Food Banks,Yoga with Lemurs

                                         Food Banks

Charity (The Seven Acts of Mercy)

Bartolomeo Schedoni (1578-1615) (copy after)

Photo Credit: Blairs Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]

A record 1.6m emergency food parcels were given out by the Trussell Trust food bank network last year – more than 500,000 of them to children – as benefit cuts, universal credit delays and rising poverty fuelled the busiest year in the charity’s history.

The trust demanded urgent changes to the UK benefit system – including major reforms to universal credit - as it recorded a year-on-year 19% surge in the number of food bags it gave out – the biggest increase for five years.

…The trust’s chief executive, Emma Revie, said it was unacceptable that people had to use food banks in the first place, and that the state should not rely on them to fix its shortcomings. “We do not want to be a part of the welfare-state, we can’t be part of the system…What we are seeing year upon year is more and more people struggling to eat because they simply cannot afford food. This is not right.”

(The Guardian, 2019)

The Commons Leader, Andrea Leadsom, had this to say on the subject:

First, can I just say food banks represent an impressive response by civil society and faith groups to supporting vulnerable people, and we should thank them for all that they do. [Mr Elmore] is making a very serious point about that report from the Trussell Trust and it is the case that, since 2010, while the previous government didn’t allow Jobcentres to point people towards food banks, what this government has done is to encourage people, signpost them so they can seek help.

To his point about universal credit, he will be aware that universal credit is a far simpler measure to provide people with support to get into work. Some of the work of this Trussell Trust report pre-dates changes that have been made to universal credit to ensure that anybody can get a whole month of their payments upfront so that they don’t need to wait.

(The i, 2019)

Benefit cuts, universal credit delays and rising poverty. Who must take some of the credit for all of that?

Yoga

The All-Pitying Lord Of Mercy in His Four-Handed Form

unknown artist

Photo Credit: Royal Institution of Cornwall [CC BY-NC-ND] 

…Yoga with lemurs, the latest wellness craze. Or at least the thing that’s got the internet talking, after photos of the primates doing lotus-like poses went viral.

Armathwaite Hall, a luxury hotel and spa in the Lake District, is the only place in the world to offer this activity. Of course it is – its owners made it up.

…Take any activity under the sun and some enterprising soul has blended it with a few asanas. There’s doga (yoga with dogs) and yoga with ponies, bunnies and goats …In LA I tried 4.20 yoga (we passed around a spliff before practice), paddleboard yoga and sex yoga (don’t ask).

If plinky whale music isn’t your thing, gyms in London offer disco yoga and heavy metal yoga. There’s chroma yoga (done under coloured lights), and acroyoga (where you balance on your partner…In Germany you can do beer yoga. In Delhi you can try laughing yoga. In New York you can sing while you stretch at karaoke yoga.

…According to the website [Armathwaite Hotel), lemurs “make great workout partners…helping reduce stress and blood pressure”. Quite how scientific this is I’m not sure, although there is at least some research to indicate exercising outdoors can improve mental health.

…The Lemoga Spa Break costs £495 for two people sharing a room, including breakfast, a three-course dinner and a spa treatment.

Bedlam Yoga?