Two ideas for making the most out of the humble spring onion: a sharp soup with an Iranian twist, and a flavour-packed Tunisian street snack, brik Spring onion soup I recently started using a wonderful product from Iran called kashk. Kash, or kishk, signifies different things throughout the Middle East, Turkey and Greece, but is often used to name food stuffs produced by the process of fermentation and then drying of yoghurt or curdled milk, turning them into a powder that can later be reconstituted. Iranian kashk is used to bulk up soups and stews, and gives them a wonderfully deep and sharp aroma, a bit like feta but in runny form. I get my kashk from specialist Iranian shops, a few of which I’m lucky to have found dotted around London. But don’t worry if you can’t get hold of kashk – a mixture of crème fraîche and grated parmesan (or other mature cheese) makes a perfectly good substitute. Serves four. 700g spring onions (a large variety with a thick bulb, if possible) 40g unsalted butter 50ml olive oil, plus extra to finish 2 whole medium garlic heads, cloves peeled and halved lengthways 3 bay leaves 300g frozen peas 1 medium courgette, diced 1.3 litres vegetable stock 80g parsley leaves, roughly chopped 60g kashk (or crème fraîche/parmesan mix) 20g mint leaves, roughly chopped Grated zest of ½ lemon Salt and black pepper Cut the white of the spring onions into 1.5cm-long slices and the green into 2.5cm-long segments. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the oil, white spring onion slices, halved garlic cloves and some salt and pepper, and sauté on moderate heat for 10-15 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the green spring onion segments and the bay leaves, cook for about 10 minutes, add the peas and courgette, and cook for another five minutes. Remove half the vegetables from the pan and set aside. Cover the remaining vegetables with the stock, bring to a boil and simmer for three minutes. Remove the bay leaves, add the parsley and blitz in a
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The Dutch take sex very seriously – and their focus on education for young children pays off when they grow up My son is three years old; he is learning to use the potty and brush his teeth at the moment. Next year, however, when he starts primary school, he will get his first lessons in sex education, during the so-called Lentekriebels week – the Dutch word for “spring itching” or “spring butterflies”. This is not a joke, nor am I bringing up my offspring in a hippy commune. We live in a quiet middle-class neighbourhood in Amsterdam. Lentekriebels is a government-subsidised project for children aged four to 12 that takes place every year in hundreds of primary schools all over the Netherlands. This year’s Lentekriebels has just finished, with an exhibition about relationships and sexuality in hundreds of schools all over the Netherlands. My son won’t bring home the leaflet “Sex Yes, Worries No”, about the use of contraceptives, until he is at least 10. He wouldn’t be able to read it at the moment anyway. But his teachers will be talking about cuddling, friendship, newborn lambs in the fields and the differences between boys and girls. And his class might be visited by pregnant women and nursing mothers with their babies. The Netherlands has a lurid reputation abroad when it comes to sex. Everyone knows about the red light district in Amsterdam and legalised prostitution. So it might come as a surprise to some to hear that deep down, the Dutch are very conservative people who take sex seriously. Very seriously, in fact. Sex education has traditionally been an important part of the school curriculum here. Lentekriebels is in line with the Dutch tradition of assigning to schoolteachers responsibilities that might elsewhere be handled within the family. As my teacher in primary school in the 1970s told me: “If your parents don’t bring you up properly, our school has to do the job for them.” The issue then was not sex but prayer (we didn’t pray at home), but the principle is the same. Parents are not to be trusted to do a good job and sex is a danger zone, like drugs or smoking. To discuss it at school from an early age will make young people aware of the many risks when they start to experiment with relationships and sexuality. Dutch sex education doesn’t stop at Lentekriebels . I remember vividly the little grey-haired lady with the large handbag who came to my high school to talk about “the first time”, true love, the effects of alcohol and how to use a condom. I was 14 and we all found it great fun. And the lessons went on until my final exams: prostitution, reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases – we were spared nothing. There is much to be said for the Dutch approach. Official figures show that the pregnancy rate here among teenage girls, 5.3 per thousand, is one of the lowest in Europe. The explanation is believed to be the open approach towards sexuality. And we see similarly low numbers when it comes to abortions and STDs. The UK, by comparison, has a teen pregnancy rate that is nearly 