18th May 2011

I’ve got two new items for my under-rated list:

Film Maker Thomas McCarthy
English Cooked Breakfasts

Thomas McCarthy
First off, he really isn’t totally under-rated as all of his films have been praised by critics. However, he makes my list because I feel his films deserve more exposure. Unlike a director like say, Edgar Wright, Thomas isn’t a game changer. However, he excels at creating small, simple, perfectly formed films with wonderful characters at their center. Check out his most recent film, Win Win which is still out in the UK cinemas and the equally brilliant The Station Agent, and The Visitor.

English Cooked Breakfasts
Thanks to WK Kellogg and the power of advertising, cereal has come to replace the good old fashioned cooked breakfast as the morning staple of the masses. Look, I get it. It’s quick, easy and loaded with sugar (so probably tastes nice) but no where near as healthy as the cereal Tzars would have you believe.

Originally, cereals were whole grain and unsweetened and probably didn’t taste great. So WK Kellogg added a bunch of sugar, stripped out all the good stuff, and advertised cereal as quick, easy and healthy. Voila, the standard western breakfast was born and the poor old english cooked breakfast was sidelined.

The thing is, if you take away the sausages and use low fat back bacon, the old English is actually pretty healthy. Mushrooms are loaded in vitamin D, Eggs and Bacon are high in protein, Black Pudding is swimming in Iron, and tomatoes are high in vitamin C which helps your body to absorb the iron. So go ahead, tuck in, I promise you’ll feel fuller for longer and give your body a pretty good start on the day. On a side note, caffeine interferes with the body’s absorption of iron, so have your coffee about an hour after you eat. As for all of the English cafs reading this…you can thank me later.