They seem to have buried the hatchet on the other boards now.

ONIONS

Ah yes, good old British food - the vicious attempt to rebrand British chocolate on the entirely spurious grounds that its principal constituent is not cocoa but emulsified pig fat ...

Remember the episode of Yes Minister in which Commission was allegedly trying to require the British sausage to be sold as the "emulsified high-fat offal tube"?

If you ever know anyone whose ever worked in McDonald's, ask them what they do with the foodstuffs behind the scenes - that should definitely aid in resisting any temptation to buy anything from there.......

I don't know anyone in McDonalds but I used to know someone whose son worked in KFC years ago.  If they didn't like someone they used to kick the food round the floor before serving it up.   I've heard that it isn't unknown for people to spit into the froth of a capaccino as well if rattled by a customer.

I bet if we knew the half of it we'd never eat out again anywhere, ever!

People are horrible aren't they?  However by far the worst thing that I heard of was someone's aggrieved cleaning lady cleaning the lavatory with the employer's toothbrush.

Surely they can't still do that can they?  Isn't it illegal now?  Health and Safety (Cholesterol Section).....

Erm....well, speaking as a veggie, I've obviously been eating all sorts of stuff that I don't agree with for many years under various guises.  Good to see that hydrogenated fat is being dispensed with now.

OK - and thanks very much for this - a considerably more comprehensive answer than my little question perhaps might have expected and there is much for me to agree with here. Surely, however, the underlying issue is the motivation/s behind such acts of genocide, on whatever scale they may occur and by whomsoever's hand/s they may be carried out - and, in so saying, I do not seek to undermine a word that you have written about thishere. You are quite right to point out that this kind of thing knows no boundaries of right or left, rich or poor - and perhaps this is one of the most alarming aspects of the whole business. Your last sentence here is perhaps the one with which I equate the most - we are facing a matter of what could, if one is being charitable, be described as human flaws and frailties and their often appalling results, regardless of whether their dreadfully inhuman consequences arise in communist, or capitalist, or anywhere-in-between environments. Leaving aside your particular political viewpoints or my apparent lack of them, Ian - what do you see as the most practical solution to / way forward with / escape from this sickening international genocidal vortex? The "British Empire" of those bygone days when certain publishers issued world atlases with vast swathes of the world's land coloured pink is surely, in the greater historical retrospective scheme of things, no more responsible for these atrocities than any other régime that occasionally, frequently or exclusively indulged in human culls or one kind or another and, I suspect (at least in terms of total numbers of persecuted and murdered), rather less than some; this is not at all to defend either such atrocities or the "British Empire" but, despite my not having been baptised into the Christian or any other faith, I am minded to think of the old adage that isn't quite (but as easily could be) about letting he who is without compliance, directly or indirectly, in such human atrocity cast the first stone as long as it misses yet another potential human victim...

Best,

Alistair