Ah, the old old "lets throw petrol on the fire"
method of firefighting.
A Scottish council have said that a nine-year-old food blogger was misrepresenting her school dinners and distressing the canteen staff, by publishing a photoblog about her lunch. The media attention caused by the photos, such as the one below was causing "distress and harm" to staff the council said. School Dinner by Glasgow …
Epic fail for the council, epic win for the girl and the charity.
This afternoon the page count had reached 2.5M and the charity had received £15K
This evening the page count has reached 3.8M and the charity has received £45K
The charity has even posted how they've received enough to go beyond the original appeal, and build a new kitchen and stock it with food for a year.
Streisand effect much.
OK, so I wonder if it's now time for her to practice her drawing ability.
Or could she take the plate of food outside and take the photo *not in* the canteen.
Or how is her photoshop? Have standard photos of a plate, cheeseburger, croquette etc and stitch them together on her computer later.
As my daughter said of her school meals, they teach you (in PSE) about eating five a day, then give you a meal that makes it harder to eat 5 fruit and veg a day because there's none (or in the illustrated case, very little) in it.
I looked at it and was going to suggest someone call the NSPCC
Having now seen the blog I can see the stories have picked out the first two photographs which are the worst, some odd choices for the meals.
The marking is generally 8 out of 10 so she isn't being slanderous, I'm glad I didn't make some more remarks as after reading the blog you can clearly see they do have a good variety of food. it looks like as usual those looking for a story have deliberately picked the worst out to generate an "OMG THEY SHOULD FIRE EVERYONE" response.
So SHAME ON U REG FOR BEING A SHEEP!!
A telescopic lens into a “School” canteen filled with “Children” the riot police would have beaten you senseless and locked away on terrorism charges before you could say “Cheese”.
I can just see the Daily Mail headline now “PEA-DOPHILE caught taking pictures of (potentially naked) children eating PEAS in a school canteen” the story would be accompanied by a picture of some peas and probably some naked children because Daily Mail readers can’t understand or be outraged at something they can’t see… even if it’s not real.
I bet the lunches at the council offices are better than they serve the kids. What a pathetic way to act. Councillors and council employees feeding off the cream while the kids get a birdseye beef burger and a couple of slices of cuecumber.
As the photos are taken on a regular basis, the sample of meals should presumably be representative of what is given out to the kids. Small portions, not enough veg, etc.
Makes me furious that when the council was exposed for providing rubbish meals, their only response is to censor the kid. Oh, and also put out another statement saying they are against censorship.
First up against the wall come the revoloution!
Speaking as a Scottish local government employee on his lunch break, eating macaroni from the canteen: they're not. Which is not to say our catering service is appalling, but we sure as hell aren't "feeding off the cream".
I've worked at the council offices. The choice is usually soup, or some gristle-based pie or similar. And being the West coast of Scotland, chips count as vegetables. All washed down with `Bru.
There's also nowhere else to go anywhere near there, other than a Tesco Express at the garage down the road.
Then again, most Scottish kids like shit food. Or at least you'd have thought that if you'd seen the kids tucking into the shite we got when I was at school.
How well do your overlairds eat?
Just out of curiosity when decade did you go to school? Just trying to figure out when it all went to shit. It could be regional as well, I grew up in the countryside, we got decent food, nothing fancy but it was honest grub. It came from actual ingredients. Our PE hall doubled as the dining room so Friday morning PE was spent watching / hearing and smelling the dinner ladies cooking. They took a lot of pride in their work and there was always more fruit & veg if you asked nicely. Sometimes if the main course was expensive the desert was a simple sponge and custard but at least it was made in the kitchen, not in same 3rd world country out of ingredients more often found in car tyres.
Having read veg's blog and the councils statement, they seem to offer some ok food now and again. They do offer milk which as we all remember is great! They just seem to manage to screw it up plenty. It also seems like its mostly premade ding food. Fahita's, enchiladas and quesadias are cheap, easy and quick to make from scratch with decent ingredients. Sad to see us setting kids up so badly for life. It was worse to see parents handing their kids crap through the gates on JO's show.
