Philobiblon: A full supermarket, and nothing to eat

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

A full supermarket, and nothing to eat

The world's top 25 food companies have not taken significant action to improve diets, with only a handful acting on excess fat and sugar and only 10 are tackling salt levels. That explains why, increasingly, when I pop into Sainsbury's (sorry - I try to avoid it, but it is on my way home) about 10pm, starving, without having made any dinner preparations, I increasingly can't find anything I want to buy. (Increasingly because I have got more fussy since I've got into organic fruit and veg and more home cooking - or at least home food-assembly ...)
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The arrest of Charles Taylor and his trial for war crimes is one further small step for humanity. A reasonable comparison with him is probably Idi Amin - who was able to live out his natural lifespan in peace and comfort in Saudi Arabia. The increasing application of international law is a really significant advance for the human race and might, you can only hope, act as a check in future on dictators tempted to act similarly. An interesting thought:

The term “international law” was invented in 1780 by the jurist Jeremy Bentham who said he hoped it was an “intelligible” phrase. By 2080 it will probably be the most important form of law across the world.

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Combining history and politics, Jonathan on Frog in a Well reviews Libby Lewis's novel The Apprentice. Apparently the history is reasonably well done - as for the politics, well you can judge for yourself...

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