400% higher and a much higher abortion rate. In an attempt to make sense of these figures, we can turn to Nick Hornby’s novel Slam , in which 16-year-old Sam gets his girlfriend, Alicia, pregnant. On the internet he finds government statistics about teenage parents: And some of them were funny – like, one in 10 teenagers couldn’t remember if they’d had sex the night before or not, which is pretty incredible if you think about it. I think this meant that one in 10 teenagers had got so blasted the night before that they didn’t know what had gone on. I don’t think it meant they were just forgetful, like when you can’t remember whether you packed your games kit. Dutch teenagers are probably just as sexually active as British ones and may even drink as much. But thanks to the priority given to sex education, Sam’s Dutch equivalent can go skateboarding without worrying whether he has knocked up his girlfriend. • This article was commissioned after being suggested by 13thDukeofWybourne . If you have a subject you would like to see covered by Comment is free, please visit our You tell us page Sex Sex education Schools Netherlands Europe Children Young people Shirley Haasnoot guardian.co.uk
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Jennifer meets Tom. Was he bowled over by her passion for the horn, or was it the 18th-century French literature? Jennifer on Tom First impressions? Good – I’d been dreaming of potential disaster dates, so
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Charities are leaving billions of pounds in donations in business accounts paying little interest. But there is an alternative Charity trustees looking for a savings account that will pay a reasonable rate of interest, have a tough job on their hands. Few high street institutions offer special banking arrangements for charities, often leaving them with little choice but to keep their cash reserves in standard “business” accounts earning miserable rates – the average instant-access charity savings rate on the high street is just 0.022%. There are a number of higher-paying accounts on the market available to charities, but it is not always easy to track them down. While the internet abounds with “best buy” tables, the big-name online comparison websites don’t tend to publish similar information for charities. Guardian Money was told this week by the trustee of a small charity that benefits young people in Mozambique: “We’ve been very disappointed with our high street bank charity account. It’s classed as a business account and the interest is pitiful. But I haven’t a clue where to find out about accounts that might pay us a better rate.” Aiming to fill this gap is Fair Investment Company , a savings, investment and pension intermediary. A spokesperson for the company says: “We’ve talked to charities to find out what sort of accounts they want and have then gone to providers to try and secure deals that will suit those needs. “Our online table contains accounts – some of which are exclusively offered through us as an intermediary – which we think offer the best opportunities for charities under a range of terms, from instant access to three years.” Currently on Fair Investment’s table are three, two and one-year fixed-term deposit accounts from Cater Allen private bank (part of the Santander Group) paying fixed rates of 3.6%, 3.05% and 2.55% respectively on minimum deposits of £50,000. It is also promoting 18- and nine-month bonds for charities from Welsh building society Principality, paying fixed rates of 2.6% and 2.55% on a minimum investment of £10,000, available exclusively through Fair Investment. Last in its current batch of deals is a range of variable-rate charity deposit accounts from Scottish Widows Bank, including a seven-day notice account paying 1.6% on balances of £500-£49,999 and 1.85% on over £50,000, and an instant-access account paying 1.25% on £500- £49,999 and 1.5% on over £50,000. “We think they are good deals for charities, they are easy to set up, easy to use and the institutions behind them are financially strong, but the service is still a work in progress,” adds the spokesperson. “We are looking to develop it further and that includes deals with ethical banks, for example.” Fair Investment does not pretend to be covering the whole of the charity account market, nor does it claim always to feature the highest-paying accounts. It is also open about the fact that it is only promoting deals with providers who pay it some kind of commission for bringing charity customers to their door. “But it does offer some attractive rates, some of which are not available elsewhere, and is a useful place to start for charities who haven’t the manpower to do extensive research.” Richard Pendlebury is director at Emmaus Bristol, a charity that provides a home and work for formerly homeless and disadvantaged people by re-using household items in a social enterprise. He says he would recommend the Fair Investment service to other charities who are getting a poor deal. “Interest rates had been declining for some time until our deposits were yielding virtually