> Just out of curiosity when decade did you go to school? Just trying to figure out when it all went to shit
Well, I was at school in the 60's/70's (not the full 20 years, you understand!). One of the big problems my schools had was that the kitchens didn't keep a lot of reserves. So the food that made up the day's lunch was delivered from the suppliers that morning.
As a consequence the suppliers (esp. for meat) could deliver any old crud, safe in the knowledge that it couldn't be rejected or the little darlings would go hungry.
I do recall many occasions where it appeared the protein (at least that's what it appeared to be) had gone through some sort of vulcanisation process before being served. Whether that was the chemical genius of the school cooks, or the quality of the raw product is difficult to say. Generally the deserts were better as there aren't many ways to mess up Spong [sic] pudding though the custard sometimes made you wonder ...
I was getting school dinners in the 60s and it was good, solid, wholesome food; although seldom any choice.
Minced meat on Mondays (local butchers getting rid of unsold meat from previous week) usually in the form of cottage pie or similar. Very occasionally lasagne (twice a year?).
Tuesdays would be chicken; usually roasted, very occasionally they would produce a stange watery tomato sauce and vegetables.
Roast Beef / Pork / Lamb on a Wednesday; served with roast potatoes and mixed veg. Sometimes with yorkshire puddings.
Stew normally on Thursdays, usually with dumplings that could be used in hand to hand combat; solid little lumps that really filled you up. I also remember having some Toad in the hole that was actually really good.
Fish on Fridays, normally steamed, very occasionally deep fried, sometimes with chips, otherwise boiled potatoes.
We were offered salads during the summer, but they were very basic; lettuce cucumber and tomato. No dressing or coleslaw. Normally with sliced cold meat, and my favourite was corned beef which most other kids turned their noses up at.
Almost every day we were offered a sweet pie or pudding for afters; and almost without exception it would be smothered in custard (which I hated). The only drink offered was water, which was supplied in large dull coloured aluminium jugs, which we drank from matching dull coloured aluminium cups.
Like yours, our dinner ladies took a pride in their work, and produced good food on a tight budget. But locally produced and sourced food.
That seems like a very familiar menu! We did on occasion get stuff like pizza or curry, but it was always homemade and therefore nothing like you would expect. At the same time it was also very nice.
They could do it then, but now with 4x the amount of managers and technology they can't get past frozen croquets and hocket puck burgers made of horse tonka.
Well I was the previous AC. I went to school in Glasgow in the 80s. To be honest, the primary school I went to served the standard British stodge: mash, bits of gristly, fatty meat, completely unseasoned, usually with cold gravy, cabbage with the green boiled out of it, that sort of thing. Some people like that sort of thing, but I guess I was spoiled by a mother who could cook.
Secondary school was where things got really bad. It was pie and chips mostly. Very low quality burgers, sausages with no meat in them, that sort of thing. Burger van food, for want of a better description. Again, a hell of a lot of people like that sort of food, which is obvious as it's everywhere in the UK. Personally, I find that sort of shit revolting but realise a lot of people like it. A lot of IT companies' canteens still serve that type of food nowadays, although most people of my generation who work in such places tend to either bitch about it or avoid it. I guess the fact that a lot of people are cooking their own food again has an effect.
Ohhh, Custard. Luxury.
In the back of my larder I've a tin of Bird's custard. Imported when I moved to Finland. Unopened, and the sell-by date was at the end of the last century (I bet it's still OK)
Now, if I can get hold of some muslin (NO! - it's got an 'n' at the end, before the plods deal with my door with their "Standard Issue") and make Spotted Dick for my 56th next week...
"Then again, most Scottish kids like shit food. Or at least you'd have thought that if you'd seen the kids tucking into the shite we got when I was at school."
Just a thought - any chance the little buggers were not getting fed at home so perhaps did not have a great deal to compare against?
I.e. not so much that that love shite food, just they are so hungry they'll eat anything?
Here in Aust some schools (in the more proletariat areas - like where I grew up, before any one calls me condescending) have breakfast for kids so they can concentrate in class - as so many kids were coming to school unfed.
This post has been deleted by its author
BUT surely council property is public property as it is owned by the council which is government, and last I heard you are permitted to take photographs in public places...
And I read the MSP is actually going to ask the council to reverse their decision, surely if the MSP or MP says do something, the council should do it as their the public's representative...
