By Demian Hobby
Published 12 August 2011 17:11 BST, on http://local.stv.tv/edinburgh-west/news/22577-tasty-vegetarian-recipes/

Demian Hobby, head chef at Ten Hill Place Hotel, with some healthy, easy veggie recipes.

Squash, coconut and red pepper curry

1 butternut squash, deseeded and chopped into one inch cubes

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into one inch long strips

2 cloves garlic

400g reduced fat coconut milk

2 tsp madras paste

Or make your own blending equal amounts of fresh ginger, garlic, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, peppercorns, white wine vinegar and ground turmeric

Fry garlic in madras paste for 1 minute. Add squash and pepper and toss through the paste until covered.

Add coconut milk and cook for 15-20 minutes or until squash is tender

Serve with rice

Courgette, blue cheese and tomato tart

2 courgettes, quartered lengthways, blanched and patted dry

5 tomatoes, pre-roasted and squeezed of juices

3 eggs, half cup of milk whisked

100g blue cheese

250g shortcrust pastry

Butter the base of a 9inch baking tray, roll out pastry and line the bottom, neatly folding the pastry over the edges. Pre-bake for 10 minutes.

Arrange quartered tomatoes in circles from the centre to the outer edge

Evenly spread courgette chunks over the tomato, then pour in egg mixture. Top with crumbled blue cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes at 180C or until knife comes out clean from centre.

Serve with a side salad.

A dedicated Portobello teacher who has spent her career caring for young children is set to retire. Freda Ward, 67, is retiring after 20 years at Seabeach Nursery and almost 40 years in the profession.Fellow teachers at the nursery have paid tribute to the much-liked colleague, described as a familiar face in Portobello.Now living in Bruntsfield, Freda Ward has worked at the nursery since it was established in 1989.
She married in 1975 but is now a widow and has a grown-up daughter.

She moved to Edinburgh when she was 22 where she taught infants for 17 years before starting as a pre-school teacher at Seabeach Nursery, just off the Portobello Promenade.

A part of the active kids day nurseries network, Seabeach works with the government initiative in promoting initiatives to tackle obesity in Scotland. With an interest in classical music, poetry and theatre, Ms Ward was a great believer in song and dance in the nursery to keep the kids fit and active.

Seabeach Nursery owner, Lisa Greenan said: “She’s just absolutely magic.

“The truth is that all the children love her and if you could bottle all her energy and enthusiasm and sell it you’d be a millionaire.”

Freda said her most memorable times at the nursery were concerts for the children’s parents every Christmas.

She said: “Christmas is lovely. We put on concerts for the parents and those were very good because the children were as young as two years old. So that was wonderful, when they sang and danced for their parents.”

With class sizes of a maximum of 25, she has remained in contact with many of the children as they have grown up in Portobello.

Mrs Greenan said: “She’s very well-known in Portobello and obviously she’s known a lot of the children leave here and go to local primary and local secondary and then on to university and some of the children will be coming back this week to see her.”

When she retires she plans to travel to Vienna and St Petersburg – amongst other things – but she will return to the nursery.

She said: “I probably will come back and do some singing with the children but that would just be on an informal basis.”

Mrs Greenan added: “We’re still retaining her on a very long piece of string.”
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/reallives/Real-lives-All-singing-all.5350776.jp

A couple who worked as missionaries in Kenya have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary by renewing their vows.
Henry, 90, and Margaret McCombe, 85, who live in West Lothian, marked 60 years of marriage on 1 June.

They celebrated the day with a formal recommitment service at Stewart Court – the sheltered housing complex in West Calder, where they have lived since August 2002.

The couple were born just a few streets apart in Govan, Glasgow, but didn’t actually meet until 1948 at Govanhill Badminton Club.

They married at Elderpark Parish Church in Govan a year later, and lived in Govan until 1956 when they moved to East Kilbride. They also spent some time in various parts of England and in Dalkeith.

The couple, who did not have any children, worked as missionaries for the Church of Scotland in Kenya for three years before moving to West Calder in 1972, where they have lived ever since.

When asked what the recipe for a long and happy marriage was, they both replied, “give and take”.

Margaret added: “It’s just being together and discussing everything together.”