nothing – less than 0.5% at the time,” he says. “It was brought into sharp focus when we received a substantial legacy and realised we were going to earn practically no interest.” The charity’s bank couldn’t offer any help and Pendlebury’s own research turned up nothing better until he came across Fair Investment. Through it, Emmaus secured an instant-access deal paying (then) 3%, six times better than the rate it was earning at the time. “It is important to maximise income for the use of beneficiaries – in fact it is the duty of trustees to manage the assets effectively – and, thanks to this service, we have managed to make donations go a lot further,” Pendlebury says. If charities want a look at what is available across the wider market, they can get one-off help from independent data provider Moneyfacts. While it normally only publishes free online comparison tables aimed at consumers and charges for business data (which includes information on savings accounts open to charities), it will email a selection of the best-paying charity accounts to individual trustees who make contact via the email form on its website at moneyfacts.co.uk . Is your charity protected? Is your charity/club/association covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if the bank or building society it holds money with fails? If a bank or building society authorised by the Financial Services Association (FSA) is unable to pay back deposits held with it, the FSCS can pay up to the compensation limit (currently £85,000) of an eligible depositor’s claim, per authorised institution. The FSCS protects private individuals and some small businesses. Whether a charity is covered depends on how it is constituted. There is no requirement for charities to be established by way of a particular structure or form. According to the Charities Act 2006, a “charity” is simply an institution established for charitable purposes only, which is subject to the control of the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction with respect to charities. There are as many permutations of charitable structures as there are types of legal personality. As charities are not specifically provided for in the FSCS’s eligibility rules, their eligibility will be determined by their structure and legal personality. For example, a charity can be constituted as a limited company. A limited company would be treated as having a claim, and hence protection in its own right up to the limit, if it fell within the definition of a “small company”. It qualifies as a “small company” if it fulfils two of the following three criteria: • it has a turnover of not more than £6.5m; • it has a balance sheet total of not more than £3.26m; and • it has not more than 50 employees. Charitable giving Banks and building societies Consumer affairs Charities Voluntary sector Jill Papworth guardian.co.uk
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The Victoria & Albert Museum’s exhibition of the ‘Cult of Beauty’ reflects how art spread into everyday life in the Victorian period What was the aesthetic movement? If we do not know now we certainly will within the next few weeks as the V&A’s latest blockbuster exhibition gets into its stride and Londoners are overwhelmed with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers and blue and white chinoiserie, symbols of an art movement gorgeous in its detail, shimmering in surface and verging on the decadent. Even for its admirers the aesthetic movement comes to have a rather claustrophobic feel. The movement started in a small way in the 1860s in the studios and houses of a radical group of artists and
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They can dispense advice to heart attack victims or enact sexual fantasies with lonely men – but who are the faceless people who earn their living on the other end of the line? The call centre technician: Ankur Chadha, 34, New Delhi When I’m working, I use the pseudonym Alex Smith. Customers can’t pronounce my real name, and we’re encouraged to choose something easier. In fact, it’s my job to assign aliases to new team members: I take their first and last initials, and give them a name that matches. I went to a convent school, then got a Bachelor of Technology from Delhi University. I worked with Hewlett Packard in Bangalore, where I got my initial voice and accent, technical and cultural training. You have to understand the psychology of the people you’re going to be speaking to. We watched a lot of BBC and Discovery. I
