In Defence of Tony Abbott

This Australia Day, what could be more patriotic than coming out in defence of our glorious prime minister Tony Abbott, captain of Tame Team Australia?

Tony Abbott is a national embarrassment and the worst prime minister, by a long margin, I have had to endure in my entire life. Almost certainly he is Australia's worst prime minister ever.

I've heard it said that he combines the intelligence of George W Bush with the compassion of Margaret Thatcher. I suppose this statement was intended as an insult, but it's actually flattery since he is inferior to both of his role models in these respects.

He is a pathological liar. He is sufficiently bereft of empathy that I suggest he would meet the clinical definition of a psychopath. He doesn't think things through, believing he can make things up on the spot, yet he can't think on his feet either. He is cowardly and violent; an archetypal bully. He is spiteful. He panics easily. He is not suited to wielding any sort of power.

The media banged on and on about Julia Gillard's "lie" (which amounted to a tedious hair-splitting argument about whether an Emissions Trading Scheme counted as a Tax or not). They don't do this about Abbott. This is partly down to media bias, but also because Abbott has told so many lies it's difficult to know where to even begin. If you try to highlight just a few lies, you end up ignoring, and by implication accepting, scores of other equally bad examples of dishonesty. People have had to resort to listing his lies and the lists run into the hundreds. Check out Tracking Abbotts Wreckage; you will notice that the page is very slow to load, presumably because of its length.

His beliefs, in so far as you can tell what they are through the screen of lies and contradictions, are a mixture of the bizarre and frightening. When someone considers it an important reform to bring back knighthoods, or spend $250m putting chaplains in state schools, you really have to wonder what century they think they're living in.

For a while I was wondering whether there was more to his actions than met the eye; that beneath a veneer of jaw-dropping incompetence there was some deep and cunning scheme afoot. After all, it's not a trivial task to become Prime Minister. You surely have to a reasonably high level of brain power to be able to plot and scheme your way right to the top.

For instance, putting refugees in (what amounts to) death camps is totally evil and the sort of thing that should have those responsible up before an international tribunal, charged with crimes against humanity. Even if you had no morals, it's still undesirable in that it's an extremely expensive and inefficient option, which also breaches international law and therefore weakens your hand internationally.

Yet there are logical reasons why an intelligent (if totally unscrupulous) person might still go down this path. It's Fascism 101; if you demonise a group, you can blame them for any of society's problems, and you can appear strong - even heroic - by taking tough action against them. The benefits in this regard might well outweigh the costs.

Similarly, smashing up a government enterprise or destroying an industry might also be a rational decision if your mates can loot the wreckage.

However, the damage being done is too wide-spread for that, and the only possible scheme that seems compatible with his actions is if he were an anarchist/libertarian (or possibly even an agent of some rival power), who is selflessly sacrificing his image to destroy the state apparatus, bring the country to its knees, and tarnish forever the office of prime minister. But this doesn't seem likely; especially the self-sacrificing part.

So when am I going to get on with defending him?

Actually, I did a Tony Abbott here; that is to say, I lied. At least, I'm not going to try to find some creditable aspect of his personality that has hitherto been overlooked, and claim that as a consequence we should think less badly of him. While he may indeed have some positive characteristics (although discovering them would be like panning for gold in a sewage pond in the middle of summer), I am going to make a different point:

By concentrating on how loathsome Tony Abbott is, we run the serious risk of underestimating how bad the rest of his government is.

The destructive and idiotic policies he is trying to implement are in the main part Coalition policies. Abbott is obviously just a tool; a puppet, elevated to his current position by external forces. While some of his most idiotic ideas seem to be of his own making, he is in general following a script laid down by others.

And in this respect, he is typical of the current cabinet. Hearing Joe Hockey speak about how he finds windmills "utterly offensive" and "a blight on the landscape" brought this home to me. Hockey doesn't strike me having any aesthetic sensibilities at all and in reality probably wouldn't even notice a wind farm if he were chauffeured through the middle of one every day. He is obviously just regurgitating words put into his mouth by others.

If, as seems likely, Abbott gets a knife in the back some time soon, we should not be relieved that we have exorcised this demon. Whoever replaces him might quite easily be worse.