IANAL, but ...
There is a subtle distinction between a property owned by the public (so a public property) and a place where any member of the public can go/take photos freely (a public place). If the school was a public place, any member of the public would be able to enter it and wander up/down it's halls, which they are obviously not allowed to do. So yes, the council was _probably_ within their rights to ban the photography.
Secondly, you _do_ vote your local council in, so they are just as much the public's representative and are not subservient to M(S)Ps . Arguably they have a stronger mandate in local matters than your M(S)Ps (and definitely your MEPs) because when voting for your council you only care about local issues, but when voting for your M(S)P you normally are voting on national issues.
Still, can see the current lot of councillors not doing very well next election.
That was NAAFI not Sodhexo (sp?). The standard of forces catering plumeted badly when the on-camp meals were contracted out. At least you'd get decent food out in the field where contractors fear to tread.
It wouldn't surprise me if the council had contracted school dinners out to someone like Sodhexo.
I despise sodhexo. They took over a subsidise staff canteen. Choice went down, prices went up, food quality went down. The one positive was accidental, they hired a Polish cook who could actually cook and did his best to sneak real cooked food past his managers.
We did nearly all get sacked one day, he made a crumble, it looked like apple but didn't smell right so we asked him. Having about 4 words of English he just drew an outline in the air of something remarkably phallus like. Thus pear crumble became cock crumble (we did explain to him what this meant, he had a wicked sense of humour). This went down very well with everyone till our director asked what it was.
Apart from that it was 4-5 quid for a sandwich (remember the company subsidised this racket), if you wanted frozen fish (don't ask the type) and chips it was usually over 5 quid.
2pounds for the meal of which 70p was for ingredients, the rest for staffing, power, councillor junkets to learn about how the schhol dinner system works on whatever tropical island they saw on the travel channel.
I've always been a believer in doing it right or not doing it at all. If an extra 20p a day split between staffing and food brings better quality food then to me it is worth it. Why pay anything for crap when you can make a packed lunch. Those that genuinely cannot afford it get free dinners, which is as it should be.
If the kids don't like healthier food then that's the parents issue. If we didn't eat what was on offer our parents wwould find out and there would be lickings and a monologue about how hard my parents worked for their money and who the hell was I to turn down good food.
If I smacked my kid the council would have me in chains in minutes, yet they can charge 2 quid for child abuse on a plate.
Salad bars, etc, are no good, if they're not accompanied by suitable teaching about food and introduction to foods which may differ from what has been previously experienced. If all you eat at home is burgers and chips, you're not going to stuff yourself with salad at school, especially if burger and chips is also on the menu.
I'm all for choice, but it's not a choice if you're not capable of understanding the options or the consequences of your actions. Most children (any many adults) are not.
I agree to a point. Yes the school may have more luck if it accompanied a salad br with education as you state. However, the biggest change has to be driven by the parents. Parents are usually kids role models, before they get to school they have had 4 years of conditioning from their parents. It would be an uphill battle for the school without parental support. True some kids would respond better than others but I do believe (and I am more than happy to hear your thoughts) that the biggest battle is in the home.
I remember our primary school picked a different country every month and you learnt about their culture (and history etc), including making their national dishes. How we didn't poison each other I don't know, but it did make us braver when it came to trying different foods. Some kids hated it. Funnily enough it was the kids with more affluent parents who could afford junk food who hated anything that wasn't burger, chips and coke.
I'd probably be "distressed" too if the someone was if someone was publishing a blog with photographs proving my work wasn't up to snuff. That doesn't mean that the blog is in the wrong though.
As for the charge of misrepresentation, if there were two choices each day, unless one was something she absolutely hated then it would seem reasonable that she chose the better of the two options. Therefore, the photos potentially show the school dinners in an overly flattering light as they don't factor in the less palatable option. I suppose technically that is misrepresentation, but surely one that if anything is in the school's favour.
Right. That meal looks like toy food you give a 5 year old to play at cooking with on their Little Tykes play kitchen.
Distress & Harm caused to the councillor's wallet which was getting a kickback for awarding that catering contract to the cookery clowns that would net him/her the most moolah, most likely.