She said that the scorching weather on their diamond anniversary was in stark contrast to their wedding day when it “poured all day”.

Margaret and Henry received a telegram from the Queen and were presented with flowers by Deputy Provost Jim Dickson, on behalf of West Lothian Council.

They even bought each other a new wedding ring to mark the occasion, and Henry also gave Margaret a white bible.

Margaret and Henry also celebrated their special day with a buffet and entertainment.

They are now looking forward to their second honeymoon in Morecambe.

Scheme manager at Stewart Court, Gwen Gilholm, said: “They’re an absolutely delightful couple and literally walk about hand in hand. It’s lovely to see. They are marvellous and whenever there is a concert on here, they’re always up dancing!”

The couple enjoy singing and perform together as a duo, although Henry also sings on his own.

Margaret added: “We do a lot of things together.”

They also like to dance and go to a dance class at West Calder community centre every Friday.

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/reallives/Real-Lives-Give-and-take.5385937.jp

Happy couple George and Greta Marshall are due to celebrate their diamond wedding.The pair, who enjoy completing crosswords and puzzles, say the solution to a happy marriage is not arguing.George, 80 and Greta, 83, of Liston Road, Kirkliston, are celebrating 60 years together since meeting through George’s sister in 1948.

They married on 4 June 1949 at St Paul’s and St George’s on York Place in Edinburgh after getting engaged on the ferry from South Queensferry to North Queensferry a year earlier.

Originally from Edinburgh, George went to Portobello Secondary School and later served in the Royal Artillery for 12 years in post-war Germany and the south of England.

He then worked as an electronic engineer for Drambuie.

Greta grew up on a farm in Blairlogie and attended Stirling Secondary School, later working for John Menzies and John Lewis.

She said: “You didn’t have much of a choice of possible careers back then – you just took what you were given.

“I didn’t start working for some time because we were farmers so we didn’t really have to go to work as long as we helped on the farm.”

The couple have lived in Kirkliston for 30 years and have two children, Ingrid and Gillian, born in 1951 and 1957.

They are also the proud grandparents of Jennifer and Claire, and two great-grandchildren, Daisy, four and Aaron, five.

Ingrid will celebrate her 37th anniversary with husband David today.

Continuing the family tradition, Gillian works for John Lewis.

George and Greta like to entertain themselves with crosswords and word puzzles.

Greta added: “I enjoy doing anything that uses the mind.”

They have travelled to Majorca and other parts of Spain several times, as well as to mainland Europe.

She said: “We’ve had holidays every year since the day we got married. Though I don’t think we’ll be able to return now because insurance is getting higher and higher as we get older.”

After a happy 60 years the recipe for a long-lasting marriage, according to the couple, is a simple one based on mutual respect and understanding.

Greta said: “We just get on, there’s just no point arguing. My advice to younger couples would be to just work on it – don’t just have a tiff and break up – work on it and, of course, give and take.”

“We have a lovely family who are all very attentive and looking back over our marriage there are just too many fond memories to recount.”
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/reallives/Real-lives-George-and-Greta.5356065.jp

THOUSANDS of bottles of water meant for runners taking part in the Edinburgh Marathon were stolen before the event. Organisers said they reported the theft of more than 6,000 water bottles from two stations that left participants without adequate supplies during the race on Sunday.

The theft is thought to have taken place in the early hours before the race started, but the report was officially made to Lothian and Borders Police only yesterday.

The bottles were said to be taken from two water stations at the furthest point of the marathon course in Gosford.

Police and support vehicles were organised to replenish supplies when it was discovered the stations had been left dry for 40 minutes.

Lothian and Borders Police said yesterday: “We can confirm that we are looking into a report of the theft of a large quantity of liquid items, and further inquiries are ongoing.”

The Edinburgh Marathon’s race director, Neil Kilgour, said: “We are furious that someone would steal water and energy gels from marathon runners on a hot day.”

http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Thieves-run-off-with-6000.5327860.jp

By Demian Hobby and Craig Brown

RUNNERS have branded the Edinburgh Marathon as “shambolic” because of a shortage of water and a decision to cut short the race. Sunday’s event saw scores of participants treated by medics after the marathon got under way in temperatures of around 22C.