Imagine if we got someone who was a little bit cunning; smart enough to hide their intentions a little better and who was able to swallow their pride enough to negotiate with others.

Imagine if Abbott had been able to get Jacqui Lambie on side - and surely it would not be an onerous task for a warmonger to get an ex-military cop on side - he would not now be crippled by a hostile senate and he could get even more nasty legislation passed. In fact, imagine if he'd been able to negotiate with Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor (both closer in ideology to the Coalition than Labor) after the previous election - he could have formed government in 2010.

To make an analogy with the Game of Thrones; if Abbott were Joffrey, Scott Morrison would be Ramsay Bolton and Malcolm Turnbull would be Lord Baelish. Julie Bishop might be Cersei. [edit: I was also going to link Peter Dutton to Hordor, but Hordor was strong, good-natured and fulfilled a useful role.]

Swapping one of these for another is hardly cause for celebration.

I've heard it said that they wouldn't dare to replace Abbott after all of outrage they confected when Rudd was "knifed" by Gillard. And especially not by Bishop, who shares many of Gillard's characteristics (unmarried woman, no children, ex-lawyer, etc.) that the media attacked so fiercely. Sympathetic to the coalition though they are, the media wouldn't stand for it.

Like Hell they wouldn't!

They'd do a 180 degree turn so fast that the fillings would fly out of their teeth.

I can just see the Murdoch media now: Abbott would be portrayed as stepping aside gracefully in a statesman-like manner, and Bishop will reluctantly take the helm. It will all be because he was unable to sell his wonderful policies to the ignorant proles who don't understand what's good for them. He will be a martyr. Bishop will be a hero. The word "knifing" will never be uttered. If Rudd and Gillard are mentioned at all, it will only be to contrast the "civilised" and "adult" behaviour of the coalition to the "shambolic" and "vindictive" way the ALP handled a similar situation.

And of course, you'll see the media become ardent feminists overnight; at least in so far as this allows any criticism of Bishop to be written off as a misogynistic attack.

The beauty of the situation, at least from the point of view of the Coalition, is that those in the ALP have virtually no way to use this "knifing" to their advantage. Since the ALP defended Gillard in this same situation, they can't turn around and attack Bishop without having their own words turned against them. They can rail against media double standards of course, but that can simply be dismissed with the remark: "they would say that, wouldn't they".

Anyway, I'm not any good at predicting these things, but I'd be surprised if Abbott doesn't feel the cold steel between his shoulder blades within the next few months. And my money would be on Bishop wielding the knife.

If this happens, don't expect things to get any better; Abbott is merely the symptom, and not the disease.

Paved with good intentions

I thought I'd post something relevant to the party season.

Apparently the original source of the Party Safe logo.
Presumably the QLD Police have permission to use this.

Below is a note I received in the letterbox some time in the past year (names and dates removed to protect the innocent).

At first glance it's an extremely praiseworthy and considerate thing to do. I'm sure that if this blog had a big readership I'd be regaled with multiple horror stories (some of them maybe even true) of criminally inconsiderate neighbours partying to the point of a full-on Ferguson riot every other night; and everyone would be telling me how lucky I was to live in such a genteel neighbourhood.

But think about it from a different angle: Have we gone so far down the road to a totalitarian Police State that you have to register with the cops whenever you're going to have a party?

I checked out the web site referred to on the note and it appears that the registration process involves such things as getting supplied with identification wrist bands.

For a kid's birthday party!

Next there will be guards taking people's fingerprints at the door and making them step through a metal detector. Maybe they'll ban candles on the birthday cake as a fire hazard and you'll have to cut it with a plastic spatula (knives, of course, having been outlawed).

Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticising the people who sent this note. They're thoughtful people going out of their way to do the right thing; which is more than I could say for some. I'm just saddened that, these days, the "right thing" appears to be to unquestioning obedience to the Orwellian dictates of a Police State.

Brisbane's Berlin Wall

Last year, a law was passed in Queensland parliament to "provide for the safety and security of persons attending the Group of Twenty leaders’ summit in Brisbane in 2014".

