Seeing a book I had in hand but had not yet read, called Slice of Life, The British Way of Eating Since 1945, a female security guard in the British Library let me know that she knew about mass hospitality, about the provision of canteens for all – and not the one where she worked now. “That book must talk about British Restaurants, then”, she said. I said: “what are they?” She said that when rationing was going on and there wasn’t enough food during the war the government set up ‘British Restaurants’ to serve cheap hot food for everyone so that people had enough to eat things like semolina and stew, she could just remember the smell. It was in the 1950s or 1960s. They were for workers and ordinary people and children, she said. She used to go when she was at school in Red Hill in Surrey, and they had died out by the time she went to secondary school.

She said yes, the food wasn’t too bad and they were really cheap. She was very keen to tell me about the British Restaurants, very excited; she remembered them fondly. I tried to imagine a British Restaurant now, a government-backed scheme to make sure all comers were fed as a matter of the greatest national importance: I couldn’t. When I spoke to the security guard, I’d just that day found out that while the British Library restaurant does continue to serve filter coffee, its cheapest offering, the new caterer (the third in ten years as none of the private companies can make it work) no longer advertise it, only displaying prices for more expensive coffees, alongside £17 hot mains and £5 cakes. It has phased out filter coffee by now.

Then I looked in my book and found that the British Restaurants served nutritionally balanced meals (according to contemporary science) and had libraries and fresh flowers on the tables and gramophones and pianos and felt as if I were reading about a utopian vision of the future like I would see in a science fiction film. Further research in the Mass Observation Archives shows numerous interviews with people who felt delighted at feeling so full, that the food was hot. They served 50 million meals a week in 1945. Lord Woolton, the conservative minister for food, who had asked a socialist friend he knew to design the state-subsidised canteens, called them ‘one of the greatest social revolutions that has taken place in the industry of our country’. Discussions were had in parliament about how the canteens produced astonishing improvements in workers’ wellbeing. After the war Conservatives dismissed them in parliament because they weren’t making profit. The canteens were allowed to decline, then disappear. Now food deserts and food banks proliferate and people do not have enough food to live. It is a strange situation that, as food poverty surges, we forget that we built canteens, once. The wartime memory of eating that has been encouraged to survive is of rationing, of lack, but for many people, there had never been so much hot, filling food. A seat, a table, a glass of water, a plate of food with the calorie density to sustain a life for a good while; the space and the time in which to unfold.

https://dinnerdocument.com/2019/04/30/i-dream-of-canteens/

Good researchers using well-validated techniques have directly observed microplastic particles in multiple human tissues under the microscope and have even identified which types of plastic are present in these particles.

Moreover, we now know a great deal about how the chemicals in microplastics harm health. Microplastic particles act as vectors, Trojan horses that transport toxic plastic chemicals such as phthalates, bisphenols and brominated flame retardants from the environment into the human body. Once in the body, these chemicals leach out of microplastic particles, enter the bloodstream, are distributed to tissues and cells, and cause diseases from cancer to heart disease, from IQ loss in children to decreased fertility.

This means that the presence of microplastics in the human body needs to be taken seriously, even though we don’t yet know all the ways in which they may harm health. They cannot be wished away.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/21/scientific-rigour-and-the-dangers-of-microplastics

I file di Epstein recentemente pubblicati mostrano un Epstein interessato, tramite interlocutori come Bannon, alle dinamiche della destra europea nel periodo 2018-2019, inclusa l'ascesa della Lega di Salvini, ma non contengono prove di reati, di relazioni personali o di contatti diretti tra Epstein e Salvini

In un messaggio Epstein commenta favorevolmente i progressi di Salvini e delle destre europee: “Speriamo che tu sia seduto sulle ginocchia di Salvini”, dice a Bannon. In un altro messaggio Bannon dice a Epstein che si stava “concentrando sul raccogliere soldi per Salvini e Le Pen” per sostenere le loro campagne

Bannon informava Epstein anche con messaggi del tipo: "Sto andando a Milano proprio ora per una riunione con Salvini. Sembra che stasera ci sia Grillo e domani a Roma Berlusconi e 5 stelle". E spiegava il suo progetto: "Ora sono consigliere per il Front National; la Lega; AfD; Orban; Farage. A maggio ci sono le elezioni europee, possiamo andare da 92 seggi a 200". Bannon aveva inoltrato a Epstein un articolo del Guardian sul fatto che Salvini si sia unito al Movement lanciato da Bannon stesso: "Fantastico", ha risposto Epstein

🗞 @ultimora24