three hungry boys - what a waste of time

[Tadpole]

How about you? Has your place of work erected suicide nets to catch the jumpers?

Where I work Now? No it's a single story building, but where I was working 8 years ago, yes we had jump net, but that was mostly to stop the kids. (Only a dozen or so people worked there) and the place before that, not until two people jumped from the car park roof.
but that is by the by, my point was and is, In India 200,000 cotton farmers killed themselves over working conditions in 17 years. Are you boycotting cotton?
Forbes.com has an interesting article on the subject here

 

[Martyn]

Where I work Now? No it's a single story building, but where I was working 8 years ago, yes we had jump net, but that was mostly to stop the kids. (Only a dozen or so people worked there) and the place before that, not until two people jumped from the car park roof.
but that is by the by, my point was and is, In India 200,000 cotton farmers killed themselves over working conditions in 17 years. Are you boycotting cotton?
Forbes.com has an interesting article on the subject here

No, but then I'm not boycotting the iphone either. But we will have to pay the piper someday.

 

[Ivan...]

I think , you have all got to remember it's only entertainment ! I for one was really looking forward to the first programme , but was really deflated , the way the shots were edited , the Dartmoor ones , one minute passing Haytor, the next miles from there ! as if it was around the corner , to those that don't know the area the continuity was rubbish , the rest of it was a bit of fun i suppose , but that was enough for me .

I had to remind myself , its just entertainment !!!

 

[Broomstickize]

Become the change you want to see in the world...

I have no better words than these borrowed ones.

 

[Broomstickize]

Back on track - I think the program isn't bad if you understand that they had to inject some features to create 'situations' for the guys to get into. On this forum we are going to see it as not going far enough but didn't Guy Grieve make a series about foraged food... There is something out there for everyone (I just rather not meet some of them).

 

[shaggystu]

Might make more of a social comment if Hugh visited the factory where ipohnes get made. They are made in a city in China called Shenzen, a huge city that resembles Hong Kong, except no building is more than 35 years old. In 1979 Shenzen was just a small village of a few dozen people, now it's a city of 14 million people and it's where 90% of the worlds electronics get made. It's a manufactured city full of electronics factories, that employ millions of impoverished Chinese on slave wages, who work horrendous hours in monotonous, repetitive jobs that often leave the workers with vision problems and carpel tunnel syndrome. This is because your iphone is hand made. Every single microscopic component is attached to the motherboard by hand. Nothing in Shenzen gets made by robots if it can be made by hand. People are cheaper than robots. The company that makes the iphones for apple (and many others) is called foxconn. Foxconn, who you've probably never heard of, is the worlds largest maker of electronic components. Their factory in Shenzen employs FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND people. It has eight canteens, each capable of feeding 10,000 people at a time. Workers are required to work their 16 hour shifts in silence. The workers sleep in dormitories, rooms 12' x 12' stacked with 16 bunk beds each. Suicides are so common at the factory, foxconn have erected nets all around in an attempt to catch the jumpers. Most employees at he foxconn factory have never seen an iphone actually switched on...........Do you think the exectives at apple are aware of these conditions? Of course they are. It's not just the iphone though. Pretty much everything you own that is electronic, is made in Shenzen and all the factories are the same. Now you know too. Think about it next time you buy something that runs on batteries.

a very valid point, and one well put. but still, do you think there's any benefit in showing the veiwing public that their ipods etc. can be run on green energy?

 

[Gotte]

Just did a quick google on the Guy Grieve series, and never realised he was the chap in the Wild Gourmets (the series mentioned above). I have to say I really enjoyed his book, the call of the wild, and thought the series was okay, if a little "Cool Camping", if you know what I mean.

I know, I know, I'm a hard man to please.

I also know that Ray Mears and Bear Grills have the foraging corner of TV land stitched up, but still can't get past how contrived the HFW prog was.

 

[Tengu]

Im sure the good workers of China are pleased Im too poor to afford their products.

Also HSW...

 

[Martyn]

Just did a quick google on the Guy Grieve series, and never realised he was the chap in the Wild Gourmets (the series mentioned above). I have to say I really enjoyed his book, the call of the wild, and thought the series was okay, if a little "Cool Camping", if you know what I mean.

I know, I know, I'm a hard man to please.

I also know that Ray Mears and Bear Grills have the foraging corner of TV land stitched up, but still can't get past how contrived the HFW prog was.

It's contrived. I dont see anything wrong with promoting good practice, but using an iphone to do it, does twitch the irony muscle a bit. Given the vast amount of crap pumped into the environment by the factory where they are made and the appalling human rights record of the country, the iphone is the last thing I'd be using as an icon of green. It's a bit like going to Sainsbury's in your 6 litre Hummer and then topping up with biodiesel to make yourself feel better about it. But it's just TV at the end of the day.

