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I am not vegetarian, and I have always said I will never become one as I believe that killing an animal for food is acceptable, within certain boundaries. If I asked myself if I believed that farming is an ethical way to provide meat to the population I would have to say no.
It encourages people to be ignorant of their food and the process behind it.

Anybody who eats meat should be able to accept where and how that animal was raised and killed and appreciate it for what it is.

Since moving to Poland I have started to eat less meat as the connection to the reality of meat is very weak here. In the UK it is possible to buy meat that is humanely raised and the question of animal welfare is being voiced increasingly. By contrast, here meat is eaten in huge quantities and the majority is intensively reared meat.........to be honest it tastes pretty crap.

This seems to be the product of a swift change in society post communism. My wife's great grandparents raised their own meat and killed a pig once a year. They ate meat only once a week. There are many people I speak to(not only young people) who say that they remember meat in the past and the fact that it was a delicacy reserved for special occasions and that it was much better quality.

So personally I have a dilemma.......should I continue eating the meat that is the product of a system I can't agree with? I now rarely buy meat, maybe once every two weeks, but I do buy fish and I would buy game if I could afford it. I never eat chicken if I can help it - it really tastes like crap, although I was tempted to buy a live chicken at a market the other day.....if only I had a place to keep it.

I guess that places me in the flexitarian group.........a kind of fence sitter(damn I hate fence sitters.)

Nice - My FIL came home with a similar haul two weeks ago and dried them in the oven......unfortunately he burnt them all and now they are pretty much inedible!

My brother in law has one of those - damn it is annoying when you stay over. Some of the sounds are pretty strange.

Thats a good idea. Can anybody lend me one?

That stephen fry clock is great.
Not sure I could cope with the alarm bell one though!

I just got a new phone and that mean a change in alarm clock tone. When I was young I had a really irritating saw tooth buzzer in my 70's alarm clock, which encouraged me to get up and turn it off.
Before I had a sony ericsson and I used one of the default tones as the alarm - I didn't like it but it worked.
On my new phone I have tried setting it to two songs first a really catchy Frank Zappa tune and the other an upbeat Lamb song. Both of them now really irritate me.

So what do you think is the best alarm song or sound. For me I think I could go back to that saw tooth buzzer with no problems.
(Sorry for such a stupid topic!)

Pasted strops do remove steel. Yes they will never remove nicks, but the grey colour of mine shows that they remove a significant amount.
The big problem is that they also can round over your edge a little, making it hard to then resharpen once the paste no longer works, so I try to only do a couple of passes just to smooth a little bit before stopping on plain leather.

The hanginghair test is somewhat misunderstood as it only really tells you that the blade can cut a hanging hair, which is not what a razor needs to do! A razor that passes this test is very sharp, but may be over honed, it is also very dependant on you hair type. I have very fine hair and none of my razors can pass the test, only commercial DE blades can do my hair.

The best way in my opinion is to have 2 razors minimum. Send one to be professionally honed and get the other as sharp as possible and shave with it(maybe only one cheek) every day, and give it 5 or ten passes every day on a high grit stone. You will see a gradual increase in sharpness eventually topping out to a harsh edge, which then goes too far and ceases to be sharp(most people think that the edge breaks off).

Then you know how sharp the razor should be by comparing your professionally honed one to your effort and gradually trying to match it by honing it a little each day.

It is very tempting to try and do it all at once, which is what I did and you just go around in circles not knowing when to stop as there is no test that really works except the 'shave test'(I got to the point where I was shaving twice a day to get as many tests in.....crazy huh?!)

Tiswas - the stones are for sharpening and the strop is for polishing just before the shave.
I guess I sharpen every few months but I strop before every shave.

Oh, and don't trust retailers who tell you that the razor is already sharp and ready to use - they never are. They always need some work on them and that amount varies considerably.

My oldest razor is a John barber and is about 200 years old and I needed to use a 300grit stone for a while just to remove all the unwanted metal all in all I used 7 different stones on it to get it sharp.

Sharpening a razor is not an easy task - it takes time and a lot of practice. PLus you need to invest in various sharpening stones.
The minimum grit size you need for a razor is 8,000 although I finish mine first on a 12,000 and then on a strop with diamond compound at 50,000.
If you are looking for someone to do it, head to straightrazorplace and ask - I'm sure there will be somebody who will offer their services (I sent mine to Belgium to start with)
I would offer, but I'm in Poland and that is a fair bit further to send something.

Just got back from this weekends trip - one cep.........ONE!
Probably the best weeks hunting followed immediately by the worst!

Very cool and an amazing amount of work but what made them want to do it - What was it for, a theatre or dance project?

This is my beloved but rather humble Poljot. It was mint when I got it except the lume had died and flaked off in storage. I relumed it(get it done professionally - it is a bastard to get right!) and now it looks great at night.
Thinking of replacing it with something waterproof since I started cycling to work though.

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I'm not into fairy ring chapignon - I only ate them once, but they tasted kind of sawdusty too!

Hehe, no I'm British - I live in Poland.
My username comes from uni when one of my friends said I had arms like spaghetti.

I would go with you but I live abroad.......

Goodhead - go for it. If you can find someone, thats great. I never got lucky enough so I just stuck to the safest species to pick for sure so I could observe what I saw when I went out and double check when I got home.
oh and read, read, read as many different books as possible before you go. Don't rely on one book as some books don't show all parts of the mushroom or have some of the key information you might need.

I used pomace olive oil(I don't like very strong olive oil flavour) with a bay leaf, salt, juniper, and allspice. It went kind of hazy afterwards.....strange. I read that there is a risk of botulism when doing this without a pressure cooker so I am going to eat them quickly!

And after cleaning and processing this is what I am left with
Some of the bolete were a bit mushy so I decided to dry them instead of using the fresh

And the rest went into jars - two in oil and one in red wine vinegar - a new one to me so we shall see how they come out.
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Not seen one of those personally - the most dangerous one I see most often is the panther cap i guess.

My trip was dominated by fly agaric. Probably two thirds of all the mushrooms I found were fly agaric.

That is huge - unfortunately most of the ceps were gone where I went - either picked or deteriorated beyond edibility. I bought some fresh two weeks ago and made a fantastic soup and was hoping that I would get some more.

I'm unsure about russulas to honest - I don't know them very well at all so I am afraid to pick them. I know that they are particularly crumbly and you should avoid red ones, but I don't feel confident with them.
I'm sure there were plenty of yellow swamp russulas on my walk but I didn't have my big reference to check.

I was looking again at some of the ink caps - at my parents home there are huge numbers of coprinus micaceus, one of my books says they are inedible, however I have since found others that say they are edible - so now I'm not sure.

So I got back from my weekend - all in all I got a reasonable haul - Mostly hedgehog fungus again though! Some chanterelles, amethyst deceivers, a few different boletes and a couple of horn of plenty.
There were thousands of the amethest deceivers, but I didn't want to waste my time picking them as I have never eaten them before and I wasn't sure if I would like them - now I think that is a mistake as I really like them!
All of these were found on the edges of woodland paths as my wife didn't want to walk slow enough for me to walk off the path!~

I found out later that I am not allowed to pick mushrooms in the forest where I was as it was part of the karkonsze national park - ooops

Mind you I supppose I am being a bit prejudiced generalising about Americans when there are plenty of ignorant Brits about too......