Quotulatiousness

December 8, 2011

Health advocates argue in advance of the data in new cancer study

Filed under: Britain, Health, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:36

Rob Lyons on the latest cancer study, which makes unsubstantiated claims about the “lifestyle” causes of cancer:

The essential idea we are being sold here is that medical experts know that certain behaviours — like smoking, drinking alcohol, eating read meat and not eating enough fruit and vegetables — increase your risk of developing cancer by a certain percentage. So, all we need to do is work out how many people would have got cancer if no one did any of those things, take that number away from the number of people who do get cancer, and the remainder is how many people that ‘unhealthy living’ is killing. Simple, right?

According to the report, If you do all the ‘right’ things — if you are a cigarette-dodging, skinny teetotaller who avoids all red meat, barely goes out in the sun (except, perhaps, to take the prescribed 30-minute sessions of exercise five times per week), gets lashings of fibre, cuts down on salt, avoids infectious diseases and ionising radiation, and so on — then you can cut your cancer risk by over 40 per cent. On that basis, you may avoid cancer but die of boredom instead.

More specifically, even in this report there’s a huge gulf between the widely acknowledged risk of smoking — which is estimated here to cause 19.4 per cent of all cancers — and other risk factors. Smoking accounts for nearly half the lifestyle risk of 43 per cent claimed in the report. The next biggest factors suggested are overweight and obesity (5.5 per cent), lack of fruit and veg (4.7 per cent), alcohol (4.0 per cent), occupation (3.7 per cent) and sunlight (3.5 per cent). No other single factor, according to the report, is responsible for more than three per cent of cancers. Some oft-quoted examples like salt (0.5 per cent) and physical exercise (one per cent) have little effect at all. Even avoiding red meat altogether would only avoid 2.5 per cent of cancers, says the report.

December 7, 2011

Time to end the “forced march” to Fiskalunion?

Filed under: Europe, France, Germany, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:40

Patrick Hayes outlines the way European national leaders and unelected EU officials are steadily blocking any democratic influence over the future of Europe:

Missing from this deal-making has been the European public, which has been held in complete disregard; whether such a ‘forced march’ is acceptable to the European populace is deemed utterly irrelevant, a triviality, in the face of impending doom. After all, as Merkel reminded us recently, ‘nobody should take for granted another 50 years of peace and prosperity in Europe’. The need for such fundamental changes to Europe’s government and economic system are deemed to be beyond debate.

Even when raising the importance of the national sovereignty of their countries, European leaders do so by pointing out too much economic and fiscal integration would get in the way of solving the short-term crisis. There is little discussion of sovereignty as a matter of principle, as the basis upon which voters can hold politicians and technocrats to account. Actually asking the people directly what they want, through national referenda on any new treaty, is regarded as an unnecessary distraction from the urgent task of saving the Euro, to be avoided at all costs.

[. . .]

Once again demonstrating who is actually wearing the trousers in the partnership between the two wealthiest Eurozone countries, Merkel largely got her way. Only last week, Sarkozy was calling for a return to greater democracy in the European Monetary Union: ‘The reform of Europe is not a march towards supra-nationality’, he said. However, Merkel also had to water down her desire to haul naughty countries before a supra-national authority such as the European Court of Justice or a ‘super commissioner’ in Brussels. Instead, sanctions for breaches of the new Eurozone rules would be enforced internally within countries, who would adopt new laws promising they will obey EU rules.

Despite this, as is evident by a leaked document being circulated by EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy and to be discussed by senior EU officials today, the full arsenal of punitive measures for rule-breaking Eurozone members remains on the table. Van Rompuy suggests that bailed-out countries could be temporarily deprived of political voting rights in EU councils; pension reforms, social security systems, labour-market policy and financial regulations could be ‘harmonised’ across EU countries; and there could be ‘more intrusive control of national budgetary policies by the EU’. Development aid for poorer EU countries could be cut, too.

[. . .]

