Supermarkets targeted in the battle against obesity

Article says:

New laws to ban shops from offering special “two for the price of one” deals near supermarket checkouts for food high in sugar, fat or salt are to be introduced in an attempt to ease an obesity crisis that has made the UK the most overweight nation in western Europe.

One of the industry leaders Tim Rycroft objected to these proposed measures saying:

Advertising and promotions underpin the healthy, vibrant and innovative market for food and drink that UK shoppers love.

What does that mean? Advertising and 'buy one get one free' "offers" sell more junk food? But this is the whole point of the Government measures; namely to make the market for junk food not so "healthy" and vibrant.

These special offers aren't really special offers anyway. The offers are the price they should sell at all the time. Bouncing the price up and down all the time fools people into thinking they're getting a great deal when the product is at the low end of the price cycle.

20,000 years ago

I'm just thinking what would happen if I accidentally walked through a time portal and went back in time 20,000 years? Would I eventually meet other human beings? Would they be hostile? Would they think I'm strange? What would my life be like?

Not that I believe that backwards time travel is possible; indeed I believe it's metaphysically impossible. But I might be wrong, and besides, it's interesting thinking about such things.

A Review of "The Map of Time".

The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Out of 193 novels I've read since the 1st January 2011, this is the best. I awarded it a score of 89/100. It was engrossing and one of the most unusual novels I have ever read. And definitely one of the best novels I've read in my life. There are others I've read which are better, eg Shogun by James Clavel, but they are very few and far between.

What I find astonishing is this book -- the Map of Time -- only gets an average rating of 3.37 where as Stephen King's 11.22.63 gets an average rating of 4.27! I gave the latter 38/100. Both feature time travel, but the latter is a borefest! The vast bulk of 11.22.63 is monotonous. And the end depressing and predictable.

I've come to the conclusion that how much I like a novel bears no relationship whatsoever to how much other people like it. Sometimes I think a novel is absolutely wonderful, and this seems to be reflected in the average rating, but equally, other times it's not.

So I don't think there's any point in me looking at the average rating in future. Equally, the fact I gave this 5 stars will be of no indication that you who are reading this review will like this book. Indeed, there's no point in you reading this review at all.

View all my reviews

Mending the Sun

Should be perched higher up. I hope they haven't flattened the bottom of the Sun.