Mark Tiddy's Website

Next Friday Jo and myself (plus a various others we know) head to Cheltenham Racecourse for Greenbelt. For those who’ve haven’t heard of Greenbelt it’s probably the most unique Christian festival that happens in the UK. I’ve heard it described by some as ‘fantastic’ and others as ‘liberal’ so it should be an interesting experience. [...]

As I drove past Morrisons yesterday on my way home from my gym I realised that it had almost been 6 weeks since I stepped foot inside my little local supermarket and I realised that come Sunday I could break my fast of supermarkets…the thing is the majority of me doesn’t want to! When I [...]

I heard from friends that the panorama on the 24th March had been on chocolate, it’s origins and Fairtrade so I thought I’d give it a watch (you can too here). I have to say having watched Panorama on Primark I expected something negative…and in fairness I was half right. The program aimed to show [...]

On Friday I headed into Beverley to get a few bits…Beverley is about the same distance from me as Hull and much more relaxing to wander around and smaller. Whilst there I past a small bookshop called ‘Jacobs Well’ which is a charity bookshop with a small Christian bookshop attached to it. Whilst the Christian [...]

I have just returned home from a brief walk and visit to the South Cave Farmers Market which happens once a month in South Cave and although I’ve had the best intentions of visiting since I moved here mid-August it’s only just happened…and majorly because of my lent pledge to avoid supermarkets. The farmers market [...]

This last week and the week we’re about to enter into are not just any old weeks. if you don’t know we are actually right in the middle of ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ which is a yearly two weeks aiming to raise awareness of Fairtrade and aimed at encouraging more people to source Fairtrade products as part [...]

Whilst lent is meant to be a time or preparation and should be something to bring you closer to God one thing I am trying this year amongst things that achieve the former (I hope!) is avoiding supermarkets. Local Veg! I had a conversation with someone at church about farm shops last week and so [...]

Whilst this minister has set himself the challenge of visiting all 10,000 parishioners during lent and spent last year’s lent sleeping on his church roof I’m planning to do something slightly less extreme…actually 3 slightly less extreme things! Firstly from today (the beginning of lent) I shall be aiming to blog everyday during lent…some of [...]

So the Fairtrade Kit Kat has hit the stores and Morrissons in particular have been plugging it with a leaflet at all their checkouts and whilst my initial response wasn’t very positive I thought I’d give Nestle a chance and give their leaflet a read. The lovely people at Nestle (sarcasm) have decided that when [...]

A week or so ago Nestle announced that from January the 4 finger Kitkat would be Fairtrade (link)…which of course for people who Boycott Nestle (largely over their Baby Milk scandels which still continue today) flashes up an ethical dilema…however I don’t think it’s time to start buying from the company who are rated 0.5 [...]

The title of this post is perhaps somewhat misleading…as of today I can now eat meat again after my month of seeing what it’s like being a vegetarian, however I still have veggie bolognese left for tea and no meat in for lunch so I still won’t end up with meat today (I hope Cameron [...]

So I’m here at the end of week 1 of my veggiexperiment and so far (other than accidentially sticking a small piece of cold chicken in my mouth before thinking ‘hang on’ and spitting it out promptly) I’ve succeeded. I haven’t actually missed any meaty stuff other than the smell of the forbidden fish and [...]

A while ago Goywonder whose blog I read set himself 2 targets, firstly to give up alcohol for 6 months and secondly to blog everyday, those targets/experiments have since finished however they got me thinking. Alongside this thinking of blogs with challenges I seem to know more and more people who are vegetarians and I’m [...]

I don’t go shopping that often (by this I mean a shopping centre style shopping) but I do know that when you wander around towns where people are partaking in the act of consumerism they are usually clinging onto a handful of plastic bags with a variety of brands and logos showing the world exactly [...]

Regular readers will know of my dislike of Tesco (see these posts) and once again they continue to annoy me a little. A couple of weeks back whilst in Sheffield the Tesco van decided to block the road and make a delivery to the store…so I waited for 10 minutes (see left picture). If it [...]