Chris Stephenson

Cattle, crops, caravans, soil and sunshine. Nature restoration.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@QuibbleUK @Jimmy_onions https://t.co/JVLwH9s2ms is the worst. You have to click your cookie preference then click AGAIN to hide the redundant cookie message. Why?

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@cristo_burton @NorthBritannia @wesstreeting A lot of it, but Labour have worked hard to make it worse.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@HighFarndale How low do you go?

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@SamJRushworth Can't speak of national stats, but we've gone from employing 5x 15-21 year olds to just 1. NI not an issue, but min wage and risk from Employment Rights Act means it's just not worth recruiting unknowns. Had some great employees, but better to consolidate and limit growth.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@HefinR @AvonandsomerRob @LandRover Rubbish. 174k on our 300tdi Defender. Just run in. 1997 is newish, isn't it?

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@1901gennelm Booths

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@ScarecrowNeste1 Thought hunting with dogs was banned a few years back.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@SamJRushworth @RoryMaw @triggerpod But then standing charges have gone ballistic. Turns out all the money we've been paying to Kier's pals at Blackrock since privatisation didn't get reinvested in infrastructure after all. Weak regulation by successive governments.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@DanAttle @bleating_lamb Any N?

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@CommunistPompey @leonburton @patmcfaddenmp That's the joy of any first job. Might not be what you feel entitled to, but experience gives you more choice.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

"The price of food is sometimes the price of food being food."

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

"100% Grated Parmesan Cheese."

That's what the label says. That is, in fact, the literal text the manufacturer has chosen to place on the front of the package.

The 100% refers to a feeling, not a chemistry.

In 2012, the FDA raided Castle Cheese in Pennsylvania, a major supplier of grated cheese to American supermarkets. The 100% Parmesan they were selling was 0% Parmesan. It was a blend of cheddar, Swiss, mozzarella, and powdered cellulose, the last of which is, in industrial terms, wood pulp. Or to be more specific: fine fibres extracted from the cell walls of trees and processed into a flowable powder used to stop the cheese from clumping in the shaker.

The Castle Cheese executive went to prison. The company went bankrupt. The practice continued.

In 2016, Bloomberg commissioned independent lab testing of major American "100% Parmesan" products. Kraft's product contained 3.8% cellulose. Some Walmart and Albertsons store brands tested as high as 9%. The accepted industry threshold for "anti-clumping" cellulose use is 2 to 4%.

The cheese is partly wood.

The Italians, who have been making the actual cheese for a thousand years, can only sell their version under EU protection as Parmigiano Reggiano: three ingredients, milk, rennet, salt, aged in a 75-pound wheel for at least twelve months in a specific geographic region with the name burned into the rind in dotted pin lettering.

The American "Parmesan" can be anything. The American "Parmesan" can be sawdust.

The Italian cheese costs more.

The Italian cheese is more.

The price of food is sometimes the price of food being food.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@DanNeidle Drop VAT threshold to 15k, then lower VAT rate til your 5bn is covered.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@bleating_lamb @EdwdPrice Quite happy to farm without if we were competing on a level field.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@EdwdPrice @bleating_lamb And drop farm support payments when all your neighbours keep them going.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

Say what you like about de Gaulle - respect for top hat and 3 piece on the beach.

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

Instead of hiding his daughter with Down syndrome, Charles de Gaulle raised her proudly and she became the heart of his life....

When Charles de Gaulle died in 1970, he made a quiet request that surprised many. He did not want a grand state funeral in Paris. He asked to be buried in the small village of Colombey les Deux Églises, beside his daughter Anne. For him, that resting place mattered more than any monument.

Anne was born on New Year’s Day in 1928, youngest of three children. She had Down syndrome, a condition surrounded by fear and misinformation at the time. Doctors and society often blamed parents and urged families to hide children like her from public view. For families of power and status, sending such children away was considered normal. Charles and his wife Yvonne refused. They raised Anne at home with her brother Philippe and sister Élisabeth. There was no secrecy, no shame, no separation. She was simply their daughter.

To the world, de Gaulle was distant and unyielding. A leader shaped by war, discipline, and command. But inside his home, Anne revealed a side few ever saw. With her, he laughed freely. He sang songs, told stories, and played games. Friends noticed that the man who rarely showed emotion softened completely in her presence. He called her my joy. Anne asked nothing of him except love, and in that simplicity, he found peace. She was never treated as fragile or inferior. She was respected fully, included always, and loved without condition.

That love did not end within the family. After the war, Charles and Yvonne founded the Fondation Anne de Gaulle. They turned a château into a home for young women with intellectual disabilities, many of whom had been abandoned. At a time when support barely existed, they chose action over silence.

Anne’s life was short. She died of pneumonia in 1948, just after turning twenty, in her father’s arms. In his grief, de Gaulle whispered that now she was like the others, finally free from the limits the world had placed on her.

After her death, he carried her photograph everywhere. He believed her presence protected him, even during an assassination attempt years later. Whether faith or fate, he never doubted her importance in his life.

Charles de Gaulle found his deepest calm not in leadership or victory, but in loving a child the world did not understand. His family showed that dignity is not about ability. It is about how fiercely we choose to care.

© Soul Whisper

#drthehistories

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@robertsturt @angusgowthorpe @RachelReevesMP @RupertLowe10 @Nigel_Farage @Keir_Starmer @bbclaurak Wait til you have to pay VAT.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@JillCollier16 @audlemagronpaul @ntahall Thousands of navvies.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@mark_crapper1 Buying little diddy dairy calves for 850 hoping the job will be right in 24 months time... Mad

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@BenRamanauskas Tax your way to growth? Money taken from a tourist business is less money to invest in their product.

[Chris Stephenson @StephensonC]

@SamRaincock Nope. Sent mine guaranteed next day 1pm. Arrived Cramlington sorting office 8am. Sat there 24hr then delivered late morning day after. Caused no end of hassle. Still waiting for a refund 3 weeks later. Substantial consequential loss not covered of course. Will drive next time.