Having heard disquieting things about this legislation, I decided to download a copy and look for myself, and it's as bad as they say. It goes without saying that it won't provide any additional "safety and security" - you just can't do that in a city full of people. It seems to be there for three reasons:

1. The usual Security Theatre. Window-dressing that looks like you're "doing something". Arse-covering if something happens.
2. Extra powers for the police. An early Christmas present for the loyal Boys in Blue. Queensland coppers love their extra powers and, even though the powers are for a limited duration, they'll be sure to make full use of them while they last.
3. Last, and certainly not least, to criminalise any form of protest against the summit. Section 18 of the legislation purports to allow for "lawful assembly", however § 18 (1) (c) states that if two or more people violate any of the sections of the act (and, as we will see, this can pretty much be guaranteed), the protest immediately becomes illegal. Moreover, much of the legislation can be used to harass and intimidate people pretty much at will.

Parts of the inner city are being fenced off, and the rest has been turned into a "declared area", within which there are extended powers of arrest and search . These powers are very wide-ranging and quite worrying. Some examples:

§ 33 (1) give the blanket permission: "A police officer may enter and search any premises in a restricted area without a warrant."

§ 27 (3) gives police officers the power to conduct a frisk search of a person of a different sex if "a police officer of the same sex is not immediately [my emphasis] available".  I don't see how that one could be abused.

They can of course use detection dogs, and are apparently protected from liability under § 35 (a) (ii) if this dog "physically intrudes onto a person or the clothing of a person" or "causes damage to a thing" that "may [my emphasis] have had in it or on it, a weapon or explosive". Despite the diplomatic wording, I can't see how this can be interpreted as anything other than permission to monster people with dogs with no comeback.

There is a "prohibited persons list", a blacklist compiled by the commissioner. § 51 (4) says that the commissioner "need not give reasons for the commissioner’s decision to retain a person’s name on the prohibited persons list", even if this defies "any rule of natural justice to the contrary".

To me, a blacklist is a perversion of justice. A person can be denied their rights at whim without being guilty of anything.

Persons on the blacklist will be prevented from entering the area for the duration of the conference. If they live within that area they will not be allowed to live in their own homes but will be forced to find accommodation elsewhere. Truly! The state has to pay "the cost of reasonable accommodation", but no other compensation, to the innocent person being thrown out of their own home.

But when we get to Schedule 6: Prohibited Items, the law goes from outrageous to outright ludicrous.

Let us have a look at some of the items that are prohibited within the city of Brisbane.

"3 (h) handcuffs"
[Source]

"3 (i) a whip"
[Source]

"14 a thing capable of disguising or concealing the 

identity of a person including camouflage paint or 

cream, a mask or a balaclava, but not including 

headwear, worn by a member of a religious group, of

a type customarily worn by members of the group"

[Source]

I have a feeling that some of the G20 leaders themselves might be at risk here.

"3 (m) glass bottles or jars"
[Source]

The humble jar of Vegemite; now banned! Is nothing sacred?

"3 (n) metal cans or tins"
[Source] 

I hate spam as much as anyone, but I wouldn't go so far as to classify it as dangerous in the physical sense.

"3 (o) projectiles, including, for example, 
stones, ball bearings or eggs"

[Source]

This one was no doubt spurred by the "eggpocalypse" which occurred during the recent Scottish independence referendum; A politician got egged and it was hyped up by the British media as if it was the worst crime since the holocaust, and maybe even more newsworthy than Julia Gillard losing her shoe (difficult though that is to believe).

But then the real agenda starts to show through:

"4 a placard or banner to which a timber, metal or plastic 
pole is attached or a banner more than 100cm high by 
200cm wide"

[Source]

Shush! It's not meant to be that obvious! You're meant to at least pretend it's all about the dreaded terrorists, and not about quashing legitimate protest.

Or are the terrorists going to smother people with their over-sized banners?

"11 a communication device, other than a mobile phone or other
telephone, capable of being used to organise activity designed to
disrupt any part of the G20 meeting, including, for example, a
two-way radio or a loud hailer, whether powered or not"

[Source]

...or announce their presence using megaphones?

"13 (j) a thing capable of being used to construct a stage,
platform, tripod or tower or a structure similar to a stage,
platform, tripod or tower, other than a camera tripod"

[Source]

...or exhibit themselves on a stage?

