Today I came across a rather remarkable story. As you know, knitting is something that I write about a lot and we have a Tea Cosy of The Week competition.
You may already be familiar with Jo Eglen, who has been in the media a bit recently. She runs the 'Little Hen Rescue Centre', a home for 5,750 ex-battery hens.
A lot of the hens are bald when they get to her, so she came up with a novel and frankly brilliant solution; knit jumpers for all the hens!
The article in the Telegraph says: "The response was incredible and she has now kitted out 1,500 birds with woolly jumpers to keep the warm in the winter months.
"Some battery farms have up to 10,000 hens of the same age. They get quite thin and bald because of the stress and heat. About 60 per cent of the hens that come through are bald."
"We have patterns on our website that are straight-forward and simple. We've had 1,500 jumpers come through in just the past two months. So many different kinds - Christmas-themed jumpers, multi-coloured ones, some with bows and stripes."
Pancake day is, of course, one of the best celebrations of the year. I remember always watching The Blue Peter Pancake Day Special as a kid, with various celebrities unsuccessfully trying to flip uncooked batter, making a big mess and having a jolly wholesome laugh about it all.
Anyway, pancakes are of course wonderful with a good blob of SuperJam so I thought i'd share a recipe with with you to help you make some great pancakes next week..
Blueberry Pancakes.
Ingredients: 200g self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking powder, an egg, 300ml milk, 150g blueberries, a knob of butter.
Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Beat the egg and milk together, then add to a well in the flour and whisk until smooth. Beat in the melted butter and half the blueberries.
Heat the oil, add a large spoonful of batter, cook for about 3 minutes on each side.
Serve with the rest of the blueberries and a dollop of Blueberry & Blackcurrant SuperJam. You can also add some maple syrup.
How to make Tea (Public Education Film, Circa 1941)..
I love vintage public information films, like this one from 1941, promoting good tea making practices.
"Tea carts are on standby ready to be sent off at a moments notice."
There's something for everyone in this movie from the BFI archives. Tea connoisseurs will benefit from the six golden tips for making the perfect cuppa, as well as countless other handy hints (never store your tea next to cheese, for example).
Linguists will marvel at the way they say "orf" rather than "off" and if you're someone who likes a man with eyebrows then we've got just the one!
I found this video thanks to a link in the Today Was Fun newsletter.
Twitter is becoming something of a phenomenon and has been on the news a lot over the past few weeks.
One of the most famous 'tweeters' in the UK is Stephen Fry, of Qi fame. I've been following his tweets for some time and find it very amusing. You might have read a few weeks ago that he was stuck in a lift and his 'followers' were able to live the experience with him, through his regular up-to-160-character posts.
For those of you who don't know what Twitter is; it allows users to post about what they are doing, reading and thinking in real time, in short posts, sort of like text-messages. If you like, you can follow my updates by signing up to my tweets here.
SuperJam is placed 18 out of 100, which I think is quite cool. Other entrepreneurial companies on the list are Tossed, the chain of London salad bars, Plum Baby, the fast-growing brand of healthy Super Food baby food and notonthehighstreet.com, a portal for buying quirky and unique products from hundreds of small companies across the country.
It is inspiring and very interesting reading about all of the 100 entrepreneurial companies on this list.
Click a tab below for more articles articles like this:
For the past couple of months, i've been writing about a variety of useful and interesting websites that I have come across online. Previous posts were about Graze, the online healthy snack delivery company and A Quarter Of..., the old-fashioned sweet shop on the internet, where you can buy all of the sweets you used to fight over in the playground.
This week, I came across a website called mySupermarket.co.uk. This site allows you to compare the price of your online grocery shopping from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Ocado. You are able to import your favorites from your existing supermarket's online shop, to compare how much it would cost elsewhere. It also displays the offers that each supermarket has, which means you can take advantage of the best prices at all the supermarkets, while only doing your shopping through one site.
You can also calculate how many calories are in your basket and compare the calorific content of different products, which would probably be quite a handy function if you are watching what you're eating.
As you know, I write quite a lot about the world of knitting. The guests often knit at our Tea Parties and we encourage readers of the blog and subscribers of the email newsletter to send in hand-knitted Tea Cosies, as part of our 'Tea Cosy of The Week Competition'.
Today, I found out about a very cool knitting shop in London, called I Knit, that is hosting 'The Knitting in Film and Television Awards'. The awards were set up to celebrate knitting, crochet and needlecraft in film and television.
From the site:
"The first ever KNIFTAs will be announced at our party on Sunday 22nd February 2009 at The Crown and Two Chairmen, Dean Street, Soho, W1D 3RZ (upstairs bar). From 4pm to 10pm. Only one thing is certain...Kate Winslet won't win one."
This week's Tea Cosy of The Week is a lovely yellow flower design, kindly donated by one of our local knitters.
The SuperJam Tea Parties have been growing at a great rate recently and, having now hosted well over 100 events in Scotland, England and Wales, a lot of elderly people are benefitting from the opportunity to have a laugh over a pot of tea and make some new friends. Of course, the SuperJam and scones always go down very well!
If you would like to support this very worthwhile project, please feel free to pop along to the next event - you can register your interest in getting involved here.
Alternatively, if you are a keen knitter, we'd be delighted if you could send a hand knitted tea cosy for us to use at the events. We will feature your cosy on the website and send you a case of SuperJam to say thanks!
As reported by a number of publications, including Sky News, Fruit Pectin (which is a natural ingredient added to jam), could be beneficial to the fight against cancer.
The article says:
"The binding of pectin with gal3 (a protein that influences all stages of cancer progression) is thought to affect its ability to promote the growth of cancerous cells, according to the study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.
Professor Vic Morris, who led the study, said the modified pectin used in jellies and jams was likely to produce the anti-cancer effect."
Director Magazine, the monthly publication of the Institute of Directors, named me as their 'Director of The Month', which was jolly nice of them. They also wrote a wee article about SuperJam in their magazine here.
Previous 'Directors of The Month' include Maitland Mackie of Mackies Ice Cream, Shaks Ghosh of the Private Equity Foundation and Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century.
Today I came across a rather remarkable story. As you know, knitting is something that I write about a lot and we have a Tea Cosy of The Week competition.