Runners said that there was a critical lack of supplies at water stations. Ten people being take to hospital after collapsing, and a further 160 required treatment on the course.

Competitor Doug Steele said: “There was not a single bottle of water remaining at the first water station at Loch Road when I came, about 20 minutes into the race, and I passed a further four stations which had completely run out of water in East Lothian.

“I had to rummage through discarded bottles at the roadside to find one or two with some water in them so I could stay hydrated.” Organisers said there had been adequate supplies and that any shortages had been temporary.

However, Alison Grant, who had travelled from Huddersfield, Yorkshire to compete in her first marathon, said: “The ‘temporary’ water shortages were inexcusable and not temporary at all – many water stations were just empty trestle tables and myself and many other runners were relying on the kindness of supporters and local residents.”

Ms Grant attacked the decision to cut the race length from the standard 26.2 miles to 24 for hundreds of the slowest runners. She said the move had left her feeling cheated: “It is the most shambolic race I have ever had the misfortune to enter.”

Race director Neil Kilgour said: “There was a shortage at stations six and seven but in terms of the rest of the course there was no shortage.”

He said that as soon as they were aware of a shortage at the sixth and seventh stations, a supply was taken there by police escort. On cutting the race short, Mr Kilgour said: “The reason I did that was purely for their personal safety.”

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Boiling-24mile-marathon-with-water.5323583.jp

Targets to cut carbon emissions could lead

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, claimed that if Barack Obama commits to the carbon cuts campaigners and scientists say are needed, he could face a “revolution”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Pachauri said: “He [Obama] is not going to say by 2020; ‘I’m going to reduce emissions by three per cent’. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

Obama has said the US aims to reduce its carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a target almost within the 25-40 per cent recommendation made by the IPCC to avoid dangerous climate change.

Pachauri’s comments come as researchers at the Copenhagen conference said that IPCC estimates of environmental effects on the likely rise of sea level need to be revaluated.

Despite Europe’s pledge to cut emissions greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, the IPCC has warned polar ice cap melting in Greenland could drive sea levels to rise more than a metre by 2100.

The US president’s new chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, has also said that a US target of 25-40 per cent cuts is “not possible.”

But this position could jeopardize a new Kyoto treaty, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Environmental campaigners have demanded a resolution must be agreed at the UN conference in Copenhagen this December.

Obama has announced long-term targets of an 80 per cent target on emissions by 2050, but critics say that short-term pledges will be of more value in convincing other developed countries such as China to sign the treaty.

Pachauri echoed these remarks, saying that the US needed stricter involvement in the short term, but questioned whether this would be on the agenda by this December.

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5613-un-chief-predicts-us-climate-revolution

Published: Feb 22, 2009, Veritas

Media institutions and privacy campaigners fear that citizen and press photography could be curbed by the new law, which stipulates that individuals can now face prison if convicted of eliciting information of any police constable or member of Her Majesty’s forces through photography or reporting.

Under section 76, the Act states: “A person commits an offence who elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s forces, a member of any of the intelligence services or a constable which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”

“[This covers] anyone that takes images or notes anything about police officers, armed services personnel and Her Majesty’s servants” says Olivier Laurent, news editor at the British Journal of Photography.

“Officers could be over zealous and stop photographers, especially in places such as a press photographer covering protests and it looks as if a police officer is doing something that he does not want to be seen, he could invoke that act.”

In the lead up to the nation-wide Convention of Modern Liberty later this month, the act raises issues of civil liberty and the role of the media in the reporting of events.

Dr Geraint Bevan, coordinator of the Convention for Scotland, told Veritas: “There is a chilling effect on freedom of speech and the rights of people to protest and talk about what’s going on. If the police can deter people from taking photos and deter them from protesting or reporting what’s happening, then that’s a very serious effect on freedom of speech which is very unhealthy for our society.

“I am hopeful if cases like this do come to court, or if it happens much within the mainstream media, that cases would be taken all the way to the European Court of Human Rights and that they would challenge any draconian use of anti-terrorism laws against journalists.”

But the new restrictions do not just concern journalists and photographers but the public at large, with a high proportion of trainspotters, like a 15-year-old who was stopped and made to sign section 44 of the anti-terror act, according to the Guardian.