No no no - its all about da a la Carte Kitchen with the Swiss roll drizzled with baked beans! Or it least it would be if it was 1987 still!
Back to the main topic - so a nine year old girl is causing harm and distress is she? I take it her local council are planning the extradition charge to the US for terrorism against canteen food as we speak - or maybe they have decided to just drone her as it's now the in thing to do to terrorists and those that cause harm and distress to society and interfere with the functioning of the state!
What a bunch of losers!
"The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils"
The only "obvious reasons" I can think of is that, while the Council believes the options and choices have been misrepresented they know that a Court of Law would think otherwise.
The trouble with politicians is they never stop digging when they realise they are in a hole. Say hi to the Earth's core for me......
I grew up in dumfries and as I said earlier, that looks a lot better than the thin watery slop that i got as a school dinner when I was in primary school.
If it couldnt be boiled to death is those huge aluminium cauldrons then it wasnt done. I do remember we did get a plate of salad once a month with a pork pie on it. Everyone ate the pork pie, egg and cheese and slung the rest.
Dinners rhymes with dinners
chips rhymes with chips
semolina rhymes with semolina
sick rhymes with sick.
And there you have it. Children aren't known for their poetic prowess.
I'm sure we used to try and insert toilet talk into that song, but I can't for the life of me remember how. But then again, i can barely remember last week, let alone 30 years ago.
find themselves in the hole and... start digging, deeper and deeper, furiously, and with the most ridiculous tools, like a toothbrush up their arse. I bet they'll soon, faced with "general public outrage" send some poor "spokesperson" to apologize to the family and issue a statement that their position has been mis-interpreted and mis-represented, etc,etc.
and, by the way, is it one of those "healthy" meals on that plate? Yum-me! :/
that's a lolly she's got there for desert! a lolly!! ffs!!!
why's she comlpaining? we never got lollies at our canteen when i were a lad at school. it was always horrible unidentifiable stale pudding of some kind drowned cold custard. i would have killed for a lolly!
kids these days, tsk, [cue Monty Python....]
What concerns me, is that primary school are given the option to eat junk food. Its OK to give them an ice lolly and burger, as there was the option of an 'all you can eat salad bar'. These are small children - given the option of course most of them will eat the high in sugar and fat food.
If my child went to this school i would be fuming, and the catering staff, teachers and councillors should be disgraced of themselves.
I have kids at school, the school menu is published and rotates over 2 weeks (9 day option). They are allowed a "junk" option once a week (burgers for our little uns) and chips one day. The rest is pasta, rice, pie, sausage and mash, jacket potatoes. Veg with every meal and fruit as an option daily.
I have brought up my children to appreciate fruit and vegetables as a normal part of their eating as such even the 5 year old picks up fruit to eat (not just in school but in cafe's too).
Whilst not the best looking thing in the world there is a hell of a lot worse and I would like to see both sides of the story (and the menus) before I jump on the venom wagon.
The council are saying choices include things like 'meat or vegetarian lasagne served with carrots and garlic bread or chicken pie with puff pastry, mashed potato and mixed vegetables,' but what the photo shows is a very small hamburger, two potato croquettes, three slices of cucumber and an ice lolly. With a disparity that wide between advertisement and reality, small wonder the council has moved to stop the child.
There's lasagne and then there's lasagne, there's chicken pie & then there's chicken pie.
From the picture in the previous article I had a problem working out that the strange flat brownish thing was supposed to be pizza. I've seen (and eaten) burgers that bear virtually no resemblance to the one in the picture for this article. 3 slices of cucumber could be described very loosly as "salad" - especially if there were other offerings available on the salad bar, however inedible they may have been (brown slimy lettuce, the same bowl of tomatoes that was offered the previous day etc).
1 scoop of "smash" made with no butter and dried out through being sat under a heat lamp isn't really any more appetising than those croquettes, and cheap tinned or frozen mixed vegetables can be pretty revolting. A small brick of rock hard bread that's been baked to death with a drizzle of artificial garlic flavoured oil isn't exactly haute cuisine either.
In British usage, "refute" can mean simply "deny" without use of evidence.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/refute?q=refute
Second meaning.
