Super-Twat

[ian]

While that might be true, and deeply satisfying, she does overdo the poverty porn and comes across as very narcissistic, single-handedly saving the poor (which might come as a surprise to all the people who are running food banks, the many other chefs who specifically create meal plans and recipes etc.) Despite what must be a series of lucrative media gigs, books, and brand deals, she's often raising money, with little transparency on where the money goes. Her approach seems a bit haphazard at best.

Wow, I think, I'd like to nominate Ian for this thread.

Jack is incredibly transparent about where the money goes, what gets turned down, and the requirements of any brand deal. It's all there, in detail on twitter.

Thanks

Though you might want to check with the Trussell Trust and others, who seem a bit confused about some of her endeavours. I mean, I think it's OK to say you distributed the money to charities who 'want to stay out of the limelight' because that's exactly what charities want to do. No publicity for us!

What does St Jack earn, btw, in between her periodic bouts of poverty? It's fine, I don't care that she undoubtedly has a six-figure income, but she's still asking for handouts now, check her blog, her Patreon page, etc. To be fair, she found time among all her other illnesses (honestly, she's a walking medical textbook) to catch autism which means she literally can't lie. It all seems a bit performative.

[ElyDave]

About 200W per fridge?

2 old fashioned light bulbs, a tenth of a kettle. Not a lot really compared with an electric fire, microwave oven, etc false economy, or lack of knowledge, I don't know, but it seems that our education system has failed as much as our social safety net.

[quixoticgeek]

Thanks

Though you might want to check with the Trussell Trust and others, who seem a bit confused about some of her endeavours. I mean, I think it's OK to say you distributed the money to charities who 'want to stay out of the limelight' because that's exactly what charities want to do. No publicity for us!

What does St Jack earn, btw, in between her periodic bouts of poverty? It's fine, I don't care that she undoubtedly has a six-figure income, but she's still asking for handouts now, check her blog, her Patreon page, etc. To be fair, she found time among all her other illnesses (honestly, she's a walking medical textbook) to catch autism which means she literally can't lie. It all seems a bit performative.

[citation needed]

And kindly take your "catch autism" elsewhere. You should know that it takes decades to get an autism diagnosis if you are brought up as a woman. It took me over 15 years to jump through the hoops to get my diagnosis, and that's with jumping ship to a different country with working healthcare.

Your bigotry here is just embarrassing you.

J

[quixoticgeek]

About 200W per fridge?

2 old fashioned light bulbs, a tenth of a kettle. Not a lot really compared with an electric fire, microwave oven, etc false economy, or lack of knowledge, I don't know, but it seems that our education system has failed as much as our social safety net.

For years fridges have listed their typical power consumption.

I.e. this fridge from Ikea:

https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/lagan-fridge-with-freezer-compartment-freestanding-white-00496939/

- 175 kWh/annum

Just under half a kwh per day. At 50p a kwh, that would be 25p. At 30p/kwh, 15p... etc...

Just checked my freezer (https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/frysa-freezer-ikea-700-integrated-80501418/)

- 294 kWh/annum

805wh/day.

J

[Kim]

Our fridge-freezer's actual power consumption is a steady-state 82W with the compressor running, and an alarming 3W with the compressor not running^[1].  It averages almost exactly 1 pirate-ninja kWh/day (with fluctuations due to the thermostat cycle not being a neat fraction of 24 hours, and the occasional loading up with warm food or room-temperature cartons of fruit juice).

It's pretty hard to know the duty cycle of your fridge without instrumentation (temperature or power metering) that's impractical for poor people, or sitting there listening to the fridging noises.  Hence the EU energy ratings being rather useful.


_{[1] I can only assume there's a heater in the thermostat.  There's no electronics or frost-free gubbins in it.}

[quixoticgeek]

Hence the EU energy ratings being rather useful.

My fridge and freezer were A++ rated when i bought them. These days they are an F. After the EU change the way appliances are measured.