But now they've got their real reasons out of the way, time for a bit of weirdness.

"15 a manually operated surf ski or surfboard, kayak, boat or canoe"
[Source]

I have visions of insurgents, spear-guns ["3 (d) a spear gun"] at the ready, powering down the foetid swamp that is the Brisbane River on their surfboards, crying out "Cowabunga, you capitalist pig-dogs!"

"8 a reptile, insect or other animal capable of causing 

physical harm if released in close proximity to a person"

[Source]

Someone had some fun coming up with these.

"16 a floatation device"
[Source]

Seriously, I'm not making these up.

"17 a kite or other device suspended by airflow and
controlled by a string or cord attached to it"
[Source]

Truly...

But they didn't mention plastic oral thermometers with teddy-bear heads on them! Or did they?

"21 any other thing prescribed under a regulation"

This one seems to cover anything they want (note the use of "prescribed" rather than "proscribed").

So everyone, please take care when passing through Checkpoint Campbell this coming week.

In Support of Halloween in Australia

Over the last perhaps five years there has been a concerted effort by retailers to import the celebration of Halloween into Australia. "Happy Halloween" go the advertising banners in the supermarkets, which always struck me as terribly inappropriate: Happy Halloween? Shouldn't it be Scary Halloween or Spooky Halloween or some such?

As a fully paid-up member of The Left, my first reaction to this trend was naturally to denigrate it; partially on the basis of "Bloody Seppos trying to take us over" and partially because it was obviously entirely motivated by the desire to sell yet more lame junk to the public.

However, I thought about it a little more.

Currently, the major celebrations of the year; Christmas and Easter are already a) Utterly inappropriate to the country and b) Completely commercialised beyond any hope of redemption.

Christmas derived from a pagan winter solstice celebration and Easter from spring-time fertility rites. Wicker Man stuff that was uneasily incorporated into the Christian tradition as it overwhelmed other cultures.

Easter has now morphed into a celebration of gluttony. I mean, a few Catholics go to church and stuff, but the majority of people just gorge themselves to the point of sickness on chocolate.

Christmas, in turn, has become a horrible orgy of consumption. The worst, most ill-tempered behavior you'll see all year is in Christmas shopping crowds. And, seriously, Santas with fur-lined boots and hats in an Australian summer! And reindeer and snowmen!

So my argument is that if you're going to celebrate stupid, inappropriate, occasions for no rational reason, you might as well at least choose a celebration that's cool and fun.

Halloween is fun. It's not restricted to a narrow range of conventional behavior, but gives the opportunity to be creative. You can dress up in an almost infinite variety of ways. You can stick a Tony Abbott head on a pike in your front yard, and people won't look at you like you're crazy, but say admiringly "Wow! That's a really gross zombie head!"

So, open your mind a bit. Just because it's American, doesn't mean that it's inherently bad.

Props for the Security Theatre

Cower in fear at the fiendish tools of death that appear in this airport display: A spoon, a miniature 1" long can-opener, and, worst of all, a pink plastic oral thermometer.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Imagine the terror you would feel when confronted by such a horrifying weapon, peeping, barely visible, out of the fist of your assailant.

Terrorists STILL Don't Exist

The same people who brought you "weapons of mass destruction" and Dr Haneef, have done it again. An extraordinary attack on the Muslim community by the media, culminating in theatrical raids by hundreds of police officers.

Do not say that it is an insane overreaction; that is being too generous, because it implies that there was something to react to in the first place.

Every bit of this is based on outright lies. There are no terrorists, no bombs, no plots, nothing. Some innocent people have been arrested in order to further a political agenda.

Clearly, as an individual with no contacts in the security apparatus, I can't know this for sure. But I can't know for sure that you don't have a dragon living in your garage either, and one is as likely as the other. I'll bet you any money that no one arrested was guilty of anything worse than a parking fine, and probably not even that.

That the Murdoch/Abbott coalition is going down this Fascist* path is no surprise, but what is a surprise is that the Labor party and a large chunk of its supporters are goose-stepping along behind them.

[* = I don't user this term lightly, but it legitimately describes the situation.]

