

This headline, in the Saturday 30th October Daily Mail caught my eye
and so I read on.
Quentin Letts column.
Quango Queen 2. Helen Phillips is the £144,000 a year head of Natural
England.
A Tory MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger this week had a terrific go at the environmental quango calling it a “Stalinist organisation” which uses
‘Scare tactics’ against farmers.
Mr Liddell-Grainger accused its acolytes of wearing open- toed sandals and overdue haircuts, but their ‘loony bunny-hugger’ leader was prone
To ‘elegant stiletto- heeled boots’.
Another MP pointed out that Natural England’s staff costs for this year
are £96.5 million?
The Government’s reaction? Farming Minister James Paice meekly said
he would not axe Natural England.

It is gratifying to find that other people think along the same lines regarding Natural England.
Mr Liddell-Grainger could have included brown rice when he commented on the open- toed sandals.
Did I miss something; I was under the impression that Dave was going to sort out the Quangos if he got in? . It looks like yet another empty promise.

Lifting out at Baltic Wharf

On the Friday a crane and lowloader had arrived at Baltic Wharf to
lift out and transport JJ to Lowestoft
These are some pictures of the lift and fitting JJ onto the lowloader

Jose alongside at Totnes , and Jose leaving Galmpton at 7 am for totnes

Tigres Mussels

We had a couple of vistors to the depuration center and I explained how the systems worked and gave a quick biology lesson on the birds and bees relative to moules
reproduction .The ladies are orange and the males white.!
The conversation got around
to how to cook mussels and I intended to explain how to cook Tigres mussels but had a senior moment when the brain went blank and I could not recall the name Tigres .
The brain has now rebooted and as you can see from the heading to this blog I was trying to recall Tigres Mussels .
Rather than typing in one of the recipes, I recommend you Google, Tigres Mussels.
You will then find the regional variations on preparing this dish.
Bilbao , Madrid , San Sebastion there are variation on a common theme and once you have tried say the Bilbao version you will start to experiment with your own version.
I tried a version of my own on the general public at last years Taste of the West show
which had a black pudding and apple sauce base, a mussel on the base, and a Calvados and creme fraiche topping. They went down very well .
One of the sayings about Tigres Mussels is that you wont find any lurking in the fridge.
Adding some hot chilli either fresh or chilli flakes to the mixture gives them the fire which is where the name Tigres comes from

jose jacquline the second

Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Jose Jacquline the second has been sold and is going to start a new career in Lowestoft.Pictures will be posted in due course when she is loaded up and ready to go.
Jose Jacquline the first went to Crosshaven near Cork in Southern Ireland some years ago,and now JJ 2 is going and hopefully, a new JJ will appear and carry on the cause.
The new JJ will be bigger so that machinery can be fitted on deck and also carry more weight.
In the mean time JB will carry on harvesting the mussels but JB also has restricted deck space and will eventually br replaced
More on this subject to come and in due course an explanation as to why I have not been posting blogs regularly