The price of corned beef

It’s a regular occurrence. We had strikes in 2000 about the price of fuel, yet corned beef, without anyone noticing, became more expensive with every passing week.

It’s about as expensive as actual beef now. It used to be a staple of the poor. My mam could feed the family on a tin of corned beef.

But now, what’s the point in it? When you can pick up a pound of minced beef for around the same price, why choose its salted and tinned incarnation?

The powers that be, those who control corned beef prices, are denying a generation a delicious snack. All good food comes in perfect geometric shapes. It’s a cuboid of meat. They should be teaching this on the National Curriculum.

Where are the protests? We should be blockading the ports. Instead, we’re all complicit in this crime.

It’s probably something to do with the Falklands. I’m not having it.

I used to enjoy a corned beef and tomato sauce sandwich back in the day. In fact, in my bigger days, I’d happily scoff a whole tin. I’ve got a scar on my index finger where I attempted to trough it straight from the tin, but came to grief on one of its many sharp edges.

I miss corned beef, but I simply can not justify its lofty price.

Anyway, I was making somewhat similar points to my impressionable eight-year-old while out shopping, pointing out that “in my day” – in my day? I’m 31, for crying out loud – “corned beef was fairly priced.”

Her reply? “How much was it exactly? I’d say 30 shillings.”

I assume she thinks that “my day” was some time before decimalisation.

SOMEBODY has started work on the house out the back of ours this week.

There has been a flurry of activity, with the roof being fixed up and all the rooms being cleaned out. They’ve covered their windows with newspapers.

That’s one in the eye for those who think that the print industry is dead. You can’t do that with an iPad can you?

ONE of my proudest moments in journalism was when I saw my sports pages plastered over the windows of a vacant flat in Worksop.

I saw it less as a means of maintaining privacy and more of an art installation, where passers by could appreciate the creativity of my page design skills.

Or, it could have been the least useful part of the newspaper which had an equal chance of lining a litter tray.

Either way, it’s nice to see my work was appreciated.

ST JAMES’S PARK became a rugby league arena last weekend, where 52,000 fans of the elliptical-balled sport descended on Newcastle for the Super League’s Magic Weekend.

Televised on Sky Sports, the weekend showed the city to be a worthy host of the sport, which warms up nicely for the Rugby Union World Cup later in the year.

There was high-octane sporting action on offer within the stadium. Top international stars, playing at the highest level. So it was a bit of a departure from the football that has been played there this year.

The biggest difference was that you could drink beer in the stands while watching the game. Football fans cannot do that. They are prevented from drinking alcohol while being able to see the game being played.

It’s an English thing. You can get as drunk as a lord in front of the football in other countries, but here, it’s a no go.

After some of the football served up in the North-East, we could have done with a drink to make it all a bit better.