I’m very much playing catch up with my experiences over the past few weeks having been busy moving house and the like. One new development has been my attempts to grow sprouts. More
I took my food into the lounge today at my folks’ to watch a documentary, The Nazis, a warning from history. I am signed up on one of these rental schemes at the moment and they keep sending my DVDs I don’t have time to watch - I am always trying to fit too much into my days! Anyway, on turning on the TV or on turning the DVD off, I saw an interview with a young anorexic girl and her mother. She and her mother were talking about her behaviour when she was not eating sufficiently. They talked about how she behaved awfully because she was not getting enough vitamins. Now, I am constantly amazed that people do not make this connection more often, because so much is made of modern manners and chav culture and the rest of it, but it is so seldom that I see a link explicitly made between the culture of food in this culture (or lack of it) and the way people act.
When I was living in Nottingham in a terraced house next to a family from hell whose screaming was constantly audible through the walls - screaming directed for the most part at a tiny little girl, and often such things as “if you don’t eat it ‘ll shit in it and make you eat it” - I constantly observed how my own behaviour was affected by my food and how my ability to deal with stress was equally dependant upon what I was eating. Now, give anybody the amount of stress these families see, and then give them their diet, and they would behave much the same, I am certain of it.
Took the chance today and yesterday to work with Jaffa down his pet project, a community based on woodlands not too far away from where we’ve been set up for the last couple of weeks. Now I’ve barely spoken to the guy and though I like him, I always figured he had me down as one who hasn’t paid his dues - an easy enough assumption to make when I cover up so much about my past and had to adopt this neutral, non-suspicious persona for so long. Anyway, it turns out Dasha has been speaking to him, letting him know I’m one of her trusted few, so he comes over and tells me about the place. He’s one who has to be won over like that, one way or another. Offers to take me down for a bit of wood chopping and such. Offered, too, at a time the police were turning up to give us grief so it was perfect timing. I think he knew it.
We took the train out to Brum today to do so shopping. Horrible horrible weather! Saw N____ on the way and tried to make conversation with him. Not always easy. He probably thinks I have been ignoring him since I’ve come back from Prague. Probably doesn’t know I’ve been ignoring most people. He seems to have come over a little bitter again, but he was as chatty as he gets.
Anyway, it being horrible outside I couldn’t just grab my lunch - a home-made salad rustled up before we took the train in - as I usually would outside somewhere. We went to Eat., around the corner from Selfridges, which my brother informs me, incidentally, when I texted him to tell him one of our students, one of the best high wire artists we’ve had, had been seen climbing up the outside of it, was designed by the Czech architect that has now designed the Octopus, a radical design for a new library in the otherwise conservative city. Anyway, I said I would ask if I could eat my own food there, since I had food intolerances and was buying food for my girlfriend and both of us were having drinks, and eventually, on finding one of the staff who wasn’t rushing around, I did so. He thoughts for a second and said, ok, so long as I didn’t make it too obvious.
Ok, so this may not be any great epiphany for many who would no doubt routinely ask, but many people might not think to do so, and I am perhaps not always up for asking such things, and I was quite impressed by the way it was handled by the guy behind the till, who didn’t ask anything else and quickly aquiesced though he hadn’t heard of the food intolerances I mentioned.
I sat there eating, and enjoying my quinoa salad, and wasn’t remotely selfconscious despite the pair of us speaking Czech and the probability that people were looking over thinking that we were thrifty Poles.
I had a couple of reveries of persuading staff at various establishments that I should be able to eat, or helping out others who happen to be asking the same question. Pointing out that with my drink I would be taking up a place anyway, and that I cannot eat the food they sell, and would be happy to do so would they only introduce a range, pointing out that the food is home made, and not branded, and offering to put a token amount in a charity tin, which might be similar to their mark-up on food.
In any case, it was far more pleasant than hiding away somewhere in the Bull Ring with people rushing all around and eating it off my knees.
I would encourage anybody with food intolerances to try this. It is an entirely reasonable request if you are having a drink or with others who are eating, and it raises consciousness of the issue, and points out a vacuum in the market companies should be only too glad to fill.
