Indentured servants

Goddamn but we really shouldn't be eating meat. Think of the methane plume - it's 30x to 80x worse for the planet than CO₂. But we definitely shouldn't be insulating our conscience by buying meat in neat trays, wrapped in cling-film and having a BB date next to the price. You get a pass (or at least an annual quota) on meat which you have seen alive in a field and dismembered yourself. You get a passer's pass on the actual killing because you won't practice it often enough to be able to carry out the task humanely. 

20 years ago we were pushing the frontiers of science discovering how the chicken immune system worked. In particular how Campylobacter is tolerated in chicken guts but gets flushed from ours in distressing Niagara outfalls. The research was ultimately set to benefit the chicken production and processing industry. Over the years we met with a few of the players - policy wonks from Dept. AgFood&Fish; vets; meat packers. Over lunch with one of the latter we were informed that their Health & Safety notices were printed in thirty different languages.

That's because, at the price that Irish consumers are prepared to pay for meat, and under the conditions in which meat is 'processed', it is hard to persuade Irish people to work. I recently got a disturbing insight into the economics of running a meat-packing factory one county over from Chateau Blob. A palomino runs various evening classes in a community centre nearby and several of their clients work a long shift in the factory and stagger into class to learn some English and other skills. It must be nice just to sit down. It's possible that their living arrangements are sufficiently spartan that two hours in the warm on Tuesday and Thursday nights is a welcome break. You may be sure that these strainséirí are being paid minimum wage. It's hard work. The factory canteen offers them dinner for €19.95 including dessert. 

That's TWENTY YoYos for lunch in the works canteen!! When I worked in The Institute, lunch was €4.85 (two meat options, fish on Fridays) and €4.25 for vegetarianos. In the factory they give with the right hand and take with the left.

Unintentionally funny marketing literature produced by the factory?

"Thin Flank is located in the abdominal region and consists of the muscles and fasciae integrating the abdominal wall. It can be prepared from a rear four to 3 ribs. the previous extraction of macabre, it is separated from the cuitril colita".
A short session with Auntie Google turned up the original eSpanish: Se puede preparar a partir de un cuarto trasero a 3 costillas, previa extracción del matambre, se lo separa de la colita de cuadril.
Which a more competent translator renders as: It can be prepared from a 3-rib hindquarter, prior to removing, the flank is separated from the tail of the rump.  

And while we're in the zone of exploiting foreign labour so that we can consume extras without having to agonize about the true costs, Peter Hebblethwaite [R], the CEO of P&O was back before the Business Committee of the UK Parliament last week. He was asked with rhetorical flourish how he could justify paying the crew of cross-channel ferries 25% of the UK national minimum wage. After establishing that "it was important to compare apples with apples" Hebblethwaite acknowledged that he couldn't live on £4.87/hr but that foreign johnnies were beating path to the gangway to work for P&O. The 'guaranteed' bonus and 'guaranteed' overtime (which is impossible to avoid while rostered at sea) brings the average weekly wage up to [drum-roll] 50% of the UK minimum wage.

You may recall that in 2022, P&O let all their unionized employees go and replaced them with eager and hungry mariners from India, the Philippines. And P&O don't employ any of these fire-and-rehire seafarers; they have out-contracted HR to an agency, who do the ugly part of of crewing and retention, so that P&O management don't have to see [metaphor alert] the sheep getting slaughtered for cheap fares/food while they rake in the C-suite Christmas bonus. 

Two days after Hebblethwaite's grilling, Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, found that Rishi Sunak's Anglo-Rwandan government was insufficiently cruel and defected to Labour. You may recall that, in 2022, Elphicke voted in parliament to send P&O's unionized mariners down to the dole-office and then rocked up to lead a march protesting against P&O. Heckling ensues!! Elphicke's husband Charlie was the previous MP for Dover but at the time of the 2019 general election, he was on bail before being found guilty of multiple charges of sexually assaulting his staff. Terrible people, no shame. I was born in Dover, but left 3 months later and only returned to a) visit m'grannie b) catch a ferry to France. So I didn't vote for either Elphicke.