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Mark Kennedy, the first infiltrator to be exposed, says he may sue Scotland Yard for causing post-traumatic stress disorder A sixth police officer has been unmasked as an undercover spy in the protest movement as it emerged that Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, is considering suing Scotland Yard. In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine , Kennedy, who went “rogue” and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police. The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder. Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station. The call was recorded on the campaigner’s answerphone and Wellings is heard being pressed to identify protesters at demonstrations, according to Newsnight. He is recorded saying: “She’s Hanna’s girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black.” The infiltration of police spies became controversial after the identification of Kennedy and four others who had posed as members of a variety of political groups including environmental, anti-racist and anti-globalisation campaigns. The infiltration is the subject of four official investigations after police chiefs and ministers admitted the undercover operations had gone “badly wrong”. Kennedy believes that other undercover officers have been similarly ostracised. “The way the police handled the whole extraction .. is absolutely thoughtless from a psychological point of view and from a safety point of view.” He argues that the damage caused by such undercover work is too great, and that the police should rely more on electronic rather than human intelligence. Wellings pretended to be an activist with the group between 2001 and 2005. He always seemed to have enough money to go to many demonstrations in London, New York, Paris, Seville and other cities. Guy Taylor, a member, told Newsnight: “He didn’t have much of a backstory. We never met any of his friends or his family.” He volunteered to be the group’s photographer and took “plenty of photographs”. Wellings vanished after being rumbled by the other activists. The accidental phone call also highlights the role of police units which take photographs of protesters to be stored in secret databases such as Scotland Yard’s CO11 public order branch. The other police officer is heard on the tape pressing Wellings to put names to the photographs, according to Newsnight. “Thing is we’ve got the CO11s. They’re like – who are these people ? Do you know who they are ?” Last night the Metropolitan police said:”The use of undercover officers is a valuable tactic in the fight against crime and disorder to keep people and communities safe. “Their use is highly regulated and governed in law through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and must be necessary, proportionate and lawful. “The deployment of undercover officers is also overseen by the Surveillance Commissioner who must be satisfied by their use.” Mark Kennedy Activism Protest Police Simon Hattenstone Rob Evans Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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Mark Kennedy, the first infiltrator to be exposed, says he may sue Scotland Yard for causing post-traumatic stress disorder A sixth police officer has been unmasked as an undercover spy in the protest movement as it emerged that Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, is considering suing Scotland Yard. In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine , Kennedy, who went “rogue” and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police. The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder. Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station. The call was recorded on the campaigner’s answerphone and Wellings is heard being pressed to identify protesters at demonstrations, according to Newsnight. He is recorded saying: “She’s Hanna’s girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black.” The infiltration of police spies became controversial after the identification of Kennedy and four others who had posed as members of a variety of political groups including environmental, anti-racist and anti-globalisation campaigns. The infiltration is the subject of four official investigations after police chiefs and ministers admitted the undercover operations had gone “badly wrong”. Kennedy believes that other undercover officers have been similarly ostracised. “The way the police handled the whole extraction .. is absolutely thoughtless from a psychological point of view and from a safety point of view.” He argues that the damage caused by such undercover work is too great, and that the police should rely more on electronic rather than human intelligence. Wellings pretended to be an activist with the group between 2001 and 2005. He always seemed to have enough money to go to many demonstrations in London, New York, Paris, Seville and other cities. Guy Taylor, a member, told Newsnight: “He didn’t have much of a backstory. We never met any of his friends or his family.” He volunteered to be the group’s photographer and took “plenty of photographs”. Wellings vanished after being rumbled by the other activists. The accidental phone call also highlights the role of police units which take photographs of protesters to be stored in secret databases such as Scotland Yard’s CO11 public order branch. The other police officer is heard on the tape pressing Wellings to put names to the photographs, according to Newsnight. “Thing is we’ve got the CO11s. They’re like – who are these people ? Do you know who they are ?” Last night the Metropolitan police said:”The use of undercover