At my first primary school the only time we ever had chips was with chips on a Friday. I don't remember anything else other than the fish and chips being fried. Mostly it was "yet another variation of mince with brick hard carrot chunks and badly mixed powedered mash" or pasta with a sauce.

At the school local to us the cook's "profit margin" is so tight the head often battles with her because despite being given the numbers in the morning by the time the last 1 or 2 children arrive for lunch there is nothing left.

The fact that the council give an award to the school cook who makes the most profit kinda says it all really.

And in other news: [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-18097238the scummy, dirty, conniving bastads in the catholic hierarchy are attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility for paedophile priests[/url

So if the church doesn't employ these priests, where do they magically appear from? Who pays them? They cannot expect their priests to have any morals when they refuse to accept moral responsibility themselves.

Get it into the court and let even more of the fools see just what a religion they are following.

Amazing really, I saw the other day that George W pardoned the Pope from prosecution before he left the white house.

When you have friends in high places you can rape who you want.

I actually don't blame the church from employing the pedophiles, these evil pieces of can infiltrate any areas of society. It's what they allow them to do unchecked whilst in their employment and how they handle the criminal charges.

God employs them – you should know that, Coddy.

I think Methodist ministers are self-employed, IIRC – even though they get sent to jobs etc by the church organisation.

So basically someone comes out of the seminary, complete with his new dog collar and wanders around aimlessly until he lights upon an empty church, roots around until he finds the keys to the vicarage, lets himself in, pops the kettle on and he's in business. Is that how it's done?

Far as I know, they look for the boarding school first.

Well, god gives them a bit of help. Obviously.

IIRC, the revenue wasn't impressed by individual clergy claiming they were not self employed, but employed by god.

I might be slightly older even than you (is that even possible?).
We got fried food [uonce a year[/u ... chips ... and only on Speech Day, when most kids who could, went home to put on their "best" blazer for the afternoon.

Other kids, like me, who lived too far away for that or whose "best" blazer was also their only blazer stayed to lunch that day as normal ... and had the annual treat of chips.

We didn't have the canteen style dining that they seem to have now ... our choice was simple ... eat it or go hungry.
We ate it.

I never recall having chips on offer until the very beginning of the 1980s in my final year at school. I do remember mash though. Lots of it. Frequently. Divvied out so that you got a spherical dollop on your plate. Spam fritters – possibly.

Mash ... oh yes, what seemed like every day, we had mash.
Grey and lumpy but mash nonetheless.

In the winter, pudding always seemed to be some form of steamed pudding ... jam sponge, treacle sponge, chocolate sponge, vanilla sponge etc always with custard.

Same era as Minty, I can only remember chips on a Friday once a month and always with fish.
They introduced a cafeteria system in the last year, nowt much changed apart from fish and chips available every Friday.