What is the point in going along with Murdoch's lies (and anyone in politics must know that this is all a bunch of lies)? You can't appease him; he will always be your enemy and he will always attack you whatever you do. You can't win by out-nastying the nasties (as Rudd tried to do on refugees), because the Coalition will always be perceived to be tougher in this area.

I hear people saying that Shorten is doing the right thing by maintaining a small target and giving Abbott enough rope to hang himself with. "Soon Abbott will go too far", they say. I call bullshit on this.

The ALP have been saying the same thing ever since Abbott became Leader of the Opposition in December 2009. "He's so obviously a brain-dead thug that soon he will do something so stupid that even Murdoch won't be able cover for him," was the theory.

Meanwhile, over the subsequent five years, Abbott has made disastrous blunder after disastrous blunder. Rarely has anyone called him on it, and always the media have covered things up or spun them to his advantage. If there was any theoretical line which could have been described a "going too far", he has long ago crossed it.

To complete the metaphor; Abbott has, with the aid of Murdoch, used the rope he was given to hog-tie the ALP.

You need to use different tactics because what you are doing at the moment isn't working.

The ALP only has a 1% lead in the polls at the moment. Given the absolute train-wreck the Murdoch/Abbott government has become, this should be at least 10%; even factoring in the mass of disengaged (and outright knuckle-headed) voters.

And then there is this insanity about going back to war in Iraq.

The Vietnam War spelled out in agonising detail just how stupid and counter productive it was to go around invading other countries. Do I need to point out the extraordinary human, environmental, financial and even political cost of this disaster? The cost was unbelievable and the benefits none.

You would have thought people would have learned from this, yet they happily marched off to repeat exactly the same mistake in Iraq (with, if anything, even worse motives and not even any clear idea of what they hoped to achieve).

The same lesson was therefore repeated; this time with the aid of glove puppets and slowly spelled out in words of one syllable.

If you don't get by now that it was a really really bad idea, you cannot be thinking at even a kindergarten level. To repeat this mistake before the blood is even dry from last time is something I find difficult to comprehend.

Please, could we just dial the idiocy back down to 11?

Terrorists Don't Exist

Let's qualify that by saying that we're talking about Australia here. Other places, maybe there are some around, but over here a terrorist attack is only marginally more likely than getting gored by a unicorn.

Consider this. The last terrorist attack in Australia was the Sydney Hilton bombing outside the venue of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. This happened in 1978. Let us discount the theory that the bomb was planted by security forces, and assume that it was in fact a deliberate terrorist attack (by people unknown and for motives that are still a mystery).

That was a long time ago. Nearly half* of the people in Australia were not even born when this happened, yet if those in power were truly concerned about terror attacks, you would think they would do their utmost to ensure that subsequent conferences of this type were secure.

[* = median age of the Australian population is 37 years as per the last census and the event happened 36 years ago.]

Yet in 2007 the Chaser team easily managed to infiltrate the APEC summit in Sydney, with one guy dressed as Osama bin Laden, and all wearing fake passes, with printed on them in red "It's pretty obvious this is not a real pass". We're talking here about an economic summit with representatives of 21 nations, including even G W Bush, being present. The mind boggles; you'd have better security at a school social.

To me this was a real smoking gun. It shows that those in charge of our security are not even slightly interested in security. They know it's just a farce.

OK, if you've been paying attention, you'll know all this already.

But some people who must realise this (and I am talking about the majority of the federal ALP) are not pulling their weight in countering the deluge of Abbott-Murdoch hysteria that's yet again flooding the media.

So let me offer some advice for you to ignore.

If legislation is proposed for the purposes of countering terrorism, don't say: "This legislation is open to being abused" - that is conceding too much. You can assume that the purpose of the legislation was only to allow the abuses to occur.

We are not talking about side-effects of an otherwise worthwhile objective, we are talking about straight-out lying to justify something that is straight-out unacceptable.

Similarly, do not criticise such legislation as being ineffective in achieving its stated goal (and I admit that I have been guilty of this). If you say "That's silly, a terrorist could easily get around it by doing X", you have already been tricked.

When we are debating what a "terrorist" would or would not do, we are implicitly admitting that terrorists a) actually exist and b) are worth worrying about. We are letting the opponent set the terms of the debate; which means we have conceded ground and are half-way to losing before we've even started.

