EU Rebuffs New UK Registration System. Voting Sheep? Apples

Apple Day in Ely 2012

Britain has proposed a new streamlined registration system for EU citizens applying for permanent residency in the UK, making it equivalent in cost to applying for a UK passport. However, the EU parliament still believes that EU citizens should be able to stay in the UK automatically after Britain leaves the EU and that the proposal is still inadequate.

Prime Minister May accepted the resignation of another cabinet minister, Priti Patel, the former UK international development secretary. It looks as if at one point PP was on a private visit holding these unsanctioned events, whilst her junior minister was also in Israel for official meetings, yet unaware of her activity. Another tricky decision ahead for the PM on who to bring in to fill the vacancy.

Good news then, that UK Cambridge researchers have been able to demonstrate that sheep can be taught to recognise human faces. Perhaps they could be enrolled in future elections, voting with their feet, to replace a potentially fickle human electorate that might be swayed by scandal. The downside would be the rustling of sheep voting for one candidate and retraining them to vote for another. Then there would be the dilemma of whether to eat lamb from your political persuasion as an act of solidarity, or whether to eat those from the opposition in an attempt to reduce the electorate. Mind you, with only 5.3 million sheep in the US, they might be better off with the also intelligent pig, at over 70 million.

With the NHS needing more funding to counter the increase in waiting times for hospital appointments and operations, the NHS chief Simon Stevens forecast that one in twelve of the UK population could be on a hospital waiting list by 2021. He further said that perhaps the government should start giving the NHS the money promised by the Brexit campaigners during the EU referendum campaign.

A cold having properly set in, it was a late start, finishing the touches on a brochure for a visiting German delegation to the UK next week. We had a disruptive and unexpected set of power cuts, wth a warning that we should prepare for another over the early afternoon. Not wanting a crashed computer again, I instead baked a new loaf:

150g Camilla sourdough, 200g strong white flour, 200g wholemeal bread flour, 8g salt, a level desert spoon of dried yeast (6g), 200g raw pureed apple made up to 250 ml with a bit of water and lemon juice, handful of ground hazelnuts, desertspoon of Nutella. Whilst kneading, I did have to add a bit more water. Allowed to rise for 90 minutes and then knocked back and placed in bread tin to rise for further 2h before baking. It created a denser loaf than usual, tasty, though you couldn't really tatse the apple.

I used one of our remaining large eaters/cookers of unknown variety, quite sweet but firm. According to Elzebroek & Wind 2008, there are over 7500 cultivated apple varieties, divided into eaters, cookers and cider apples. Then there are the wild crabapples scattered in our hedgerows.

The wild ancestor of the apple originated in the mountains of southern Kazakhstan and has been cultivated and develped over millenia. It was probably the first fruit tree to be cultivated and has a special importance for us humans. Normally, apples grow into very large trees. This is countered by grafting onto root stocks that reduce the rampant growth. The extreme development are the pillars, which have very little lateral branching, great for small gardens.

To maintain a true variety, you cannot grow apples from seed, you have to propagate them from cuttings to keep them true to type. This is because fertilisation results in a mixing and shuffling of genes, so that, as with humans, the offspring can be very different from the parents. Then again, it is these new plants that could yield a variety of the future.