A visit to the Butchers

It was an invite to attend a luncheon of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. But this time, the luncheon was at the Worshipful Company of Butchers. A beautiful place. Unfortunately, I had to take a call in the middle so I was shown into an office.

Here’s the back of a leather backed chair with the logo emblazoned on it.

Here’s me during the call, with the laptop open. Can you see the chair? Beautiful handiwork.

 
The luncheon was held in the Great Hall.

Can you see the table plan? pretty complicated. I was sitting half way up the middle table on the left. Then, after the call, i hot footed it back to the lunch. The food was absolutely delicious. The Angus Beef was so smooth, I think it has to be rated to be one of the best steaks I have eaten in London. But to be expected, if you dont get good beef in the Butcher’s hall, where else would you get it?

I took a sneaky picture of the main window as I was leaving. Can you see the stained glass showing the butchers on the bottom? The top window shows the various animals which are used in the trade, like sheep, lambs, cattle, etc. It was full of grandees and thus felt a bit embarrassed in clicking away…

But outside the hall, down the stairs and the hall has the most amazing dioramas. This was showing a butchers diorama, with cuts of beef, pork and lamb hanging.

I am afraid this photograph did not come out quite right, but shows some kind of a letter of patent relating to the fact that the Princess Royal became some kind of member.

Turning my head, there was another diorama with a huge cleaver on the top.

Took a close-up of the note. There are two flags, first the flag of New Zealand and then the flag of the United Kingdom, some kind of an association, I guess, established in 1809. It says:

“This chopper was used by Mr. Edward Jeffreys at  Buckinghamd Palace to cut up the first New Zealand Lamb carcasse shipped to the United Kingdom in the S.S.Dunedin and presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria in May 1882”

Pretty neat, no? to capture all this history? I know this is not big news or a big historical event, but it actually is very big news once you think about it. This lamb trade has impacted the history, economy, and culture of New Zealand for more than 100 years. And this cleaver was there when the trade was born.

Another diorama with the tools of the trade.

Here’s the Hall.

And here’s the Smithfield Market where you would get the butcher’s with their stalls.

 

And on the way, saw this, the Kinky Barber, who gives you a beer with every haircut! :) As long as you dont worry about the type of haircut, you should be happy with the beer :).

But lets take a side trip, its the history which interested me. The history of this company goes back to 975AD. Now that’s impressive and goes deep back into the hoary mists of time. When we eat a steak or a chop, do we know that there is this level of history of professional attention paid to how to deal with meat? I did not. This company is deeply involved with the meat industry, it deals with a variety of industry issues ranging from hides to food hygiene, etc.

It is a fine art, this bit about dealing with meat. You simply cannot kill an animal and hack it about. Oh! no. You have to know the physiology of animals and there is a whole terminology around which cuts of beef comes from where?

I was taught how to carve meat by my ma, she used to hunt in her childhood with my grandfather. So dealing with poultry, goat and beef was very interesting. It was almost like surgery. Which you should not find surprising, after all, for quite a long period of time, barbers and butchers used to be the surgeons of those ages. Anyway, it was quite interesting to sit there looking around at the crests, the stained windows, and know one was sitting amongst the ghosts of butchers past for a thousand years. The next time one see’s a big juicy medium rare sirloin steak on the plate, one would know that there is quite a strong possibility that the way it was prepared had some links of some sort to the Worshipful Company of Butchers.

The full slide show here.

Technorati Tags: London,History,Buildings,Animals

A visit to the garbage dump

Recently, we had a bit of a situation with our TV and it went on the blink so had to go get a new replacement.

 
here’s the packaging which it came in.

And some more stuff lying around in the utility room.

and more stuff piled up.


so we managed to pile and shove the lot into the car.

and off we went to the garbage dump 

on the way to the dump 


Lovely play on words on this factory next to the turning to the garbage dump.

Now we can see the garbage dump in the distance

turning into the dump
 
since we had the old TV in the back, we couldn't go to the top level, but had to drive into the lower level.

you can see the piles of rubbish piled up

this is the greenery zone

another view of the dump

couple of containers

oooo, somebody already has dumped their TV in here…

there’s the old dear

taking it off to drop it off

it was not that heavy but it was a bit awkward to carry.

dropped it off

it looks a wee bit sad, no?

now back into the car and off to drop the rest of the stuff

you can see what one can recycle and what not

this time driving up to the first floor

here’s the top of the heap

different windows for different types of waste
 
general household waste

so much waste, eh?

here’s something that helps to move the stuff from the pile to the containers, I guess

more partitions to separate out the various types of garbage

there are the offices

the clothes and shoes collection box

there was quite a lot of traffic, even on a Sunday

that’s it, we are off

exiting the dump

all empty :)

And here’s the full slide show.