Moreover saying this sort of thing carries the risk that those in power will say "OK, then we'll ban X too". This is what happened when some genius realised that the explosive TATP could be manufactured from relatively innocuous liquid ingredients, and led to the absolutely retarded ban on taking liquids on board aircraft. The fact that actually manufacturing the simple chemical TATP (let alone anything more sophisticated) on board an aircraft is ludicrously impractical* didn't seem to concern anyone.

[* = The owner of that site, Nick B Possum (no relation) tends to venture more deeply into the land of conspiracy theories than me, however as far as I have been able to verify, what he writes on this particular subject is technically accurate.]

If someone uses the "T" word to justify anything, the onus is on them to prove there is a problem that needs to be solved. And they won't be able to do it because there isn't one. If they say "there is a real threat, but we can't tell you for security reasons", they are asking you to take the words of a known liar, with a vested interest, on trust alone. This should be rejected as a gross insult to the intelligence.

Let's call this nonsense out for the bullshit it is.

Throw another Quorn on the barbie

This post is about Quorn. Not the town in the Flinders Ranges, but the food. Never heard of it, you say.

Barbecued Quorn

The story of Quorn starts in the 1960s. This was the time of books like Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb. People were looking at the future and worrying. One of the concerns was that there would be a food shortage, and more specifically a shortage of protein, within a couple of decades.

One food company decided that it would be a good idea to research mycoprotein for human consumption. The idea was that rather than the inefficient process of raising animals for food, you instead took some cheap feedstock (in this case, starch-based waste products from cereal manufacture) and fed it into a fermentation vessel where it was used to grow a single-celled organism, such as a yeast or a fungus. With an appropriately chosen organism, you could produce a nutritious, protein-rich food on an industrial scale. Just what was needed to feed the starving, overpopulated world that many had predicted.

Had things worked out differently, they might have virtually saved the world, and become immensely rich in the process. As it happened, they ended up producing a niche product, unknown to the majority.

Quorn has a bit of an image problem. It's essentially a mould that has been processed in a factory to resemble meat, so it immediately evokes the response "Ewwwwww!". Which is illogical; we eat mushrooms which are a fungus. We eat bread and cheese and drink beer and wine, all of which are synthetic foods produced by fermentation. We even eat processed meat products like sausages, whose production would make the average person physically ill to witness. Much of the stuff we eat already comes from nameless factories. For instance, the "cherries" in a fruit bun are most often made from Calcium Alginate (extracted from seaweed) with artificial colouring and flavouring.

Because Quorn is something that's manufactured, it doesn't have any intrinsic flavour any more than - say - a car has an intrinsic colour; it's a case of "tell us what flavour you want". This is a problem. If you tried to create a strong distinctive flavour for it, most people would reject it as being unfamiliar, and it would rule out many traditional dishes which are expected to have specific flavours. If you try to emulate an existing flavour - say lamb or beef - you'll never do as well as the original article. You can try to make the flavour as neutral as possible, but then people will taste it and say "Meh" and "Why bother?".

The creators of Quorn have tried a mixture of the second and third approaches, with a surprising amount of success.

Nevertheless, Quorn seems to have few supporters in Australia.

The "average" Aussie, used to steaks and roasts, would reject Quorn as some weird hippie nonsense (although they would most likely not phrase it this politely). Why eat some meat substitute when you can eat Real Meat? they would say.

Whereas the hippies in turn would look in askance at this strange and possibly sinister synthetic food - one step short of Soylent Green - and stick to their organic tofu and lentils.

Foodies, although more willing to try the unusual, would probably not be so interested in an inauthentic ingredient which has (intentionally) an unexciting taste.

Fast food outlets could probably use the stuff very efficiently, but it seems they have to appeal to the masses and make a big deal of using "100% beef"*.

[* = I would never make the libellous suggestion that this means they use 100% of the cow; tail, hooves, eyeballs and all.]

The "Housewife" (and I'm afraid that this is still a valid title in this backward country) has probably never heard of it, and would be doubtful about introducing such an alien product to her family.

So Quorn falls, unloved, between the various camps.

