Some People!

You know it amuses and irritates me in almost equal measure that at least once a week someone e-mails me or drops by the shop wanting to argue or make a point about something pretty un-related to my business (but in their head anything they have a gripe about seems to be related to what I do for a living) and then they get upset when I happen to point out that their argument is based on something such as rumour, is out of context or with no perspective.

For instance a woman started quoting some sensationalist article about Indian Restaurants (57% of them) using illegal amounts of food colourants in their dishes according to "Media Reports" when all she originally wanted to know, when she contacted me, was did Beetroot make her food red? (doh!!) I mean if she had bothered to read the page about beetroot on my website, from which she originally contacted me, she might have just read that it is used as a food colourant for just that purpose but mail after mail arrived going on and on about tartrazine ( which happens to be yellow ) and when put in her place - well she seems to have managed to understand that.

Are people so stupid that they don't recognise that the term "media reports" is a euphamism for rumour and that scientific evidence or at least a source for the information they so blithely bandy about needs to be quoted for anyone capable of reason or logic to take seriously. Media reports stated that Bill Cosby had died this week - for the third time in his career - apparently he's none to pleased about it! So much for media reports.

I am sure that many a company involved in catering ( which I am not ) occasionally flouts the guidelines and maybe even the law but does this woman honestly believe that a Bangladeshee cook in a two bit takeaway is tactically sitting there with a pipette measuring out tartrazine by the micron to make a single dish of Chicken Tikka Masala more colourful just for her? Does it not occur to her that he might be so busy that he was much more likely to have chucked in a touch more turmeric ( E 100 by the way )He will probably not even know what Tartrazine is or what a pipette is for that matter. Catering and processed food companies will know so M&S and Sainsbury's and all other fine food outlets might very well add "lashings" of e-colours to their own brand, over processed foods from which it is perfectly possible to end up being malnourished if one eats them all the time but, really - how does this woman manage to still be alive?

Did she buy the beetroot - all of £3? - no she didn't not even before she started her nonsense.

Does this surprise me? NO. It seems to me that people have too little to do in their lives - I hope that this particular sad creature never manages to exert any influence over anything - especially a jury - she'd be a nightmare.

Has this new coalition government closed down all the care homes for the terminally bewildered for lack of funding and to save money to pay off the national debt? - 'cos all the loonies seem to be on the loose.