This is not the case in the USA, so if you looked it up on Dictionary.com you need to scroll down to the Collins definition to see it.
If someone offers vegetarian (or gluten-free or kashrut or ...) meals, they should be what the seller says they are. Period. Those who do not want to prepare them correctly should not offer them. In this case, it sounded like the school was clueless and willing to learn, the poster was willing to teach, and the sprogs get (one hopes) more better variety of healthful food -- win all 'round, no?
Heaven knows too many kids are getting corporate sludge shovelled at them at early ages and continue these habits into an unhealthy adulthood (that increases healthcare costs for We the Taxpayers). Not sure why youths who take nutrition and food seriously should incite derisive comments, AC 22:53.
1. What about the distress to the child after all of this?
2. Do they really serve this to kids?
3. If the council says it does not represent the food on offer......get them to take the same type picture of the choice available and let us decide who is telling the truth.
4. Is this why kids go to the chip shop?
5. Vote the buggers out asap!!!
This post has been deleted by its author
"was misrepresenting her school dinners and distressing the canteen staff"
I think the distress was caused by the council forcing the canteen staff to serve up the food rather than the blog (which, from what I've read, never criticised the staff). I think that, deep down, those canteen staff would prefer to serve up better food (as seen in Mr Oliver's school food series if I remember correctly).
It's such a shame that now the school food campaign is no longer headline news (as it was when the TV series was on) they think it's OK to go back to the easy, old ways.
From BBC:
In a statement released on its website, Argyll and Bute Council claimed media coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.
"However this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing."
So - council decides distress to staff (of which no proof provided) is more important than free speech, can't go risking the public seeing what the council does, now, can we? Ban first, ask questions later.
And tellingly, it gives individual public servants great power to sell out such programs, to the pubic detriment.
Can't believe you guys in the UK are now also contracting out your police force. Whether the intention is to strip pensions of police officers or to put money in the pockets of individual public servants who sell such public contracts to private corporations, this will end badly.
Kid gets meal.
Kid photos meal.
Kid (with some help) writes it up.
No where on the blog did I see "Dinner lady Ms Foobar is a big poop-head!" or anything like that and some of her meals (a minority) did not look too bad. The paled into insignificance compared to the European/Asian ones (the USA ones looked terrible).
if the council do not want their tender little employees to be "distressed" perhaps that had better stop getting them to server sub-standard nosh?
Wankers.
The food certainly doesn't look like much. More like display food on the counter on a curb side cart.
That being said though, WTF do kids need phones/cameras at school for anyway? I got on just fine without them as did my entire generation.
My nine year old daughter isn't allowed to own a mobile at all. She's at the top of her class, wonder if its connected?
in this case, I would say the young lady in question has just demonstarted a gold-plated reason why phones and cameras *should* be allowed in school. She's made a cracking job of using all the tools available to her (which back in 1975, at her age, weren't even dreamt of) to engage with the world in a mature, considered way. Her parents should be rightly proud. Whilst it would be a bit cheesy (unlike the dinners) I hope she gets a chance to stand alongside some photo-seeking politicians, so we can see a glimmer of hope for the future.
£10 duly donated.
(as if that had anything to do with an El Reg story but here goes anyway), the child's reviews of her school lunches were generally popular (the worst review she gave a lunch was 4 out of 10 and that was very rare).
The 'problem' arose when Scotland's Daily Record headlined the story with 'Sack The Dinner Lady!'. Now the Daily Record is to the news what excreta is to food but it is the largest circulation toilet paper in Scotland.
As it happens the MP for the girl's constituency is Scotland's Education Minister and he has described the council's edict as, "Daft." He is now "in talks" with the council and asking them to "reconsider their options".
> Do you have a link to it?
The Daily Record is a tabloid print newspaper/scandal sheet. You would have to either ask one of your neighbors if they have a copy or try a real library (one with paper books and newspapers, etc.).
Of course they are not going to continue publicizing an invented story/headline/agitation after its veracity has been questioned by the BBC and reputable press. It's called damage limitation.
Argyll & Bute council has history - the 'communications chief' recently gortherself suspended by boasting at a conference about how she spies on council critics using fake social media accounts http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-16991417. I don't think there is a more inward looking and paranoid local council in the country. George Orwell wrote 1984 whilst staying in Argyll, and the local theory is that the council uses that book as its operations manual.
