Ye cannae take pictures of yur dinner

[The Don]

Some party-pooper thoughts:

My general nature tells me there have to be exceptions to this (military strategy, especially specific battle plans? But only until the battle happens, right? After that the lid's off).

Yeah, and when the contents of a 9-year-old's school lunch is vital to national security then they can attempt to stop her posting the pictures (remember, she was allowed to continue to post the blog, just not post pictures).

The "more speech" approach.

Their specific complaint was that the blog did not contain pictures of all the menu options which were available on that day and that as a result the blog presented an incomplete picture (no pun intended) of what was on offer. A pragmatic way of addressing this, if it was really the issue, would be for the council to provide a full record (no pun intended) of what was on offer.

This was probably not really the issue so asking for the full range of options to be published is a way of drawing that out.

Hmm.

Are we sure (and does it matter) this isn't partly manufactured?

Well, she had already received a lot of publicity locally so it's clear that she (and her Father) were hoping to maximise the publicity available to raise more money for Mary's Meals. After all, the first donation is the fee she received from some local paper for pictures taken.

The ban on the other hand seems to have been all the council's idea prompted solely by their reaction to the Records article.

I'm used to "Twizzler" being a type of candy. Which manages to be even ickier than what they actually are (since I have a huge package of the American gastrocultural equivalent of what they actually are in my freezer right now)

There's not much nastier than a turkey twizzler. It's an example of what can go wrong with institutional catering. Over-processed food made from cheap and nasty ingredients where the animals have been subjected to low welfare standards.

 

[Rolfe]

£90,005.43

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Hmm.

What, manufactured to get money for the charity? I really don't think so. Martha was trying to publicise her blog for that purpose, certainly, and to than end she took part in a publicity stunt which involved cooking with a "celebrity chef". That cookery lesson involved some sort of flambé, indeed.

However, I see no reason to suspect that the DR sub-editor added the "Time to fire the dinner ladies" headline for any reason other than a ban pun. And the rest just happened.

Rolfe.

 

[richardm]

That means a whole kitchen in Lirangwe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi ... and enough left over to feed another 5800 dinners to other children!

Heh

 

[Rolfe]

It's quite possible Mary's Meals will get £100,000 out of this. Thanks to a daft headline in a downmarket tabloid, and an even dafter local council reaction.

Talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences!

Rolfe.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hah, perhaps the lesson here will be, don't complain about things like this, it only serves to draw attention to them. Score one for free speech.

Smart kid, too.

 

[Rolfe]

It wasn't so much "complain", as a series of misunderstandings. Martha wasn't complaining about her school dinners, and the DR wasn't actually suggesting anyone should be fired. It just took off when some employees took what was intended to be a joke headline seriously.

I see the Herald's resident air-head still hasn't caught on, though. This from today's column. Martha serves herself up as a pioneer of social media

This time instead of animals ruling the farmyard, children are taking over the canteen. Martha Payne's blog about her school dinners has made her a legend in her own lunchtime. The world is cheering her and condemning her local council's clumsy attempt to shut down her blog.

So tell me, will it still cheer if nine-year-old Martha's triumph encourages other children to do the same. Do people really want children exercising free speech in schools? I wonder.

What happens when the country's eight, nine and 10-year-olds turn their attention from the canteen to the classroom? Martha's camera exposed the low nutritional value and scant quantity of her school dinners. What if the next child blogger exposes the poor quality of her science lessons?

Maybe is Martha had actually been "exposing the low nutritional value and scant quantity of her school dinners", this story would have taken a different turn. But she wasn't, so it didn't.

That's what I like about internet discussions. You can usually find the original sources and figure out what has really been going on. Pity Colette never seems to try.

Rolfe.

 

[sophia8]

Plus, I'm sure they don't realize it, but the software of the site give us furriners fits. It won't accept my address here or in Hong Kong or in New York. (No, I don't have homes in all, but I have "addresses of convenience" available.) I cannot donate.

There's nothing in the T&Cs about donations being restricted to UK addresses and I notice that several people in the US have donated. There certainly shouldn't be a problem with addresses if you pay via Paypal - I don't think have to have a Paypal account.

 

[Foolmewunz]

There's nothing in the T&Cs about donations being restricted to UK addresses and I notice that several people in the US have donated. There certainly shouldn't be a problem with addresses if you pay via Paypal - I don't think have to have a Paypal account.

Paypal hates me. I've gotten hung on the Asian Paypal sites several times - it just doesn't go any further. I think I once screwed myself over by trying to activate an account from Hong Kong, but because the US site asked for a US zip, I used my NYC address. I'm probably a wanted poster in their mailroom, now.

Once I get my business established I'll have a PayPal mechanism that I can use two ways. Until then, I use my fallback approach... I email my daughter in the US and get her to tap in and make it happen. She managed to get through and sent them twenty-five bucks. Plus, she flipped the links over to all her FB buddies, so the viral thing continues.

ETA: Including the link to the donations page if anyone wants to donate or just follow the action.
http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds
She's over 92,000 now, but since it's the wee hours of the morning in the UK, and late at night in the USA, donations are at a trickle. In the last fifteen minutes there has been 000.00 collected.

 

[uk_dave]

Quite. Never eat at any establishment that has photographs of dinners sellotaped to the window.

But without a picture to point to, how am I supposed to order my meal?

 

[The Don]

I see the Herald's resident air-head still hasn't caught on, though. This from today's column. Martha serves herself up as a pioneer of social media

Sometimes it annoys me how (some) journalists are so lazy that all they do is to respond to responses to responses to responses to a story without actually bothering to do any research themselves.

Likewise when several newspapers merely reformat a press release and pass it off as journalism.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Paypal hates me. I've gotten hung on the Asian Paypal sites several times - it just doesn't go any further. I think I once screwed myself over by trying to activate an account from Hong Kong, but because the US site asked for a US zip, I used my NYC address. I'm probably a wanted poster in their mailroom, now.

Reminds me of when I tried to use my credit card in a NY subway ticket machine. It wanted my zip code for address verification but as a furriner I don't have one. Went to the ticket office instead and the guy at the counter said I should have used zip code 99999. "That's the zip code for the rest of the world" he said. Google suggests that's wrong, but I guess he knew their machines would swallow that non-existent zip code anyway.

 

[Hershele Ostropoler]

Yeah, and when the contents of a 9-year-old's school lunch is vital to national security then they can attempt to stop her posting the pictures (remember, she was allowed to continue to post the blog, just not post pictures).

Yeah, I really wasn't trying to say this was one of the exceptions, just tht I don't think "don't do anything you wouldn't want in the newspapers or on a blog" is as widely applicable a general rule as it's sometimes presented as.

There's not much nastier than a turkey twizzler. It's an example of what can go wrong with institutional catering. Over-processed food made from cheap and nasty ingredients where the animals have been subjected to low welfare standards.

I think adding fakey artifical-strawberry flavor would make that worse.

 

[Rolfe]

£100,192.70 !!!!!

It was creeping up relatively slowly and I think had reached £96,000, but a single donation of £3000 has made the hundred thousand.

ETA: This made the early evening TV news!

Rolfe.

 

[Duffy Moon]

That'll do, Martha, that'll do.

 

[Rolfe]

In a couple of hours I'm off to a concert in the next village. They have a flower festival on, and a friend is putting on a song recital, all songs about flowers. It's been arranged for months.

Entrance free, donation to Mary's Meals please.

Crikey, don't they have enough? (£109,684.96 right at the moment....)

Rolfe.

 

[casebro]

Sounds like Mary can start buying a better cut of meat.