Whatever gets decided at this week’s summit, and whether the fiscal rules are accepted by all 27 EU nations or just by the 17 Eurozone members, it’s clear that greater intrusion into member countries’ national sovereignty by EU officials is the way the wind is blowing. Should countries overspend and breach EU rules, they may no longer be allowed to decide how they set their taxes, how much they can borrow, even the make-up of their budgets. Such decisions, fundamental to a country’s sovereignty, get ripped from the hands of the people living in the countries and their elected representatives, with decisions instead being forcibly guided by European technocrats in Brussels.

Greek army reduces from 30 to 19 brigades

Filed under: Europe, Greece, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Strategy Page lists the initial impact on the Greek armed forces due to the financial squeeze:

The current financial crisis in Greece has led to enormous cutbacks in government spending. The military has not been exempt. This year alone, the defense budget will be cut about a third. Over the next two years, the reduced budget will be cut another 15 percent. The army will lose 11 of its 30 brigades, but the air force has disbanded one of 16 squadrons, but kept the aircraft in service by moving them to surviving squadrons. The navy has retired some older patrol boats.

The army is apparently coping by disbanding many reserve units and retiring older tanks and equipment. There won’t be much new equipment purchased for the next few years, at least. Training will also be cut, because operating vehicles, aircraft and ships for these exercises is expensive. The reduction of training will decrease the combat capabilities of the troops. But the government does not want to dismiss lots of the 156.000 active duty troops. That will just increase the already high (approaching 20 percent) unemployment rate. It’s never a good idea to have a lot of professional soldiers among the unemployed.

December 6, 2011

Argentina puts more pressure on Britain to negotiate over the Falkland Islands

Filed under: Americas, Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

The Argentinian navy has been boarding fishing vessels for “illegal” operations in Argentinian waters (that happen to be the seas around the Falklands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands — all British territories):

Argentine patrol vessels have boarded 12 Spanish boats, operating under fishing licences issued by the Falkland Islands, for operating “illegally” in disputed waters in recent weeks.

Argentine patrol commanders carrying out interceptions near the South American coast told Spanish captains they were in violation of Argentina’s “legal” blockade of sea channels to the Falklands.

[. . .]

President Cristina Kirchner has adopted a steadily more beligerent stance towards Britain’s South Atlantic possessions.

A newly formed gathering of South American nations meeting in Venezeula backed Argentina’s sovereignty demands at the weekend.

Argentina’s claim over the Falklands was backed by a newly formed block of South American and Caribbean countries, CELAC, on Saturday with unanimous approval. Mrs Kirchner used the last UN General Assembly meeting to put Argentina’s claims of sovereignty over the Falklands on a par with Palestinian claims to statehood.

As predicted, now that Britain’s Royal Navy no longer has any aircraft carriers, there’s literally no way that Britain can prevent Argentina from another invasion (the one nuclear submarine on patrol in the area could cause damage, but not repel Argentinian forces). Back in the last war between Britain and Argentina, the United States had to be cajoled into supporting Britain: I very much doubt that Barack Obama would be as willing to provide support to a country he clearly disdains.

The Battle of Ortona

Filed under: Cancon, Germany, History, Italy, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:16

The Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies is marking the anniversary of the Battle of Ortona in 1943 by sending Twitter updates from @BattleOfOrtona to outline the historical events of the 1st Canadian Division and the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade in this key battle of the Italian Campaign. Here is the situation just before the battle opened, from Terry Copp:

The Canadians were involved in a series of isolated battles in the mountains of Central Italy in November 1943 when General Bernard Law Montgomery issued orders for an advance up the Adriatic Coast to seize control of the east-west road Pescara to Rome. The American 5th Army was to launch a direct advance towards Rome at the same time.

The Canadians were still in the mountains when British, Indian, and New Zealand troops fought their way across the Sangro River, forcing a German withdrawal to the Moro River. The 78th British “Battleaxe” Division had shot its bolt at the Sangro and Montgomery ordered the fresh, full strength Canadian Division to take over the advance on the coastal flank. The move was to be completed by the night of 5 December.

The German 10th Army, responsible for the defence of Italy east of the Appenine Mountains, contained 12 divisions — 10 infantry and 2 armoured. The 76 Panzer Corps held the river lines south of Pescara with 1st Parachute, 90th Panzer Grenadier, 26th Panzer and 65th Infantry divisions. Normally an attacker needs to outnumber the defender by at least 3:1. This ratio could not be achieved in December 1944 and with the beginning of heavy winter rains air power could only play a small role. Everyone but the infantry was optimistic.

