Give Bulls A Break

A bull killed a person during the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain yesterday and apparently gored another today. Isn’t it time Spain just stopped bullfighting and stopped using bulls for entertainment and got a little bit more up-to-date with cruelty free entertainment? Sheesh. Poor bull, that’s all I can say - for being exploited and mistreated. It’s no wonder they end up goring people when people are bothering and tormenting them. Give bulls a break. Thank God we in England don’t do anything like bullfighting and the running of the bulls. Mind you, horse racing, greyhound racing and other cruel ’sports’ are enough to contend with. I do think bullfighting is worse though - getting a bull to go in a ring and tackle a human for warped entertainment purposes while brainless people sit and watch and cheer. Bullfighting should be banned. Can’t they just use humans without the animals? Two humans in a ring is much better. At least they are both consenting.

Is that how it works?

Ahh. Is that how it works? Bribery? I’m watching ‘True Stories: Pig Business’ on More 4. It’s about the factory farming of pigs. Apparently Smithfield gives money to politians. It makes sense now. In the UK the government always seems on the side of the animal testing labs… Is it all down to money? Whoever pays you the most money you do what they want and support? If the pig farms give you wads of cash, you do what they want, let them treat the animals as cruelly as they want? Interesting.

The world needs justice. The world needs compassion. Are you or I or anyone that is honest and real and caring ever gonna get anywhere (whether it be to change the world or just become a success in our chosen field) when we don’t have bags of cash to ‘bribe’ others with?

http://www.pigbusiness.co.uk/

My dad’s got heaps of tadpoles in his pond. I’m thinking I should document their metamorphosis into frogs… although I should have had the idea when they were just frog spawn.

Here’s a pic of the awesome Herbivore vegan restaurant I went to in San Francisco for Warped Tour a few days ago. Great food. I recommend everyone go there when you visit San Fran.

This pic made me chuckle. Of course anyone with a brain avoids going to zoos…

I’m excited that the next Black Velvet will have a giveaway/comp for some free vegan chocolate bars. I got sent some free samples to try too. :D

I’ve decided to semi-boycott Walkers crisps. Still bummed out that they decided to add milk to their salt & vinegar crisps after years and years of not having it in. Decided that Seabrook Crisps are much better. The whole Seabrooks range is suitable for vegetarians with a handful of flavours (including Canadian Ham & Tomato Ketchup) being suitable for vegans. The only problem is that Seabrooks have less distribution - and it seems the only the regular flavours like Ready Salted, Salt & Vinegar & Cheese & Onion are in supermarkets in my town. But then, the best things are always the hardest to find. However, the good news is you can order boxes directly from Seabrooks’ website - www.seabrookscrisps.com - the bad news is it costs £5 a box to have them delivered!

When I was interviewing Chris and Ben of Black Stone Cherry last week my last question touched (vaguely) on animals rights… Actually it was a more random question asking what they’d protest against or for, if they could/had to stand up for/against something. I briefly mentioned I was vegan and have been on a few national animal rights protests as that’s something I care about. They did tell me they ate meat (not surprising) and Ben said that vegan food wouldn’t fill him up. As it was right at the end of the interview I thanked them for the interview and got a couple of pix. However a lot of people (who eat meat) do have this preconceived notion that vegan food is just fruit or veg and stuff like that, and that it can’t be as tasty or appetizing as ‘meat’. Obviously they don’t know all the junk vegan food that I like to eat! I think a lot of people don’t know that you can get tons of different veggie burgers that taste similar to beef burgers, or that you can get vegan bacon, tofu nuggets, veggie sausages, veggie sausage rolls, fake turkey… the list goes on. Anyway, here’s my pic of the spicy bean burger I had for tea - with a slice of soya cheese (and tomato and lettuce). Almost couldn’t fit it in my mouth - and it definitely filled me up! Next time you go in Burger King (if you eat meat) try the spicy bean burger there. Or get a veggie burger in MacDonalds. Better still, seek out a cool veggie/vegan diner and salivate as you read their menu…There’s so much good stuff to eat that’s cruelty free you’ll wish you tried it sooner.