“The problem is that the British Transport Police are under the direct control of the Home Office, rather than the local police force, and in all of Scotland there is no area designated under the terrorist act as a place where you can stop and search,” says Dr Bevan.

“The railway stations are different because they’re policed by council police, who are governed by the Home Office. So you can walk through Glasgow or Edinburgh with no problem at all and the police don’t have the power to detain you. You walk into a railway station – they do.”

The 2008 act expands and amends previous Anti-Terrorism laws since 2000, which has seen 62, 584 people stopped at railway stations and 87,000 people asked to account for themselves by police, according to Liberal Democrat MP Normal Baker.

Alan Watkins, whose hobby is bus photography, has been stopped numerous times under terrorism laws.

“I have been stopped by police, opposed by bus inspectors, abused by drivers, chased by CCTV and security cameras – 1984 arrived a few years late, but the spread of CCTV, and the growing credo ‘we believe there is a terrorist threat’ has made much of the background to Orwell’s world seem pretty mild. Nuts I may be. Terrorist I am not.”

The Convention of Modern Liberty, taking place later this month in Glasgow, as well as six other cities in Britain, raises the privacy debate in lead-up to the first ID cards being issued to British citizens this year.

“The aims for the convention as a whole across the country are as the Guardian described it ‘a call to arms’”, says Bevan. “I see this primarily as a way to spark debate and raise awareness among civic society in Scotland.

“We’ve never had anything like [ID cards] in Britain before. The state has always been subservient to the people and people are assumed to be honest, trustworthy and innocent unless there’s reason to think otherwise. Which is how it should be in a healthy society.” 

http://veritasnews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/208/#more-208

Published: Feb 7 2009, Veritas

Veritas gets down in the dumpster in the hunt for free food.

With the country now ‘officially’ in recession, after the worst slump in gross domestic product (GDP) since 1980, unemployment is on the rise in all industries with predictions of two million jobless in 2009. Though quarterly student loans means that Scottish students are less affected, a high proportion of Napier’s international students relying on part-time jobs are less lucky.

But instead of focusing on the recession, and predictions that it’s only going to get worse, Veritas has hit the streets in its first instalment of ‘how to live for free…’ This month we look at food and the practise of ‘dumpster-diving’ – where people go through supermarket chain bins filling their fridges with food waste.

Starting back in the mid-‘90s in New York, the ‘freegan’ movement has gathered momentum in the past year in the UK, with research figures revealing a high proportion of the 6.7 million tonnes sent to landfill annually is  ‘avoidable’. The movement in Edinburgh has also grown in popularity, with numerous online forums organising meet-ups as well as positive media attention.

Instead of taking the ‘easy’ positive observant angle that we’ve seen by local reporters, Veritas decided to live on urban waste for three days to see if the practise has any real merit.

It’s 11pm on a Thursday night. Dressed in black with large rucksacks, we start in the city centre, in the laneways behind Princes Street where High Street food stores Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s are sure to dump at least some proportion of the annual 6.7 million tonnes in their bins.

Upon closer inspection in the dingy deserted service streets, the bins are mostly empty. So with a few pastries and a loaf of bread we move on to Tesco’s – Britain’s largest supermarket chain.

Circling around the building on Nicolson Street, and mistakenly sifting through domestic waste bins, we find that Tesco is ahead of the game – its rubbish safely locked away behind a one-storey tall, four-metre wide metal roller door with the Tesco logo emblazoned on its side. Tough luck for some.

The next stop is Waitrose in Morningside, following a recommendation by a former employee. We get there at 1am – and we’re too late. Beyond the stench of the red metal container, each bag has been ripped down the middle and little is left but some avocados, three vegetarian lasagne ready meals and some sweet potatoes.

After our somewhat disappointing plunder we head home, stopping behind Lothian Road where we find three packets of donuts and more loaves of bread. With enough food for a few meals and a couple of snacks, we decide that if there’s any loot to be had it isn’t in the smelly inner city alleyways.

It’s a Friday night and the Real Mackenzies are playing at Bannermans, the wind is freezing and exams are over. But a challenge is a challenge.