Royal Navy to pay double purchase price to keep warship in drydock for five years

Filed under: Britain, History, Military — Tags: — Nicholas @ 10:05

Sounds insane (unless you usually pay attention to the cost of military equipment), but — for a change — it’s a valid use of funds:

A contract has been awarded to keep a Royal Navy warship stored and unready for sea in dock for five years. The amount to be paid is approximately double what the ship cost to purchase in the first place.

The vessel in question is HMS Victory, Nelson’s famous flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, which remains in commission as a Royal Naval warship, though her seagoing days are long behind her. It has just been announced that a deal for her next five years’ maintenance has been struck for £16m.

Historical records indicate that Victory — in her time one of the most powerful warships afloat — cost £63,176 to build, which according to the Bank of England is equivalent to just over £8m in today’s money. The five-year maintenance deal will thus cost twice what it cost to build the ship in real terms.

Guardian study finds that August rioters were motivated by Guardian editorials

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Government, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:16

Brendan O’Neill on the recent study, carried out by the London School of Economics and the Guardian:

Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it? A four-month Guardian/London School of Economics study into the riots that rocked English cities in August has found that the rioters were pretty much Guardian editorials made flesh. Concerned about government cuts, annoyed by unfair policing, shocked by social inequality and outraged by the MPs’ expenses scandal, it seems the young men and women who looted shops and burnt down bus stops weren’t Thatcher’s children after all — they were Rusbridger’s children, the moral offspring of those moral guardians of chattering-class liberalism.

This is a blatant case of advocacy research, of researchers finding what they wanted to find, or at least desperately hoped to find. For months now, the Guardian has been publishing articles arguing that the rioters were politically motivated, under headlines such as ‘These riots were political’ and with claims such as ‘the looting was highly political’ and the riots were a protest against ‘brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures’. And now, lo and behold, a Guardian study, Reading the Riots, has discovered that the rioters were indeed ‘rebels with a cause’, with 86 per cent of the 270 rioters interviewed claiming the violence was caused by poverty, 85 per cent arguing that policing was the big issue, and 80 per cent saying they were riled by government policies. Reading this study, we are left to marvel either at the extraordinary perspicacity of Guardian writers, or at their ability to carry out research in such a way that it confirms their own political preconceptions.

This study looks less like a cool-headed, neutral piece of sociology, and more like a semi-conscious piece of political ventriloquism, where rioters have been coaxed to mouth the political beliefs of the middle-class commentariat. This is not to say the Guardian and LSE researchers have been purposely deceitful, inventing evidence to suit a political thesis. Advocacy research is more subtle and less conscious than that. It involves a kind of inexorable pursuit of facts that fit and evidence that helps bolster a pre-existing conviction. So mental-health charities keen to garner greater press coverage always find high levels of mental illness, children’s charities that want to raise awareness about child abuse always find rising levels of child neglect, and now Guardian researchers who want to show that they’re right to fret about Lib-Con policies and outdated policing have found that these are burning issues amongst volatile English yoof, too.

December 5, 2011

Debunking memes: the Gini co-efficient as a spark for rioting

Filed under: Britain, Economics, France, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

Theodore Dalrymple shows that the widespread habit of journalists in Britain to attempt to attribute the root cause of August riots to the Gini co-efficient fails the common-sense test:

An August feature story on the riots in Time offered a particularly striking example. The author suggested that to understand the riots, we should start with “something called the Gini co-efficient, a figure used by economists to indicate how equally (or unequally) income is distributed across a population.” In this traditional measure, the article notes, Britain fares worse than almost every other country in the West.