Which is a pity, because the rationale behind this food still holds; it's a high-protein food similar to meat, but can be produced without the inefficiency (and often cruelty) involved with farming animals. Also, unlike factory farming practices (and even sustainable/organic farming for that matter), the process is under tight control, so you virtually eliminate the possibility of disease.

I eat Quorn myself.

I understand the virtues of growing your own food or buying it fresh from a local market, but here in the Brisbane suburbs it's a case of the local Coles/Woolies or fighting your way into the city to get to a market that's barely any better. So if you're going to buy stuff from an amoral faceless corporation like Coles Group, you might as well go the whole hog and get a completely artificial food.

The price of Quorn is comparable with free-range chicken. The economies of scale are such that Quorn could be very much cheaper than this if it were more widely eaten, but since it's a niche product, you have to pay a premium price.

Quorn comes in a number of different forms, the majority of which are aimed at the convenience food market (the holy trinity of the corner store - Pies, Pasties and Sausage Rolls - are there). This is not the emphasis that I personally like, but it's understandable under the circumstances.

My favourite variety, for reasons of taste and versatility, is Quorn Pieces.

Quorn Pieces

These are meant to substitute for chicken pieces and are intended to be used in a sir-fry. In terms of taste, texture and appearance they are almost indistinguishable from chicken, however I find them to be overall superior because they are easier to prepare and they absorb flavours much better. This is where Quorn beats tofu hands-down. Tofu has a texture like synthetic rubber and actively repels flavourings. It takes a first-class chef to make tofu taste any good, whereas anyone who can put together a meal can get good results with Quorn.

Quorn pieces cooking in a very well seasoned wok

When stir-frying, Quorn pieces can be cooked in pretty much the same way as chicken. Cook them from frozen (there's no real advantage in thawing them first, although you can do this if you want to), and use a little more oil than you would normally use for meat, since they are almost devoid of fat. Cooking time is about the same.

The standard (I believe) method of cooking a stir fry (cook the meat first, set it aside to rest while cooking the vegetables, and then add it back in at the end) works well with Quorn. I usually drizzle the Quorn with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) and sprinkle with spices while it's resting - Quorn absorbs the flavours and they seem to come through better than when the spices are added separately to the wok.

A Quorn stir-fry

A quick and easy meal is to stir-fry some Quorn pieces and wrap in pita bread, along with lettuce and tomato and whatever sauce you favour (a home-made Caesar dressing works well, as does sweet chili sauce and sour cream). This is essentially a donner kebab. It's very tasty and can be done at a moment's notice.

You can also thread Quorn pieces onto a skewer and cook under a grill or on a barbecue. The trick is to select the biggest pieces from the packet and stir-fry them first for 3 to 4 minutes to firm them up. You can then marinade them and thread onto the skewer. Simply thawed, they are too brittle and can break when skewered, but a little cooking first makes it much easier.

Tandoori Quorn with steamed vegetables

The Tandoori Quorn above and the barbecued Quorn at the start of this entry were both made this way. The barbecued Quorn was simply marinated in store-bought barbecue sauce.

There are a couple of other varieties of quorn which can be used as basic ingredients (as opposed to those varieties which are essentially prepared meals):

Quorn Mince

This is meant to substitute for minced beef. You could use it in a dish like spaghetti bolognaise and most likely no one would be able to tell the difference. I've also successfully used it in spring rolls.

Quorn Fillets

These look like fish fillets, but are meant to substitute for chicken breast, although they seem a little denser in texture. They are not quite a 1:1 substitute for chicken (e.g. if you simply fry one up and present it with minimal seasonings, as shown on the packet, you'll be able to tell that it's not chicken), but I can attest they work really well in a parmigiana. Don't try to flatten them with a mallet (they're already flat enough and tend to disintegrate when hit), but thaw, coat in beaten egg and bread crumbs and proceed as with a normal parmigiana.

To sum up:

Quorn isn't a wonder-food that's going to cure all of your ills and turn base metals into gold, nor is it some incredible taste sensation that will have the gourmets writhing in ecstasy. It is, however, an extremely under-appreciated and versatile ingredient, which is convenient to use and very easy to get good results with.

If you want to cut down on your (or your family's) meat intake for health or other reasons, it gives you an easy option because it can be directly substituted for meat in many dishes.