Having been out quite a bit lately, have been musing on the above – the pleasures being the (re)discovery of little local gems.

I’ve just returned from the Drummond Street area with a backpack as bulky as that with which I left, having exchanged my copies of London Green News for a collection of spices and frozen Indian dishes from the excellent grocer on that road. Somehow they’ve crammed even more into the shop than last time I was there, and getting around the store requires a constant chorus of “sorry”, “excuse me”, “pardon”, but it’s worth it.

And down on Lamb’s Conduit Street at an ungodly hour on Monday night (the leaflets had to go out before the election official started on Tuesday), I found a little health food place advertising gluten-free pastries. Having had to give up pies with gluten, the thought of reacquainting myself with them is mouth-watering.

As for the pains, well I have been wondering if you could sue the owner if your fingers were taken off in their letterbox flap. And deciding that possibly the most irritating thing is trudging down another set of dodgy basement steps, only to discover there’s no letter flap…

Some figures that gave me pause: of the more than 250,000 known plant species, 4 per cent are edible, but only about 200 are regularly used for crops.

Three plant species – rice, maize and wheat, contribute 60 per cent of the calories and protein that humans derive from plants.

Great potato famine anyone?

Source (PDF)

This is a slightly confused story in its reasoning, but I can only agree with the sentiments: using chimpanzees in advertising as a figure of fun, as mock humans, is a practice that should be very firmly consigned to history.