FROM PANTS TO A (DEAD) CAT(ASTOPHE).

All was well in the Petty Witter household yesterday and so, for the first time in a few weeks, we both made it to the breakfast club where, amongst several other articles, the following were discussed.

From The Guardian.

WHAT A MAN'S PANTS SAY ABOUT HIM.

A new survey from Debenhams (a large department store found in many British towns and shopping centres) claims to shed some light on men's underwear-buying habits. While the average 23-year-old allegedly buys up to 31 pairs a year "of all styles, tightness and colours", and even 40-year-olds manage a dozen pairs in as many months, once you reach 44 Debenhams reckon you give up the habit for life. Not because by then you have bought 284 pairs and never need to fork out for Y-fronts or tangas again, but because a woman is doing it for you. (So I've got another 8 or so months of Husband dearest being capable of buying his own before I have to do it - there's something to look forward to.)

"Even the most macho men delegate the duty of buying underpants to women as soon as they can" claims Rob Faucherand, the store's head of men's accessories buying.

There's obviously some truth in this (after all the survey never lies) but it does leave some questions unanswered. Firstly, what about men who love men? Who buys their smalls? (their mothers? Only an idea.) Just as importantly, what about all the single straight blokes out there? (definitely their mothers.)

- Phil Daoust.

SALT IN JAMIE OLIVER SAUCES A RECIPE FOR ILL-HEALTH.

I strongly dislike Jamie Oliver (aka the naked chef) - an English chef and so called 'media celebrity' who is well known for his food focused tv shows, perhaps the most popular being Jamie's School Dinners which saw him campaigning against the use of processed foods in national schools in favour of more nutritional, healthy, locally produced foods.

Surely this is a good thing, I hear you say. Yes, it is but it's the way the man went about it. So arrogant and full of his own self importance. He preached to the nation as if he was doing us all a huge favour - never once mentioning all of the money he was making from it.

Anyway, giving my dislike, I couldn't help but smile at this article.

According to Jamie Oliver, his range of pasta sauces is "all about offering exciting flavours, using great quality ingredients at decent prices. I want to get people excited about having pasta and sauce, to really get their tastebuds going." Unfortunately, he has been heavy-handed in using one particular ingredient: salt.

Despite taking school caterers to task for dishing up the likes of Turkey Twizzlers (a frozen product that is lucky if it contains any turkey at all. High in, you guessed it, salt) on the grounds that they were bad for children's health, Oliver has been accused of using more salt in his tomato-based pasta sauce than any other range.

According to research published by Consensus Action On Salt And Health (CASH), which examined the salt content of 190 jars, pots and packets of pasta, the highest salt product was in Jamie Oliver's olive and garlic sauce, with 3g per 100g, or 5.3g of salt per recommended 175g portion of sauce. That is equivalent to 88% of an adults recommended limit of 6g of salt a day in just one serving and roughly the same as eating more than 10 packets of ready salted crisps (put that way, it's an awful lot of salt.)

(Oliver's defence?) He claimed the sauces were designed to serve 4 to 6 people a jar, perhaps as a pizza topping or a pasta dressing, so the salt would be distributed more sparingly.

(And to prove it isn't just because I dislike him) Oliver wasn't the only celebrity chef to fall foul of CASH: Loyd Grossman's tomato-based sauces also contained high levels of salt.

- Jill Insley.

From The Daily Telegraph.

POOH AT CENTRE OF DISNEY LEGAL FIGHT.

Winnie-The-Pooh is at the centre of a legal storm over his adventures in Hundred Acre Wood.

Disney is being sued for unpaid royalties by a company whose founder helped to turn the bear into a global success after giving him a red T-shirt. (for the full article click HERE.)

And finally, From the Daily Mirror.

THATCHER DEAD.

The text message was starkly simple: "Thatcher is dead." (Cause for celebration amongst many, not least of which, many British miners who still hate her for the part she played in the MINERS STRIKE of 1984/5.) And word spread like wildfire among guests at a high-powered diplomatic do. Diplomats and dignitaries scrambled to pass on the historic information.

But tragic though it was, the news didn't quite merit such widespread claws, sorry cause, for concern.

Thatcher it turned out, was Canadian transport minister John Baird's beloved cat - named after his political heroine.

He sent out a text message about the 16-year-old tabby's demise and the news reached Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a black tie gala event attended by 1,700 luminaries in Toronto.

The after-dinner chat quickly turned to expressions of shock over 84-year-old Lady Thatcher's apparent demise. The dodgy rumour was only quashed as Harper's aide, Dimitri Soudas, was preparing an official statement. He rang puzzled officials at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, only to be told former PM Baroness Thatcher was very much alive and well.

Soudas is reported to have said: "If that cat wasn't dead, I'd have killed it myself by now." (Not
really the cats fault though, was it? After all, it wasn't the cat who sent the text message.)

PLEASE NOTE: The first two articles, both from The Guardian, were edited for the purpose of this blog. Wherever possible, I will include links to the unedited version - unfortunately, I was unable to do so on this occasions.