Am I the only one who doesn't quite understand the shit storm about the social media spying thing? Unless what she was doing was creating fake personas and interacting with people on a friendship sort of level, betraying their trust etc. in order to gather intelligence. That would be fairly reprehensible. If she just made some accounts and joined some "Argyll and Bute council suck ass" Facebook groups then I'm not sure I see the problem. Got links to an more info?
Back in '69 at the age of sevenish, in Scotland, we got handed 'proper' grub on proper plates and dishes at Skool along with gert big Jugs of Gravy and Custard for Free... and a third pint of milk mid morning.
Now you have to pay £2.00 for a plastic plate partially infected with tuppence worth of nutritional negligence.
Huh?
Is Jamie Oliver bonking Martha Lane Fox?
Won't someone think of the children.
As he announced the unbanning. He sounded rational, calm and sensible, and felt that it had been an overreaction to ban the photos in the first place. Who would ever be a councillor, eh? Whatever they do, some bastard somewhere says they are doing it all wrong, they're petty, narrow-minded, etc. The poor sods do it for nothing, they give up their free time for it, an all they get is a load of...
Your nickname does you more than justice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In this day & age we hear & read about the children & youth of today show far to little gumption. Here is the case of Martha doing just that & she is being taken to task for doing just that. At the same time she is raising money for far less better off children so that they may get at least a meal a day.
She has been very imparticial in her blogs & on the whole has been very fair. May you should take the time out to read her blog!!! Then again, someone such as yourself would not really understand what her message is. That she is at the same time, helping others does not appear to interest you.
Then maybe witless no brainers as yourself would not write such drivel. Get a life. Maybe go down to Africa & see what her efforts are helping to change. That though is as I do realize, would be far to much effort for someone with your level of intellect. People like you make not only ANGRY but make me want to vomit.
P.S. Sarcasam is the lowest form of wit/humour & you have shown that with your posting today admirably!!
What has annoyed me about this whole matter is the fact that this wonderful & clever child is being basically punished for being honest. Also that she was raising money for a very deservable charity at the same time seems to be forgotten!!!!!!!!!!
I also donate to this charity so I am all the more up in arms about the stance of the local Council. Still elections will be soon coming around & I have the hope that the voters make a clean sweep & vote these idiots out of office, before they do more damage.
Talk about over reacting. She was posting/blogging very fairly. They should have taken the time out to read the blog themselves, then maybe they would have seen she was being very fair & honest in her judgements. At the same time raising money for other children very much in need of a decent meal.
I am extremely angry to the point that I shall be writing to the Council to state my point of view. I live in Germany & this story is in a lot of newspapers & in television reports. Guess who is getting the sympathy??
Kid takes photo and uploads to a blog that generally approves of the lunch she is served.
Newspaper, on a slow news day, steals her story ( I'm sure the girl wasn't paid for her "help" in the story) and runs it with a purposefully inflammatory headline.
Council doesn't read blog or news story, just the headline. Investigates best way to punish girl, decides he only thing they can do is ban photography without being sued.
Ban makes news and expands story.
Someone on the council ( or a person near to them ) actually reads the blog and facepalms.
Backpedalling ensues.
Things the council should take away from all of this:
1. Never trust a news article. It's usually only a slanted part of reality. Most of us know this.
2. Do what thousands of regular people do: check the sources before acting.
3. Grow thicker skin.
1. Be damn thankful that you have a good meal everyday
2. Be damn thankful that you have a good education system to go to learn in
3. Be damn thankful that other people provide your food while many folks are homeless and hungry
4. Don't be such a spoiled brat who thinks they are entitled to everything
5. Walk a mile in other people's shoes before you start complaining about the decent lunch you get
4 pages of comments on a non-IT related article...
OK, to continue the mindless ranting, does anyone remember having to tip the remainder of their dinners into the bin outside the school kitchen, labelled "Pig Swill"?
Or, indeed, having to leave the house when my Mother cooked my Father his favourite dish of tripe and onions? Or getting VERY suspicious looks from Mum after having indulged in a pot of jellied eels?