This little passage is interesting for at least two reasons. First is the unthinking assumption that more equality is better; complete equality would presumably be best. Second is that the author apparently did not think carefully about the table of Gini coefficients printed on the very same page and what it implied about his claim. Portugal headed the list as the most unequal of the countries selected, with a 0.36 coefficient. Next followed the U.K. and Italy, both with a 0.34 coefficient. Toward the bottom of the list, one found France, with a 0.29 coefficient, the same as the Netherlands. Now, it is true that journalists are not historians and that, for professional reasons, their time horizons are often limited to the period between the last edition of their publication and the next. Even so, one might have expected a Time reporter to remember that in 2005 — not exactly a historical epoch ago — similar riots swept France, even though its Gini coefficient was already lower than Britain’s. (Having segregated its welfare dependents geographically, though, France saw none of its town or city centers affected by the disorder.)

As it happened, when I read the Time story, I had an old notebook with me. In it, among miscellaneous scribblings, was the following list, referring to the riots in France and made contemporaneously:

    Cities affected 300
    Detained 2,921
    Imprisoned 590
    Burned cars 9,071
    Injured 126
    Dead 1
    Police involved 11,200
    Average number of cars burned per day before riots 98

And all this with a Gini coefficient of only 0.29! How, then, could it have happened? It might also be worth mentioning that the Netherlands, with its relatively virtuous Gini coefficient, is one of the most crime-ridden countries in Western Europe, as is Sweden, with an even lower Gini coefficient.

December 3, 2011

Remembering the “Italian Stalingrad”

Filed under: Cancon, Europe, History, Italy, Military, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:04

The Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies will be starting a series of “live tweets” to remember the 1943 Battle of Ortona. Follow @BattleOfOrtona to get the full story, as narrated by Terry Copp.

Steve Jones: The problem with belief

Filed under: Britain, Education, Religion, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:06

In the Telegraph, Steve Jones talks about the growing problem that many British students have when the science conflicts with their religious beliefs:

I have tried asking students at quite what point they find my lectures unacceptable: is it the laws of inheritance, mutation, the genes that protect against malaria or cancer, the global shifts in human skin colour, Neanderthal DNA, or the inherited differences between apes and men? Each point is, they say, very interesting — but when I point out that they have just accepted the whole truth of Darwin’s theory they deny that frightful thought. Some take instant umbrage, although a few, thank goodness, do leave the room with a pensive look.

The problem is not with any particular belief system but with belief itself. Sir Francis Bacon once said that: “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” In other words, if you are absolutely sure that you are right whatever the evidence, you will end up in trouble; but if you are always willing to change your mind when the facts change you will emerge with a robust view of how the world works.

I sometimes wonder how many of those who pour their inane opinions about creationism into their young pupils’ ears ever consider the damage they are doing; not to my science, but to their religion. Why, when a student begins to learn the simple and convincing facts, rather than the fantasies, about how life emerged, should he believe anything else that his pastor, his rabbi or his imam has told him? Why build a philosophy based on fixed untruths, when we have so many truths, and so many things still to find out?

It’s one thing to be unhappy when the facts change, and quite another to refuse the facts because they conflict with your beliefs.

December 2, 2011

European anti-piracy campaign didn’t get permission to use music

Filed under: Europe, Law, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

In a lovely turn-about, they’re being sued by the composer whose music was, um, pirated:

Anti-piracy group BREIN is caught up in a huge copyright scandal in the Netherlands. A musician who composed a track for use at a local film festival later found it being used without permission in an anti-piracy campaign. He is now claiming at least a million euros for the unauthorized distribution of his work on DVDs. To make matters even worse, a board member of a royalty collection agency offered to to help the composer to recoup the money, but only if he received 33% of the loot.

A story currently unfolding in the Netherlands painfully exposes the double standards and corruption that can be found in some parts of the copyright industry.

It all started back in 2006, when the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN reportedly asked musician Melchior Rietveldt to compose music for an anti-piracy video. The video in question was to be shown at a local film festival, and under these strict conditions the composer accepted the job.

However, according to a report from Pownews the anti-piracy ad was recycled for various other purposes without the composer’s permission. When Rietveldt bought a Harry Potter DVD early 2007, he noticed that the campaign video with his music was on it. And this was no isolated incident.

The composer now claims that his work has been used on tens of millions of Dutch DVDs, without him receiving any compensation for it. According to Rietveldt’s financial advisor, the total sum in missed revenue amounts to at least a million euros ($1,300,000).

H/T to occultado for the link.