J

[ElyDave]

About 200W per fridge?

2 old fashioned light bulbs, a tenth of a kettle. Not a lot really compared with an electric fire, microwave oven, etc false economy, or lack of knowledge, I don't know, but it seems that our education system has failed as much as our social safety net.

For years fridges have listed their typical power consumption.

I.e. this fridge from Ikea:

https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/lagan-fridge-with-freezer-compartment-freestanding-white-00496939/

- 175 kWh/annum

Just under half a kwh per day. At 50p a kwh, that would be 25p. At 30p/kwh, 15p... etc...

Just checked my freezer (https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/frysa-freezer-ikea-700-integrated-80501418/)

- 294 kWh/annum

805wh/day.

J

So, about 40W average, or pretty much fuckall, hence educational failure if people are turning them off, as well as educational failure in basic living skills. I count myself lucky in having parents who encouraged self reliance, first one home starts getting dinner ready, good practise as a 13yo

[Kim]

Thing about fridges is you need to keep them powered up more or less continuously.  Which might not be so much about the cost of the 40W average, as the fact that you won't have any money to put on the pre-payment meter until next week, and it's down to the last few quid.  If your situation's that precarious, the last thing you need is a load of perishable food that'll go off in the meantime.

[Hot Flatus]

Anyway, dragging this away from QG and ian's need to get a room, and back to Dave's original point about Jamie Oliver, it's worth pointing out that his recipes are not intended for food bank users, because quite clearly he gives a costing for his menus.

 I'm not going to gainsay Dave's experience of poverty, but I will say that the notion of factoring in using a small proportion of a larger purchase is usual in other aspects of spending. For example, I drove 10 miles to work yesterday, but  if I tell you it cost me £75 in petrol, you would find that odd. I wore jeans tonight. It cost me £50. I watched the TV for an hour. It cost me £500. And so on.

[quixoticgeek]

So, about 40W average, or pretty much fuckall, hence educational failure if people are turning them off, as well as educational failure in basic living skills. I count myself lucky in having parents who encouraged self reliance, first one home starts getting dinner ready, good practise as a 13yo

Yes and no, if it's costing you 10p a day, that's 70p a week. If you are having to goto the food bank to eat cos you can't afford food. 70p for the fridge might actually be beyond reach.

Esp if you are on a prepayment meter.

Yes it's not much, but if you have very little, it's still something. When electricity is getting to 50p/kwh, that's 1.75 a week.

J

[ian]

Thanks

Though you might want to check with the Trussell Trust and others, who seem a bit confused about some of her endeavours. I mean, I think it's OK to say you distributed the money to charities who 'want to stay out of the limelight' because that's exactly what charities want to do. No publicity for us!

What does St Jack earn, btw, in between her periodic bouts of poverty? It's fine, I don't care that she undoubtedly has a six-figure income, but she's still asking for handouts now, check her blog, her Patreon page, etc. To be fair, she found time among all her other illnesses (honestly, she's a walking medical textbook) to catch autism which means she literally can't lie. It all seems a bit performative.

[citation needed]

And kindly take your "catch autism" elsewhere. You should know that it takes decades to get an autism diagnosis if you are brought up as a woman. It took me over 15 years to jump through the hoops to get my diagnosis, and that's with jumping ship to a different country with working healthcare.

Your bigotry here is just embarrassing you.

J

Because she has an extraordinary (and expanding) constellation of illnesses that crop up everything time she faces criticism.

Oh fuck it, it's performative poverty, she's from an upper-middle class background, with supportive parents and partners, she has tv shows, books, celebrity endorsements and like, and she's still claiming she can't afford shower gel and unscrew lightbulbs (July 2022). It's all a theatre of me.