We head to an outer Edinburgh retail park, a twenty minute bus trip from the centre. A deserted car park framed by three strips of shops is illuminated in the blackness and a burglar alarm echoes off the walls from all directions. Between us we figure out a story to tell the police when they turn up in the empty lot to find two students dressed in black and carrying big rucksacks.

The siren keeps on, but the police never show.

We head straight for Marks and Spencer, a rectangular block of concrete in the corner. The alleyway behind the building is orderly and well-lit, with four clean red wheelie bins at its centre. We open the first bin and it’s packed with garbage bags filled with M&S own brand ready meals, fresh fruit and vegetables, desserts, chocolate, packaged meat and boxed salads.

A few items are more than a week old so we leave them, but to our surprise most of the stuff is either just within its use-by-date, or has a week or more to go. Our rucksacks fill up quickly, with a high-quality range of foods – some covered in blue food dye to deter bin scavengers like ourselves. Considering the amount of colouring in everyday food, and the impenetrable dense packaging, the dye only adds to the irony of our excessive waste – and the current global food shortage.

At home we lay the stuff out on the table and as far as Marks and Spencer prices go, we figure that the retail price for the lot is around £60. The food from both nights gave us enough to live on for around three more days, bring the total number of ‘free food days’ to five.

Rather than the bin scavenging of the night before, this night’s food hunt felt more like someone had decided to leave us a buffet of pre-packaged goods in a treasure hunt without a map. Or put simply, rather than ‘consumer waste’, it was just free food.

 Or almost free. The bus cost us £2.60 return.

Published: Feb 7 2009, Napier University’s Student Newspaper Veritas

Students from 19 British universities have occupied floors, lecture halls and buildings demanding condemnation of Israel, responding to UN declared war crimes in Gaza last month.

Institutions such as Strathclyde, Sheffield, Newcastle and Leeds called for university statements condemning Israeli war crimes, as well as a boycott on Israeli goods and foreign aid to be sent to Gaza.

Demands were met successfully both in Oxford and Sussex – where 80 students occupied a lecture theatre spanning seven days at the University last week.

Students drafted proposals demanding condemnation of the siege, including educational aid for Palestine in the form of new scholarships for students affected by the bombings of universities and colleges in Gaza.

Tom Wills, 22, of Sussex Boycott told Veritas: “We called on the university to make a statement condemning Israel attacks on Gaza with particular reference to the attack of the University of Gaza.

“As an academic institution our university has a particular responsibility to speak out about attacks on the academic freedom and livelihood of students around the world.”

The remains of the University of Gaza

Demands met by Oxford University’s Senior Proctor included aid in repairing educational infrastructure inGaza and the possibility of a boycott on investments in Israel.

He said: “I am pleased to say that the points raised by the protestors have been considered carefully.

 “As Senior Proctor I hope that Oxford will play its part in enabling deep and tolerant discourse on a range of difficult problems.”

But other university occupations have been met with varying success.

Birmingham students were forced to leave a room after just 12 hours due to the “exceptionally heavy-handed approach taken by the university”, where they were met by police.

A statement by the Birmingham in Solidarity with Gaza campaign said: “The University of Birmingham threatened to remove the occupants with force, forewarning them that they would be in “breach of the peace” if they did not leave the building.

“During negotiations of our demands the entrance to the room was then compromised by security guards and police making it impossible to maintain a secure hold on the room.”

The UK wide protest spread via the internet where boycott chapters linked together communicating through blogspot.com, similar to the student riots in Greece mobilising thousands across the country after a student was shot dead on December 6.   

Tom Wills told Veritas: “I think the student movement is making a breakthrough. We are defying the people who say that students are apathetic and I think we’re proving that actually if we stand up for what we believe in, it will get results.

Pro-Palestinian groups have also called on Scottish institutions such as Edinburgh and Napier Universities to boycott Eden Springs, an Israeli water supplier sourced from a disputed region of Syria. 

Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign organiser Mick Napier told Veritas: “Eden Springs are very clearly in violation of international law because of its behaviour in the occupied Golan Heights, which it exploits in violation of the Geneva Convention.

“Napier University damages its reputation by being associated to such a company.”

No one at the Napier University press centre was available to comment.