Biggest general strike since 1926 becomes a “damp squib”

Filed under: Britain, Government, History, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:07

Some sense the evil hand of . . . Jeremy Clarkson?

It was to be the biggest strike in a generation. People were openly and unabashedly comparing Wednesday’s day of action over public sector pensions to the general strike of 1926. It was to bring Britain to a standstill. Mark a turning point in the battle against the cuts instigated by the spawns of the evil Iron Lady. Become a talking point that would strike fear into the cold heart of Cameron and pave the way to bigger, more decisive action.

Except, erm, the very next morning it had been almost completely forgotten. It barely registered as a blip on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. Newspaper coverage was on the whole sympathetic, but slight. None of the predicted chaos came to pass. Prime minister Cameron could quite safely dismiss the strike as a ‘damp squib’ and provoke few comments except from the usual suspects. People shrugged and went back to work. Far from being a Great Event like the 1926 strike that people would draw inspiration from in 85 years time, it was barely discussed. As my colleague Brendan O’Neill had anticipated, it all felt more like a ‘loud and colourful PR stunt ultimately designed to disguise the fact that, in truth, trade unions are a sad shadow of their former selves’.

Just as the PR flames were beginning to dim, however, enter Jeremy Clarkson, the cartoonish presenter of Top Gear, who sped to the rescue with a particularly naff joke about the strikers being shot in front of their families. Of course, he didn’t actually mean it. In the context of the programme, BBC1’s The One Show, his remarks were actually more a dig at the BBC: he had in fact been praising the strikers (‘London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about… it’s also like being back in the 70s. It makes me feel at home somehow.) but then said, as it was the Beeb, he had to provide ‘balance’, making his now notorious quip: ‘Frankly, I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?’

Update: James Delingpole said he’s been flooded with interview requests since the strike began, largely because of the public’s reaction to the strike:

I got my answer from a chance remark made by Jeremy Vine after our interview. He was telling me about the phone-in he’d done the day before during the public sector workers’ strike and what had astonished him was the mood of the callers. If I remember what he said correctly, one of his studio guests was a nurse on a £40,000 PA salary, with a guaranteed £30,000 pension, and this had not gone down well with the mother-of-three from Northern Ireland struggling as a finance officer in the private sector on a salary of £14,000 and no pension to speak of. The callers were very much on the side of the private sector. In fact, they were on the whole absolutely apoplectic that privileged, relatively overpaid public sector workers with their gold-plated pensions should have the gall to go out on strike when the people who pay their salaries – private sector workers – have to go on slogging their guts out regardless.

[. . .]

After all, as Fraser Nelson reports, the strike itself was a massive flop. Only a minority of union members voted it for it; the turn-out was so poor that the unions felt compelled to send out hectoring letters accusing their membership of being “scabs”; the hospitals – and many schools – stayed open, Heathrow’s immigration queues actually got shorter. This was not the glorious day of action (or inaction) that the militants had hoped for. Nor did it fit into the BBC’s ongoing narrative that Osborne’s vicious cuts (what cuts, we ask) are causing such hardship and misery among the saintly frontline public sector workers who bravely rescue our cats from trees and smilingly change our bed pans that really a Labour government run by Ed Balls is the only option.

Not only were the strikes a failure in numbers terms, though, but more damagingly they were a failure in propaganda terms. As both Fraser Nelson and Jeremy Vine have noted, there really has been a shift in public mood. I remember not more than a year ago going on Vine’s show to state, somewhat provocatively that I’d rather toss my children out on the street than have them sponging off the taxpayer in the public sector, and of course the mainly left-leaning BBC audience went apoplectic. I think if I’d gone on and said the same thing today they would probably have been demanding a statue erected in my honour in Parliament Square.

December 1, 2011

A defence of Jeremy Clarkson’s “strikers should be shot” comment

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

From, of all places, the Guardian:

How are your outrage levels today? Seen a sweary racist on a tram? Heard a TV personality make a bad joke about shooting public sector workers? Retweeted it and carefully added the correct hashtag?

Were you really, genuinely outraged?