officers is a valuable tactic in the fight against crime and disorder to keep people and communities safe. “Their use is highly regulated and governed in law through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and must be necessary, proportionate and lawful. “The deployment of undercover officers is also overseen by the Surveillance Commissioner who must be satisfied by their use.” Mark Kennedy Activism Protest Police Simon Hattenstone Rob Evans Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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Forces looks at possible links to unsolved crimes after suspect leads officers to Gloucestershire field Police investigating the murder of 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan admitted they were “stepping into the unknown” as they searched a field for a second body. Officers said the excavation of the farmer’s field in Gloucestershire was likely to be a painstaking process that could take several days. Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, who is leading the inquiry, said: “Until that has been completed we will not know what we are dealing with.” Detectives from around the country are liaising with Wiltshire police over possible links to unsolved crimes or missing people from their region. They are known to include Avon and Somerset officers investigating the murder of Melanie Hall, who vanished from a Bath nightclub in 1996. Police have also spoken to organisations that help publicise cases of missing people. O’Callaghan went missing after leaving a nightclub in Swindon early last Saturday. She was found near Uffington in Oxfordshire, 12 miles east of Swindon, on Thursday after a man arrested on suspicion of her kidnap led police to the site. Fulcher said her body was undergoing a postmortem examination. The man also led the officers to the farmer’s field at Eastleach, Gloucestershire, about 15 miles north of Swindon. Police would not give details about the possible identity of any body at Eastleach. They said only that it was thought to be that of an adult and they believed the case went back “several years”. Fulcher said there was only one outstanding missing person in the Wiltshire force’s jurisdiction from that time, whom he did not name. Police later clarified that this did not mean that this was the person possibly buried in the field. Sources also pointed out that they could not be sure that there was a body at the site. Local murder cases in which no body has been found include that of college worker Linda Razzell, 41, who vanished from Swindon in 2002. Her husband, Glyn, was convicted of her killing but protests his innocence. Razzell’s family said police had not been in touch. The body of retired teacher Kate Prout has never been found after she went missing from a Gloucestershire farm in 2007. Her husband, Adrian, was found guilty of her murder last year but also insists he is innocent. The only Wiltshire person listed as missing on the Missing People website is a 53-year-old man called Anthony Fryer, who vanished from Swindon in 2005. Though Hall’s body was found in 2009, sources at Avon and Somerset police confirmed that detectives involved in the case were looking at any possible links with her murder. The force already works with Wiltshire police in a major crime investigation unit called Brunel, so both forces would be involved in the O’Callaghan investigation as a matter of course. Detective Superintendent Mike Courtiour, of Avon and Somerset police, is the head of Brunel and the lead on Melanie Hall. A source said: “He would naturally be looking at the possibility of any links.” At a press conference Fulcher outlined events leading to the arrest of the man now in custody on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering O’Callaghan. He described how CCTV footage and analysis of O’Callaghan’s mobile phone indicated that she had left the Suju nightclub at 2.52am last Saturday and 32 minutes later was in Savernake forest, near Marlborough, around 12 miles south of Swindon. CCTV footage also established that a green Toyota Avensis was near the club at the relevant time. Further analysis enabled officers to identify the registration of the vehicle. “I believed that it was likely that Sian had been abducted and taken away in this vehicle,” said Fulcher. He said police had concentrated on searching the forest and finding the Avensis and the driver. A man – named locally as taxi driver Chris Halliwell – was arrested in an Asda car park in Swindon on Thursday and a green Toyota Avensis towed away. He was initially arrested on suspicion of kidnap. But Fulcher said: “He led me to two locations, one near Uffington, where we discovered the body of a woman who we believe is Sian, and also to another location where we believe that a second body may be.” Fulcher said he believed O’Callaghan’s body had been moved to the spot where it was found. A house in Swindon continued to be searched and officers removed items including two spades. The suspect was being held at Gablecross police station near Swindon. He was taken to the town’s magistrates court, where police asked for extra time to question him. A police spokeswoman said: “A 24-hour extension of detention was granted and the man remains in custody at Gablecross police station.” Crime Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Forces looks at possible links to unsolved crimes after suspect leads officers to Gloucestershire field Police investigating the murder of 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan admitted they were “stepping into the unknown” as they searched a field for a second body. Officers said the excavation of the farmer’s field in Gloucestershire was likely to be a painstaking process that could take several days. Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, who is leading the inquiry, said: “Until that has been completed we will not know what we are dealing with.” Detectives from around the country are liaising with Wiltshire police over possible links to unsolved crimes or missing people from their region. They are known to include Avon and Somerset officers investigating the murder of Melanie Hall, who vanished from a Bath nightclub in 1996. Police have also spoken to organisations that help publicise cases of missing people. O’Callaghan went missing after leaving a nightclub in Swindon early last Saturday. She was found near Uffington in Oxfordshire, 12 miles east of Swindon, on Thursday after a man arrested on suspicion of her kidnap led police to the site. Fulcher said her body was undergoing a postmortem examination. The man also led the officers to the farmer’s field at Eastleach, Gloucestershire, about 15 miles north of Swindon. Police would not give details about the possible identity of any body at Eastleach. They said only that it was thought to be that of an adult and they believed the case went back “several years”. Fulcher said there was only one outstanding missing person in the Wiltshire force’s jurisdiction from that time, whom he did not name. Police later clarified that this did not mean that this was the person possibly buried in the field. Sources also pointed out that they could not be sure that there was a body at the site. Local murder cases in which no body has been found include that of college worker Linda Razzell, 41, who vanished from Swindon in 2002. Her husband, Glyn, was convicted of her killing but protests his innocence. Razzell’s family said police had not been in touch. The body of retired teacher Kate Prout has never been found after she went missing from a Gloucestershire farm in 2007. Her husband, Adrian, was found guilty of her murder last year but also insists he is innocent. The only Wiltshire person listed as missing on the Missing People website is a 53-year-old man called Anthony Fryer, who vanished from Swindon in 2005. Though Hall’s body was found in 2009, sources at Avon and Somerset police confirmed that detectives involved in the case were looking at any possible links with her murder. The force already works with Wiltshire police in a major crime investigation unit called Brunel, so both forces would be involved in the O’Callaghan investigation as a matter of course. Detective Superintendent Mike Courtiour, of Avon and Somerset police, is the head of Brunel and the lead on Melanie Hall. A source said: “He would naturally be looking at the possibility of any links.” At a press conference Fulcher outlined events leading to the arrest of the man now in custody on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering O’Callaghan. He described how CCTV footage and analysis of O’Callaghan’s mobile phone indicated that she had left the Suju nightclub at 2.52am last Saturday and 32 minutes later was in Savernake forest, near Marlborough, around 12 miles south of Swindon. CCTV footage also established that a green Toyota Avensis was near the club at the relevant time. Further analysis enabled officers to identify the registration of the vehicle. “I believed that it was likely that Sian had been abducted and taken away in this vehicle,” said Fulcher. He said police had concentrated on searching the forest and finding the Avensis and the driver. A man – named locally as taxi driver Chris Halliwell – was arrested in an Asda car park in Swindon on Thursday and a green Toyota Avensis towed away. He was initially arrested on suspicion of kidnap. But Fulcher said: “He led me to two locations, one near Uffington, where we discovered the body of a woman who we believe is Sian, and also to another location where we believe that a second body may be.” Fulcher said he believed O’Callaghan’s body had been moved to the spot where it was found. A house in Swindon continued to be searched and officers removed items including two spades. The suspect was being held at Gablecross police station near Swindon. He was taken to the town’s magistrates court, where police asked for extra time to question him. A police spokeswoman said: “A 24-hour extension of detention was granted and the man remains in custody at Gablecross police station.” Crime Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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