From Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food, page 113.

In a piece on the “Culinary Aspects of Anglo-Jewry”…John Shaftesley notes that in 1968 the National Federation of Fish Friers presented a commemorative plaque to Malin’s of Bow in the East End as the oldest enterprise to sell fish and chips together in Britain. Joseph Malin, a Jewish immigrant newly arrived from Eastern Europe, founded a fish business in Bow in 1860 and began selling chips with fried fish. It was a combination of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Irish ways in an East End which was a mix of Eastern European and Irish immigrants…with some long-establish Sephardi families. Dozens of fish-and-chip shops opened in the East End, and all around the country the Jewish fried-fish trade joined up with the Irish potato shop.

Below are three motions lifted from the preliminary agenda for the NUJ’s Annual Delegate Meeting 2008.

The entire agenda contains 138 motions, and the bulk of these are bread and butter trades union stuff. The motions here highlighted are fairly representative of those which could be described as political posturing. They do, however, give a good indication as to the current mood of active NUJ members.

The full PDF document can be found here…

#1

The only correct statement in this motion is that “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” is a far-right organisation. The rest is utter fucking shite. Standing Orders Committee recommends that the resolution be ruled out of order (as they do with many others!).

#2

There is a whole bunch of resolutions on Iraq, Iran, etc., and this one is typical of the genre. I am told by a NUJ member that MWAW comes up again and again in NUJ internal discussions. Mostly at branch meetings, when members who support MWAW grovel for donations. Another resolution calls for a £1000 donation to the stoppers. SOC has ruled both out of order.

#3

Praiseworthy is this resolution. London Freelance branch is not known for being pro-Israel, but this motion is quite sensible.

I’m shy really — so it is with the utmost humility and dare I say — reluctance — that I link to me own place where you will find another Hitchensian essay otherwise out of bounds to those unwilling or unable to pay for the honour of reading such a delight.

Talks about literary gadgie and stuff. Particularly like the very last paragraph, stroke, sentence.