Jane Dallaway

Consumer Services and Produce Councils

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:44:00 +0100

After spending some time looking at both the cooking with leaflets and the going metric ones, I noticed I had quite a few other similar leaflets in my possession, again brought back from my family home. In common with those, they are all issued by various marketing boards or councils.

Some of them even share the same address. For instance, the Mushroom Consumer Service and the British Farm Produce Council were both based out of Agriculture House in Knightsbridge. Others are dotted around a little bit further afield, like the Apple and Pear Development Council in Tunbridge Wells.

But I just have a small snapshot of these leaflets. Whilst my mum was an avid collector of pamphlets, I don’t believe she would have collected absolutely all of the ones available. It makes me wonder just how many other councils, bureaus, and consumer services there were back in the 70s, and possibly beyond. I had never considered the fact that there would need to be a dedicated mushroom consumer service before. Fascinating.

I’ve grouped the leaflets below by their publisher.

British Farm Produce Council, Agriculture House, Knightsbridge

Mushroom Consumer Service, Agriculture House, Knightsbridge

Was there a “Cold meals with mushrooms” guide as well?

The Wine Development Board, 1 Vintner’s Place, London

Metrication Board, 22 Kingsway, London

See the full set of going metric images

The Apple and Pear Development Council, Union House, the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells

They clearly had the budget to produce a colourful guide!

The Cheese Bureau, 40 Berkeley Square, London

A glossy cover! Big cheese had big money by the looks of it.

Coddiwomple

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 17:23:00 +0100

I’m reading a book called Creative First Aid at the moment, written by a couple of Australian authors. I spotted this paragraph on a page about playing “Walking Bingo”. It seems very definite about the word “Coddiwomple.” I’ve never come across it before and wouldn’t have had a clue what it meant, but it’s a lovely word to say out loud. Perhaps I should start using it?

Going metric

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:52:00 +0100

As with my post the other day about the cooking leaflets, these are all leaflets that I saved when emptying my family home. They’ve been sitting on a shelf for the intervening years, but they’re just too fun to leave there. This batch is a bunch of leaflets all about the introduction of metric weights and measures.

Shopping in metric

Metric for shoppers

Some common metric weights and measures

The kilogram

I was a child when these were produced, and I remember that ounces definitely survived as a unit of measurement at home for quite some time. Even in our baking classes at school a few years later, we were still stubbornly sticking to imperial.

Explorer Day: Arundel

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:45:00 +0100

A year or so ago I came across the concept of an Explorer Day in a magazine I was reading:

Explorer Days are simple: travel locally with the same wide-eyed curiosity that you’d pack into a suitcase. The town three over, a different neighborhood, or a street completely new to you: Lewes, Bristol’s Gloucester Road, Stoke Newington: names on a map that don’t yet mean anything but by the end of a day could.

So today I headed to Arundel. I’ve driven past it many times. I even stayed there once for a friend’s wedding many years ago, before I moved to Brighton, but I’ve never really explored it. While doing a bit of research, I discovered that the cathedral hosts a celebration for the festival of Corpus Christi featuring a carpet of flowers. The day of my visit kind of chose itself, as this seemed like too great an opportunity to miss.

I started with the carpet of flowers, and it is truly impressive. You are hit by the scent of flowers the moment you arrive, and there are gorgeous floral displays all around the building. The colours on show are incredible. What really grabbed my attention, though, were the vestments. They often featured floral designs to tie into the colours of the displays. These cloths have so much intricate work and beautiful detail that I did a second loop around just to focus on them.

It was a soggy day unfortunately, so on leaving the cathedral I decided to head off for a coffee. I found the small but perfectly formed Tarrant Street Espresso, where I sat with a coffee and my magazine and spent a happy, dry half an hour.

Next on my list was the castle. I approached it through what felt like a meadow of daisies and alliums with a mown path cutting through. I loved this. It felt so beautiful and natural. As for the castle itself, well, what a place. Some bits are proper castle, including an armoury and a keep with battlements that you can walk around. But other parts feel like a stately home with a mix of styles and materials. There is oak, marble, stonework, mahogany, and gold leaf, and I’m sure I’ve missed some.

I got a bit distracted in my head trying to work out how the Duke of Norfolk came to be at Arundel Castle in the first place, and then how one of the Dukes was also the Mayor of Sheffield. Is there no place in England that the Duke wouldn’t claim? I’ve since looked it all up and fallen down a vast rabbit hole of hierarchies involving Royal Dukes, non-Royal Dukes, and Earls.

After completing my tour of the castle, I headed out to the chapel and overheard a guide telling someone that the space they could see through the glass panel was the parish church of St Nicholas. St Nicholas is a Church of England church, while the Fitzalan Chapel is a private Catholic chapel in the grounds of the castle. They are joined but separate, and have been since the 1870s. After a dispute over ownership, the Duke of Norfolk ordered a brick wall to be built, blocking the arch that connected the chancel to the nave.

Despite the rain, I took a stroll around the formal gardens. The water features seemed somewhat apt. I could easily see why they’ve won awards because they are spectacular, and I can see why people visit just for the gardens. There are lots of benches dotted around, though sadly they weren’t in use due to the soggy weather.

I left the castle, returned to the town, and decided it was time for lunch. I found the Motte and Bailey cafe, which advertised various brunch options. I’m a sucker for a brunch, though this time I opted for a mezze bowl. The lady sitting next to me apologised for the size of her pastry. She’d ordered a cinnamon bun and it appeared to be the size of her head! As I sat and ate, the weather lifted and blue skies appeared overhead.

