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Chip Valley

  Frozen chips, long a staple of the British diet, are enjoying a spectacular boom in France, where potato fields are becoming a valuable investment. In the northern French countryside, where three quarters of the nation's potatoes are produced, farmers are ripping up other crops to plant them and big corporations are building factories worth hundreds of millions of euros to transform them into frozen chips. The Potato Gatherers George William Russell  (1867-1935) Photo Credit: Armagh County Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]  Tensions are rising over claims that Dutch and Belgian farmers are ruining the french landscape by removing hedgerows and meadows to plant potatoes in the area now known as La Vallee de la Frite. (Chip Valley) The transformation is being driven by an insatiable French appetite for chips, accompanied by a dislike of the chores involved in making them. "Young generations no longer peel much," Ward Claerbout, legal and external affairs director at Agristo, a Belgian...
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Kyle Walker - Professional Footballer

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 I can confirm from acute research exposure  that celebrity gossip journalism may well be the weirdest form of the English language: a brain-melting argot of multiple compound nouns, facts as adjectives, adjectives as exclamations, exclamations as facts. Commas less as punctuation and more as a lifestyle choice. A spurious tissue of quasi-truth spun out of the unattributed, unchallenged testimony of "close pals", albeit the kind of pals happy to spill your most intimate personal secrets to a tabloid journalist. The Gossips Pierre M Beyle (1838-1902) Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain]  This, for the most part, is how the life of Kyle Walker has been recorded. Based on media footprint alone, he might well be one of the most chronicled English footballers of the past decade,and largely for issues unrelated to anything he did in a defensive transition. Search the internet for this player of 93 England caps and pretty much every medal at club level and you will b...
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The English

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  The first of the myriad anglosajon peculiarities that would confound and exasperate Julio Camba in his 15 months as London correspondent for el Mundo revealed itself when a porter tried to help the young Spanish journalist with his luggage as he arrived at Victoria station in December 1910. Victoria Station, London, the Sunlit Square Charles Ginner (1878-1952) Photo Credit: Atkinson Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-SA] "The worker grabbed my suitcase and shouted, so I started to shout, too," he wrote shortly afterwards. "Given that I'm Spanish, I shouted much more than he did and, finally, he shut up. Camba concluded that, unlike their Spanish, French and Italian neighbours, the English were not given to passionate outbursts. Or passion. Or, indeed, outbursts. "The English," he noted in an aphorism that has hardly aged over the past 115 years, "endure the proximity of the continent with the same irritable gestures as a man who lives next door to a young music ...
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The Rise of Astrology

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 More and more members of Generation Z, who make up the bulk of TikTok users, are into astrology. The horoscope app Co-Star, which uses AI  to combine Nasa data and content from astrologers, rose from 7.5 million global users in 2020 to 30 million in 2023. With apps offering paid extras such as romantic compatibility reports, spending on astrology-related products is projected to hit $ 22.8 billion by 2031, says Allied Market Research. One London based TikTok creator - Bella, who has 1.2 million followers suggested her Gen Z fans had turned to astrology for a "sense of agency" when life felt chaotic. She said her motivational videos appealed to young people looking for "self-development" and "self-empowerment". Feast of Fools Frans Floris the Elder (c. 1517-1570) Photo Credit: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust [CC BY-NC-ND] "Bitesized, visually engaging content like memes and zodiac-based trends resonate deeply with Gen Z. These platforms allow astrology t...
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Can you change a lightbulb?

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  The results are in: Gen Z can't change a lightbulb. Nor can we tell the difference between a  spanner and a wrench. In fact, if you give us a screwdriver we'll hand it to the police for fear of being caught with a weapon. Show us an image of a car's engine bay and we'll fall into a dribbling catatonic state; we'll spontaneously combust if you ask us to point out the battery. A new survey, which found that my generation are the most likely to pay a professional to perform basic tasks around the home instead of attempting them, has proven that we are terrible when it comes to DIY, [Do It Yourself] but just how bad? Awful. At least in my experience. Aged 25 I'm about as good with a chisel as a chef is at controlling their anger. Two Pairs of Stonemasons Working with Chisels and Hammers unknown artist  Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [Public Domain] I remember one particularly embarrassing situation at university. My friends and I had just moved into a new house...
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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

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  Patients Waiting to See the Doctor, with Figures representing Their Fears Rosemary Carson (b. 1962) Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection  [CC BY] Why does everyone suddenly seem to have ADHD? It's a question that many of us working in mental health have been asking each other recently. Just a decade or so ago I rarely saw anyone in clinic with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; now I see at least one case a day. It's bewildering. Have all these people simply been undiagnosed for years? Is it a medical fad? No one knows. ADHD used to be mainly diagnosed in children, but more and more people are now getting a diagnosis in adulthood. These adult patients tend to assume that they have had the disorder since childhood but what they don't grasp, is that even the existence of childhood ADHD as a condition is up for debate. Research suggests that far from being under-diagnosed in children, ADHD is wildly over-diagnosed. - and this is dangerous... It's easier to whack a la...
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Wales and the Welsh

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  People in Wales are generally immensely proud of their roots, be it village, town or valley. Yet while they maintain their sense of home, I have never been left in any doubt that I am welcome. Growing up in England, I have moved around the Midlands. West Bromwich, Leicester, Northampton and Coventry are all places I had considered my home. Don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful childhood, but I had never found the place that spoke to my heart. But from the moment I came to Wales, I felt that I had met a friend I never knew I needed. Everything about this country struck a chord with me. The Welsh are independent of mindset and nonconformist, and I love that. Wales is a land of geographical beauty and diverse wildness, but it is not the magnificent landscape of Wales that makes this home. It has always been the people... Arenig James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]   The Welsh are perpetually the underdog. Like my beloved Baggies, [West Bromwich ...
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