Ok, decided to take a pic of some soya yoghurts before doing a spicy bean burger pic. My friend who’s coming to stay for some shows soon was asking me if he could put some milk in my fridge. Hmm… dunno about that! Told him I have some soya milk and he has to try the soya milkshakes I drink. Then I was thinking I should give him one of these soya yoghurts too while he’s here. Yes, I will make him eat/drink as much vegan food as I can (he’s not vegan). So I took this pic…

KFC... FOAD

I see in today’s paper that KFC are introducing a ‘health conscious’ griddled chicken. Not sure what ‘griddled’ chicken is but it sounds bad anyway. If KFC want to be ‘health conscious’, why don’t they just go vegan? Quit the dead animals that have been factory farmed and caught diseases… Give us fake tofu chicken, spicy bean fake chicken and other stuff like that. Dead chicken is so last century. I’m sure people would still eat at KFC, especially if they changed the food without telling anyone. Just sneak in the tofu, and stupid people that don’t care what they eat would still love it.

I think I’m gonna take a pic of one of my spicy bean burgers for my next photo.

PS. If you’re in the UK vote for the Green Party tomorrow!

The PETA keyrings I ordered from www.petacatalog.org arrived today. Yay. I will be putting one of these on my concert camera backpack. The cool thing is that each keyring is two-sided - they each have ‘Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them’ on one side and ‘No, I Don’t Have Any Spare Ribs’ on the other so you get to see both on the one keyring.

MPs

I’m too busy to write BUT I just wanted to say - I think these MPs need to give all their expense money back to us normal, poorer working people. This country needs to be changed. I think the Green Party needs to take over because the country is a mess with Labour running it. I was reading the Green Party’s website and they would bring in a new ‘living wage’ which is much higher than the minimum wage we currently have. People forget about the people on minimum wage, people who can barely afford to live. Then we get the MPs spending money like it’s going out of fashion. We need to stop having to pay stupid corporation tax that is so high. Where does that money go? To MPs pay packets for their expenses? I’m sure what I pay doesn’t go on anything worthwhile that I actually want to use or things that actually help. Money is spent stupidly - and us (yes, I’m classing myself in with the working people, I have 2 day jobs, not counting the non-profit-making Black Velvet to try and earn money and even then I can’t afford to live on my own) people are put through hell with stupid high bills while MPs have two houses and all of that crap. If you’re going to have a job in London you really ought to move to London full time rather than having a second house elsewhere which is funded by the general public. Every time I hear about the MPs expenses it infuriates me - as I’m sure it does any other normal person. The UK system is a shambles. Maybe I should be a politician and actually bring decent changes to the country and make life livable for everyone.

Free Cruelty

Why is it that most of the time a paper offers something for free it has cruel connotations? I mean, a few months back it was a free bet on the Grand National (the horse racing event that killed five horses, and only about half of the horses actually finished the race because it was so bad). I just picked up today’s The Sun to see it has a ‘Free MARS for every reader’. Thanks, The Sun… but what if we’re vegan and don’t like food that has products that came from a course of animal cruelty? Why can’t you offer us a free vegan chocolate bar instead? Ok, so I guess MARS offered this… to try and pull more people into eating their products. A ploy to boost sales… Maybe I’ll write a letter to The Sun and ask them to give us vegans a nice vegan option instead. Personally I’d rather eat one of these: That’s a vegan dark chocolate golden coconut bar. It’s pretty much like a Bounty except it’s vegan. You can buy them in health food stores, vegan stores, vegan online stores. They are awesome. Much better than Mars Bars! Maybe I ought to contact them and see if we can at least do a competition for some free vegan chocolate bars. If only Black Velvet was as huge as The Sun and I was as rich as The Sun’s editor-in-chief (so I could afford more pages to fit things like this in). Does anyone know if newspapers/magazines charge to do giveaways?

It’s my dad’s birthday tomorrow. I gave him a vegan bakewell tart. I hope he appreciates it. I mean, it was hard to stop myself from eating it (along with the other 4 that I bought). I do hope he likes it though. He needs to realise how awesome vegan food is. He’s not vegan. Yet.

I put pix from the Veggie Pride festival up at http://www.shariblackvelvet.com/photography18.htm

I also put them in my myspace blog. They look better there because the background’s a different colour so you can see they have a black border around. On my site the background is black, so you can’t see the border.