It's absolutely fine for her to do well, to acknowledge that, and continue to campaign. Marcus Rashford, Jamie Oliver, and many others have done just that. I actually come from a working-class family, my father was unemployed for most of my teenage years, I know what was on the menu in the few days before the next giro, I know what it was like to stand in the line of shame for the school dinner tokens. I've done that shit, it wasn't a performance, and I don't go pretending to be working class and poor now, because I'm not. Too many people don't get this choice. I think I've been clear where I stand on that.

There's an interesting read here, and considering how litigious Jack Monroe is, she's yet to call on her expert team of paralegals (which she definitely has, because otherwise she'd be lying, and remember she can't because autism). I realise she's beatified now. I don't, to be honest, think she's a grifter, just that she is disorganized and attention-seeking. Whether the ends justify the means, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

[Hot Flatus]

If wiki is to be believed then a fair chunk if that isn't true. Wiki says her background is "described as working class", and that she was diagnosed with autism as a child, but wasn't told.

[phantasmagoriana]

If wiki is to be believed then a fair chunk if that isn't true. Wiki says her background is "described as working class", and that she was diagnosed with autism as a child, but wasn't told.

She described herself as middle class here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2013/jun/06/food-poverty-jack-monroe-it-could-happen-to-anyone

"I had a £27 grand a year job. I've not been brought up on benefits and a tracksuit watching Jeremy Kyle. I'm a middle class, well educated young woman who fell a bit by the way side. You think it doesn't happen to normal people, and you think we are all scumbags, eating burgers and watching day time TV. It can happen to anyone."

[drgannet]

Liz Truss. For putting a climate change denier and someone who wants Britain back in the dark ages in charge of the dept for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy. That's going to go well then...

[Mr Larrington]

Fridges are huge energy users (because they're on 24/7, even if the compressor isn't constantly running). They are, however, the one thing most people really need electricity for.  You can't get a candle-powered or paper fridge.

Gas-powered fridges used to be a Thing – IIRC we had one in Abroad in the late 60s – so adapting one to run on candles can’t be that hard

At one time we also had a Thing which was basically a metal box surrounded by porous polystyrene foam.  You poured water into a divot in the top and it cooled the box, and contents, via evaporation.  It could only hold a couple of bottles of milk, but it cost nowt to run.

[Polar Bear]

Let's put it this way: do I buy a new kettle or do I buy a book written by Jack Monroe?

Is there anybody that thinks that a new kettle is going to be of more use than a book of recipes which by it's very nature will help me (or the recipient to whom I shall gift it) in planning and preparing healthy and nutritious meals on an extremely tight budget?

Of course, if they cannot afford the light to read the book by ... 

[phantasmagoriana]

Let's put it this way: do I buy a new kettle or do I buy a book written by Jack Monroe?

I'd buy neither and spend the money on some food instead.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO. My son worked in one of his 'restaurants' and was worked into the ground, with no consideration for his health. I'd visit him, find he hadn't eaten a meal for 3-4 days (just bits of bread snatched while working), notching up 13-14 hour days 6 days a week.

Most of the issues also existed in many big-chain restaurants, but JO was one of the worst, His chain started out serving good food cooked to order to reheated shite.

[rafletcher]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO.

No need to apologise. Your feelings were patently obvious from your first post.

[The Family Cyclist]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO. My son worked in one of his 'restaurants' and was worked into the ground, with no consideration for his health. I'd visit him, find he hadn't eaten a meal for 3-4 days (just bits of bread snatched while working), notching up 13-14 hour days 6 days a week.

Most of the issues also existed in many big-chain restaurants, but JO was one of the worst, His chain started out serving good food cooked to order to reheated shite.

When my wife was a journalist we ate at the restaurant at the cock Inn which was run by the i think winner from his prodigy thing. Was great as was effectively free as we did a review which could never be bad incase affected advertising,

The locals hated it as had been a popular enough pub before it got taken over

I have no strong feelings towards JO but have been compared to him, less so for my chef skills despite them being good but because I'm usually scruffy haired, from Essex and can't talk properly either

[Polar Bear]

I am expecting  deluge of posts given the "new" cabinet appointments.

