The Killing - Forbrydelsen

I've never really thought much about Denmark or Danish people except to say I've always hated their intensive pig farming, which is downright cruel.

But I've just finished watching the first series of the absolutely brilliant and totally compelling Danish thriller - The Killing or 'Forbrydelsen' Suddenly I can almost forgive (but not quite) the pig farming.

For me, this brilliant television series ranks alongside The Wire and Generation Kill.

Thank you BBC 4 - long may you reign - for bringing this superb series to us. And yes, it's with sub titles but that makes it even better because you don't miss one word of the script.


I loved the brilliant writing, moody cinematography, superb acting and soundtrack that subtly wrapped itself around each scene. I loved that every twist and turn of the story sent you scurrying down paths only to find you were without resolution yet again. I loved that it kept you guessing until the very end as you watched with anticipation every thread of the story weave itself together.

I loved Lars Mikkelsen as Troels Hartmann, the tall, smouldering politician whose election campaign becomes embroiled in a murder investigation.

But most of all, I loved Sofie Grabol as DCI Sarah Lund for the fact that she managed to make unkempt hair scraped back in a ponytail, no makeup, old jeans and flat shoes look cool.

I shall be adopting the Scandi scruffy look from now on...

Vegetarian, vegan or freegan?

Yesterday I skidded across the patio decking like a lorry hitting a patch of ice (not that I am the size of a lorry, I hasten to add - well, not since I gave up sugary things, that is.)

'That's odd,' I thought, as I hit the railings that prevented me from going head first into the garden below. Odd because my husband had gone to great pains to paint the deck with anti-slip paint which, apparently, is supposed to stop you slipping and ending up on your backside when the deck gets wet. Something I am prone to do, with or without the assistance of alcohol. I looked down to see why I had taken off across the deck like a speed skater. I had slipped on a slug. A very dead slug since I'd pretty much smeared it across the deck a bit like you spread butter on bread.

I felt so, so bad. I know they eat up my plants and look pretty vile, but well, God must have created them for something and it's not like they can help the way they look. By the way, I have to tell you, hedgehogs don't like slugs and only eat them if they are starving. Slugs can also kill hedgehogs, they get lung worms from them. Just thought I ought to mention that...

So, back to the slug. You see, I won't kill anything. Wasps (even though their sting can send me to hospital) spiders (even though I'm absolutely terrified of them) Craneflies aka daddy longlegs (even though they'd definitely be in my room 101)

I feel I have no right to take the life of anything and I go out of my way to give any insect a safe passage to where ever its going (even though it's usually accompanied with a soundtrack of me screaming like a banshee - quite honestly they are probably glad to leg it!)

I also love animals.

I won't drink milk because I hate the way some dairy cows and their calves are treated, especially male calves.

If I eat an egg, very rarely, it has to be from a hen that has a happy life.

I hate battery hen farms and don't eat chicken because I can't stand how they are killed.

It breaks my heart to think of how short a life a lamb has.

So, if I care so much about all of God's creatures - big and small - why can't I commit to becoming a vegetarian, like my husband who has been one for decades?

This is why - bacon.

My reluctance to become a vegetarian can best be described by what happened to me last week. I had gone into town to run some errands. My car was parked in the town's square. As I walked from the bank to the post office to the newsagent, a smell of fried bacon wafted through the narrow streets. I finished my errands and started walking back to my car. My mind was, as usual, elsewhere. Five minutes later I stopped and realised I wasn't walking back to my car I was subconsciously following the smell of bacon and had walked to the door of a cafe!

If I see a bacon butty I have the ability to completely block my mind to the fact that I know some pigs are treated abominably. Living their short lives in pens so small they can't even turn around. Yet, waft fried bacon in front of my nose and I forget all about that. And I hate myself for it.I have tried vegetarian bacon, my husband says it's better than nothing. But it just tastes like smoky bacon crisps.

My diet is 99.9% vegetarian. I live on tofu, only drink soya milk and even my yogurts are made from soya. In fact I'm probably closer to being a vegan that my husband, who still eats cheese and drinks milk.

This is a vegan burger.

I find vegan recipes really interesting. My favourite cook book is Vegan with a Vengeance and I love making vegan cupcakes because they are so interesting to construct.

And yet bacon is the undoing of me! Why, oh why can't I give it up?

Perhaps I should take comfort from Ghandi, who despite promising his mother he would not eat meat or eggs and was practically a vegan himself, could not bring himself to give up cows milk, saying it was the tradegy of his life that he could not give it up.

At least I'm in good company...

My son says we should all become freegans (anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies - thank you Wikipedia) or to put it in plain English 'bin scavengers' Apparently, there's tons of very good food chucked out every day. One fella found a whole bin bag of cider, 150 chickens, steaks and cheese in a bin behind a supermarket.

So, if you'll excuse me - I'm just off to have a nosey round the back of the Co-op!