Veggie Pride

I’m going to Birmingham today for Veggie Pride, the first vegetarian carnival/festival to be held in the UK. I’m hoping to take pix of some the procession, some performers, speakers, stalls and other good stuff. Although I’ve missed the beginning and will probably leave before the end (unfortunately I’m really too busy to stay from start to finish… got Black Velvet work to do!), here’s the programme of events. I’m hoping to be there from 12.30 till say 4pm (although need to take a trip to the vegan store at some point to stock up on food while I’m there… although I’m hoping there are stalls selling good vegan cakes in Victoria Square! I dread to think how much fatter I will become if I keep eating cake though…). I’ll go through pix this evening and will probably put some in my MySpace blog.

The following programme can also be found in pdf format at www.veggiepride.org.uk

Details of the After Party/benefit gig can be found here http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2009/05/429988.html and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115555684408

10:00 Welcome by compere Rakhee Thakrar Welcome to the first ever Veggie Pride in the UK!

10:10 - Deadmoney Duo - musicians Folk, acoustic &celtic music by father & son team from Worcester

10:50 - Kate Fowler, Animal Aid Campaigns against all animal abuse & promotes cruelty-free living

11:00 - Yasus Afari - Reggae Artiste Conquering poverty, ignorance & injustice with positive vibrations

11:00 - Magic Show with Kristoff the Clown Lots of fun & laughter for all ages at this magnificent magic show

11:20 - Belly Dancers Watch the Birmingham Belly Dancers, and join in if you want!

11:50 - The Big 2 Minute Freeze Spread out round the city centre & freeze at precisely 11.50am

12:00 - Juliet Gellatley, Viva! Founder of Europe`s largest vegetarian campaigning organisation

12:00 - Sikh Warrior Demonstration Awesome display of swordfighting & martial arts!

12:30 - Mama Matrix - band Birmingham 5 piece band playing Balkan gypsy music

12:40 - Bloco Louco Samba Band Dance to the infectious sound of Brazilian beats in Victoria Square

12:50 - Prepare & Line Up for the Carnival Procession Get ready for the UK`s first ever parade celebrating & promoting veg*nism!

13:00 - Carnival Procession Our vibrant & colourful parade led by Bloco Louco will last up to an hour

13:10 - Yasus Afari - Reggae Artiste Deeply rooted in his Rastafarian beliefs - a Jamaican national treasure

13:20 - Belly dancers Belly dance is fun and fantastic for fitness, join in if you want!

13:40 - Poetry, Lorraine Parker The cruelty & injustice to animals through Radical welsh Poetry

14:00 - Welcome back We hope you enjoyed the carnival procession!

14:10 - Kevin White, Midlands Vegan Campaigns MVC`s founder will talk about the group & vegan campaigning

14:20 - Lorraine Parker, Animals Count A political party to help create a better world for people & animals

14:30 - Yoga Demonstration Cope better with the challenges of daily life - take up yoga!

14:40 - Best Costume/Banner Competition Prizes will be awarded for the best costumes & banners

15:00 - 10 O’clock horses - band Acoustic, folk rock music from a local Birmingham band

15:20 - The Big 2 Minute Freeze (see 11:50)

15:20 - Macka B - Reggae Artiste Has a strong world wide following spanning many continents

15:30 - Magic Show with Kristoff the Clown (see 11:00)

15:30 - Martin the Livewire Vegan hip hop raising awareness of the ills inflicted on our society

15:30 - Visit The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel Building Meet at BVV stall. Walk to UKs first veggie hotel/health food shop

15:50 - Sue Baumgardt, Green Party Social/environmental justice via campaigns, direct action, elections

16:00 - Alex Claridge, Vegan Society Promote ways of living free from animal products

16:20 - Chris Butler - singer/guitarist Protest folk singer - a poitically motivated songwriter from Derby

16:30 - Yoga Demonstration (see 14:30)

16:50 - Nitin Mehta, Young Indian Vegetarians For a 21st century where humans finally make peace with animals

17:20 - Circadia - band Brummie band who mould together electronics & live instruments

17:50 - Close - Goodbye

Wow

Coolest news of the day I think:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8046970.stm

Belgian city plans ‘veggie’ days

By Chris Maso
BBC News, Ghent

A Ghent poster promoting "Veggie Day" (image from Ghent city website) A poster advertising “Veggie Day” shows a sailor rowing an aubergine

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent’s declaration of a weekly “veggie day”.

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.

It is hoped the move will cut Ghent’s environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Around 90,000 so-called “veggie street maps” are now being printed to help people find the city’s vegetarian eateries.