I finished my exploring with a stroll around the town, popping into the bookshop and a craft area. Along the way, I found St Nicholas church and popped in to look through the glass screen into the Fitzalan Chapel from the other side. They’ve made much more of a feature of it than the chapel has, and there is a helpful information panel explaining the history. This felt like a fitting end to my exploration, so I headed back to the station and caught the train home to Brighton.

All in all, a grand day out.

Fungi to be used to filter out toxins in waterways

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:56:00 +0100

This sounds like a great bit of scientific discovery. And useful too. But I can’t help feeling that treating the symptoms of a failing water network detracts from the main problem, which is sewage leaking into waterways in the first place.

Cooking with…

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:20:00 +0100

When I emptied my family home, I found this set of “Cooking with” leaflets. I have no idea when they were published, but the information on the back shows they came from the British Farm Produce Council in Knightsbridge, London. My best guess is that they are from the 1970s.

They have been sitting on a shelf in my work room for over a decade while I tried to work out what to do with them. Some of the recipes are, erm, challenging to my modern palate, and double cream seems to feature quite frequently.

I didn’t photograph all the booklets. Instead, I just picked the ones that were printed across two pages so I could fit in all the details. After all, it would be terrible to only find half a recipe for “Rhubarb and Kidney Curls” or “Turnip Twists,” wouldn’t it?

I don’t know if my mum ever made any of them, and I don’t really have an emotional connection to them. Even so, I have loved flicking through the pages trying to find a recipe I might actually want to cook. The best one so far comes from the cauliflower guide (tho I did have to look up what a gill was).

Salad Sprigs
FOR 4 (no cooking involved)

1 large cauliflower
1 medium-sized onion
½ cucumber
½ gill cider vinegar
½ gill salad oil
1 oz caster sugar
Salt and black pepper
1 teaspoonful dry mustard
Watercress

Method: Cut the cucumber into ½” dice and soak in cider vinegar for ½ hour. Meantime, blanch the cauliflower in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, drain well and divide into sprigs. Drain the cucumber and put cucumber and cauliflower into a basin. In another bowl, mix together the salt, pepper, dry mustard and sugar. Stir in the vinegar drained from the cucumber. Stir in the oil. Pour over vegetables and turn well in the dressing. Chill. Turn into a serving dish and garnish with fresh watercress sprigs.

And from the Apple guide:

Apple Salad
FOR 4 (no cooking involved)

2 dessert apples (British, of course)
1 tablespoonful lemon juice
2 sticks celery
½lb carrots
2 tablespoonsful salad cream dressing

Method: Remove cores from unpeeled apples then thinly slice. Toss in lemon juice. Thinly slice celery and grate carrots. Mix all ingredients with the dressing and turn into a dish.

This next one feels like it would be ridiculously sweet, but it is a nice idea in principle:

Casseroled Tomatoes
FOR 4

8 medium-sized tomatoes
2 oz butter
¼ pint water
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ Ib honey

Method: Skin the tomatoes and put into a fireproof casserole dish. Melt the butter and mix with all the other ingredients. Pour over the tomatoes. Cover closely and bake at 300°F, Gas Mark 2, for about half an hour until the tomatoes are tender. Serve with the juice as an unusual accompaniment to veal or duck.

From Weather Almanac 2026: June

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:44:00 +0100

upon investigation by the Met Office it was found that a stationary vehicle was parked nearby with its engine running and the record was rejected.

I have questions.

How long after the temperature was recorded did the Met Office investigate? Immediately? Within hours? A day or more later? What is the process of investigation? How did they even know that the car was there at that time?

I asked Gemini to look into it, and as you’d expect, the Met Office has a strict auditing process for any history-making weather anomalies. While the Motherwell reading of 33.2°C initially seemed plausible on that scorching afternoon of 28 June 2018, all potential national records trigger a deeper dive.

Within a week, the record was officially debunked. Because the weather station sits in Strathclyde Country Park, an on-site observer realized that a vehicle had been left idling right next to the Stevenson screen (the enclosure that houses the thermometers) during the peak afternoon heat.

The full story is on the Met Office blog.

Today’s walk: Batemans in springtime

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:58:00 +0100

Maybe it was early summer rather than late spring? It depends on whether you are looking at meterological or astronomical summer, I suppose. Either way, it was a lovely walk.

Just like our last visit, we used it as a stop-off on the way back from Margate. It was even more useful this time because they now have EV charging available.

We had a beautiful stroll through the meadows, followed by a walk up a small hill that gave us a gorgeous view back over Sussex.

Tap user guide

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:06:00 +0100

When you need a “Tap user guide” in a restaurant toilet, you know the design wasn’t as clear as it could have been! This example is from Babble in Hove.

I know this is not a new observation, but it is one that stands out to me much more now after a recent trip. Back in February, I travelled to Scotland with a partially sighted friend. While we were at Gatwick Airport, I had to guide her through how to use the taps, soap, and hand dryer. She already had very little independence on that trip, but losing the ability to even wash her hands without help was something neither of us had expected. It just seems so unnecessary.

If we design things to be universally easy to use, then everyone benefits. Plus, nobody needs to spend time creating user guides for taps.

Today’s bake: Lime and coconut tahini cookies

Sun, 24 May 2026 14:46:00 +0100

I followed the same basic recipe that has been so verstile over the past year, but today I mixed in the zest from a large lime and 30g of desiccated coconut. I also added an extra tablespoon of coconut sprinkled on top. It was a good bake. Next time I might use the zest of one and a half limes, as they could probably handle a bit more of a citrus kick without being overpowering.