Think about how you would have reacted to the story of an obnoxious woman on a tram seven years ago (pre-YouTube — PYT if you like). Would you have told everyone you know? Would you have asked them to tell everyone they know? Or would you have shrugged, mumbled something about the world going to hell in a handcart, and gone back to watching Top Gear, only to be confronted by Jeremy Clarkson making a hilarious joke about Spanish woman gypsy drivers (shrug again, change channel).

YouTube and Twitter are wonderful, wonderful things that have changed how we interact with the world, to the extent that I’m not sure I can remember life PYT. But they have created a mechanism by which we can we can monitor and record behaviour, whether of private citizens or public figures, play them over and over again, and share them with an alarming rapidity. Perhaps this heightened speed also leads us to feel forced into heightened reactions. Without the time to digest context and meaning we can only choose from a range of default reactions, largely based on our own prejudices.

[. . .]

Likewise with angry racist tram lady. My initial reaction to the video was “God, that’s horrible”, but as the storm grew, to the point where even Mia Farrow felt the need to tell us that she thought racism in south London was, y’know, just awful, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the woman who had become a vessel for everyone else’s outrage. The sheer volume of righteousness becomes off-putting.

And now Clarkson, who has made a dull golf club bar joke about striking public sector workers needing to be shot. God knows the man doesn’t need my pity, but I feel driven towards feeling sorry for anyone who has several thousand people calling for their head simply because they’ve noticed that he’s done the same kind of thing he’s always done. I don’t think there’s a single reasonable person there who actually believes that Clarkson wants people to be shot for going on strike, so why do people feel the need to react the way we do? Lord knows we’re not talking about the most subtle of jokes here, but must we be so literal and unsubtle in our reaction?

Update: Just saw an update from BBCBreaking that Clarkson has apologized for the “should be shot” comment.

November 29, 2011

European democracy is now “the preserve of right-wing populism”

Filed under: Europe, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:09

Frank Furedi on the urge to omit democracy from European government:

Over the past month, it has become clear that the European Union doesn’t simply suffer from a democratic deficit; rather, it has decided that in the current climate of crisis and uncertainty, the institutions of government must be insulated and protected from public pressure. In Brussels, and among an influential coterie of European opinion-makers, the idea that ordinary people have the capacity to self-govern is dismissed as at best a naive prejudice, and at worst a marker for right-wing populism.

As we shall see, this desire to renounce the politics of representation is by no means confined to EU technocrats. To no one’s surprise, many businesspeople and bankers also prefer the new unelected governments of Greece and Italy to regimes that are accountable to their electorates. And such elitist disdain for nations’ democratic representative institutions is also shared by sections of the left and the intelligentsia, too. So in his contribution on the crisis of democracy, Jürgen Habermas, the leading leftist German philosopher, writes off national electorates as ‘the preserve of right-wing populism’ and condemns them as ‘the caricature of national macrosubjects shutting themselves off from each other’.

Indeed, it isn’t the old-fashioned conservative detractors of the multitude who are at the forefront of the current cultural turn against democratic will-formation — no, it is liberal advocates of expert-driven technocratic rule who are now the most explicit denouncers of democracy. The current political attack on the principles of representative democracy is founded on three propositions. First it is claimed that the people cannot be trusted to support policies that are necessary for the preservation and improvement of society. Secondly, it is suggested that there is an important trade-off to be made between democracy and efficiency, and that in a time of crisis the latter must prevail over the former. And finally, anti-democratic ideologues believe that governments, especially democratic governments, have lost the capacity to deal with the key problems facing societies in today’s globalised world.

Oh, the jarmanity!

Filed under: Britain, Food, Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:08

The Reg reports a terrible traffic accident in Yorkshire:

A flood of yeast extract has blocked the M1 motorway in South Yorkshire after a truck containing the Marmite ingredient crashed and spilled its load.

The road is still closed this morning, according to the latest traffic information, as cleanup workers scoop 23.2 tonnes of the gloopy brown stuff off the road surface.

[. . .]

The dumped yeast extract was described as “waste” by the BBC, so is highly unlikely to now end up in Marmite jars.

Left uncleaned, the vitamin-rich syrup, packed with denatured yeast cells, could cause a minor biohazard as it is highly nutritious to bacteria cultures.

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