At least us Brits can laugh in the face of adversity.  Sometimes.

[Beardy]

I ain’t laughing.

[ian]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO. My son worked in one of his 'restaurants' and was worked into the ground, with no consideration for his health. I'd visit him, find he hadn't eaten a meal for 3-4 days (just bits of bread snatched while working), notching up 13-14 hour days 6 days a week.

Most of the issues also existed in many big-chain restaurants, but JO was one of the worst, His chain started out serving good food cooked to order to reheated shite.

They weren't really his restaurants though, they just had his name on them and the sort of notional role that celebrity chefs typically have in these ventures (indeed, a think a number of them were just franchises in the end). Employee conditions in the industry are typically poor, which doesn't excuse them, but I don't think that's the fault of Jamie Oliver, who I doubt had any control over the day to day running of those kitchens.

There's always a group of disgruntled locals when a local pub gets gastro'ed, even though it's hard to run a local village pub when you sell six pints of Fosters and a bag of crisps on a weekday night.

I have no particular axe to grind on him, he comes across as nice enough, he's done well for himself and unlike many he has worked for his success, and his campaigning has raised the profile of many issues, indeed long before St Jack joined the market. I am completely with Uncle Ralph when it comes to Jamie's Thai green curry though. Abomination.

I'm not sure my 'described as a working-class background' featured a grammar school, a father with a senior role in the fire service, or my parents owning a couple of properties. They may have failed to mention this to me. Her parents fostered 70 kids (blimey) though that might explain why she tries so hard for attention.

She's welcome to confabulate her history (which she's evidently done consistently), but I do get narked by her cosplay poverty (more so when her periodic outbursts are followed by a shake of the collection plate). The only people who think it's noble to be poor aren't poor. It's not fun, poor people want to be anything but.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO. My son worked in one of his 'restaurants' and was worked into the ground, with no consideration for his health. I'd visit him, find he hadn't eaten a meal for 3-4 days (just bits of bread snatched while working), notching up 13-14 hour days 6 days a week.

Most of the issues also existed in many big-chain restaurants, but JO was one of the worst, His chain started out serving good food cooked to order to reheated shite.

They weren't really his restaurants though, they just had his name on them and the sort of notional role that celebrity chefs typically have in these ventures (indeed, a think a number of them were just franchises in the end). Employee conditions in the industry are typically poor, which doesn't excuse them, but I don't think that's the fault of Jamie Oliver, who I doubt had any control over the day to day running of those kitchens.

Ian, you are wrong, dead wrong.

Jamie Oliver was directly involved in the day to day running. He visited individual restaurants, frequently, to check how the kitchen was run, the customer reception, etc. There are photos of him with my son (since he was a senior-enough chef to be in the meetings with JO).

I could say a lot more, but this is a public forum, and the UK has libel laws.

[ElyDave]

I feel the need to apologise to the readers of the thread. It was me who nominated Jamie Oliver.

At this point I should confess that I have a bee in my bonnet about JO. My son worked in one of his 'restaurants' and was worked into the ground, with no consideration for his health. I'd visit him, find he hadn't eaten a meal for 3-4 days (just bits of bread snatched while working), notching up 13-14 hour days 6 days a week.

Most of the issues also existed in many big-chain restaurants, but JO was one of the worst, His chain started out serving good food cooked to order to reheated shite.

When my wife was a journalist we ate at the restaurant at the cock Inn which was run by the i think winner from his prodigy thing. Was great as was effectively free as we did a review which could never be bad incase affected advertising,

The locals hated it as had been a popular enough pub before it got taken over

I have no strong feelings towards JO but have been compared to him, less so for my chef skills despite them being good but because I'm usually scruffy haired, from Essex and can't talk properly either

I once at at his franchised place in Gatwick, very disappointing in all manner of ways.