 

[Martyn]

Im sure the good workers of China are pleased Im too poor to afford their products.

Also HSW...

You'd probably be surprised how many of their products you do have. Do you own a quartz watch? A radio alarm clock? A TV? By their standards, you are anything but poor. They do 12 hours a day, work 13 days on, one off - that's 80 hours a week, every week - and get paid £200 month. That's 57p an hour. Or to put it another way, if you worked a standard UK working week of 37.5 hours over there, you'd be paid just over £21 for it.

 

[Tengu]

I have very few of their products compared to most people and those that I do have are second hand.

About the only new stuff that comes into my house is food.

Im sure these people are better off than their parents or even those of N Korea....Maybe they only `think` they are better off?

 

[rik_uk3]

And as they earn more money they eat more imported beef which has helped drive the price of corned beef through the roof...well out of order. Plus South American farmers scrapping beef herds and growing bio diesel crop to please the tree hugging/alternative energy walla's happy... £1.58p for a tin of CORNED BEEF!! The world is finished.

 

[Martyn]

That's it, the green movement is just a plot to make the impoverished intelligentsia feel better about the little Chinese children who made their iphones, while watching hugh furry-whippingstool whip up a corned beef en-croute on their 42" plasma TV's.

 

[Tengu]

Oh, my goodness....Even he is not that much of a snob.

I cannot afford meat these days unless it is on special offer.

 

[johnboy]

Might make more of a social comment if Hugh visited the factory where ipohnes get made. They are made in a city in China called Shenzen, a huge city that resembles Hong Kong, except no building is more than 35 years old. In 1979 Shenzen was just a small village of a few dozen people, now it's a city of 14 million people and it's where 90% of the worlds electronics get made. It's a manufactured city full of electronics factories, that employ millions of impoverished Chinese on slave wages, who work horrendous hours in monotonous, repetitive jobs that often leave the workers with vision problems and carpel tunnel syndrome. This is because your iphone is hand made. Every single microscopic component is attached to the motherboard by hand. Nothing in Shenzen gets made by robots if it can be made by hand. People are cheaper than robots. The company that makes the iphones for apple (and many others) is called foxconn. Foxconn, who you've probably never heard of, is the worlds largest maker of electronic components. Their factory in Shenzen employs FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND people. It has eight canteens, each capable of feeding 10,000 people at a time. Workers are required to work their 16 hour shifts in silence. The workers sleep in dormitories, rooms 12' x 12' stacked with 16 bunk beds each. Suicides are so common at the factory, foxconn have erected nets all around in an attempt to catch the jumpers. Most employees at he foxconn factory have never seen an iphone actually switched on.

[video=youtube;ddU8rV7_Qis]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddU8rV7_Qis[/video]

The suicide nets....

Do you think the exectives at apple are aware of these conditions? Of course they are. It's not just the iphone though. Pretty much everything you own that is electronic, is made in Shenzen and all the factories are the same. Now you know too. Think about it next time you buy something that runs on batteries.

Have you ever visited China, Shenzhen or spent any time in a Chinese factory Martyn???

 

[shaggystu]

i've been following this thread with lots of interest (it's thrown up lots of interesting points), and have made a few comments already, and i'd really like to carry on with the discussion. unfortunately wine has been taken and i'm not too confident of my ability to express myself over the internet, so i'd just like to say:

I have very few of their products compared to most people and those that I do have are second hand.

About the only new stuff that comes into my house is food. .......

......£1.58p for a tin of CORNED BEEF!! The world is finished.

......the green movement is just a plot to make the impoverished intelligentsia feel better about the little Chinese children who made their iphones.......

i couldn't agree more

cheers

stuart

 

[hedgerowpete]

any chance we can get back to three blokes trying to pretend to catch and collect wild food, has anyone other than me read the book, its not to bad for some things, a very funny story about the three of the jumping into a rock pool of clear water to find it was full of rotton sea weed that stank to high heaven.

you do realise that the three of them are marine biologists and thats why they are more sea and river based foodies rather than me who would have munched my way along the hedgerows

 

[spiritwalker]

in my local cornershop corned beef was £2.59 buy local my a**e

 

[Martyn]

Have you ever visited China, Shenzhen or spent any time in a Chinese factory Martyn???

Would you be surprised if I said Yes?












So would I.

I understand your point mate, but I'm not sure we all need to go somewhere to be concerned about what we hear from credible people who have been and seen it.

 

[Martyn]

any chance we can get back to three blokes trying to pretend to catch and collect wild food, has anyone other than me read the book, its not to bad for some things, a very funny story about the three of the jumping into a rock pool of clear water to find it was full of rotton sea weed that stank to high heaven.

you do realise that the three of them are marine biologists and thats why they are more sea and river based foodies rather than me who would have munched my way along the hedgerows

Havent seen it, but I feel I must now. What was the day & channel? I can prolly get it on iplayer or something.