Headlines: Walls ice cream works upgrade and Jellycat toys theft
Here's our daily pick of stories from across local websites in the West of England, and interesting content from social media.
Our pick of local website stories
Gloucester secured its status as the "home of Wall's ice cream", as multi-million pound plans to upgrade its Barnwood facility were approved. Gloucestershire Live shared news of the plans, which include a new pasteuriser and homogeniser building.CCTV footage emerged of a Jellycat soft toy theft in Cheddar. The Gorge Bear Company was targeted in the early hours of Sunday morning.And Bristol Live is reporting that heads are still being turned by a red super-yacht moored up in the harbour.
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The RNLI has been celebrating 10 years of life-saving in Portishead. The service says it has been called out 396 times, saved 14 lives, assisted 347 people and 17 dogs.Bath and North East Somerset Council announced it is improving play equipment in parks, starting with Manor Copse in Writhlington and Royal Victoria Park in Bath.People on Reddit are loving this artist who has been painting one of Bristol's most iconic views.And Swindon Town FC said it'll do its annual roll of honour for fans who have died on 3 May.
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Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
‘I make six figures because millions of people watch me eat every day – I'm living the dream'
The delivery driver assumed that Becca Stock had guests. 'Are you having a party?' he inquired cheerily when he dropped 31 Waitrose sandwiches on her doorstep earlier this spring. A few weeks before – around St Valentine's Day – an elderly lady had stopped Stock in Marks & Spencer. 'Is that all for you?' she gasped, pointing at a trolley piled high with £76 worth of ready meals. Then there was that other time when a cashier looked up at Stock after scanning her shopping and declared: 'Your biscuit tin is going to be overflowing!' On each of these occasions, Stock tried to explain that she was just doing her job. 'But they just give you a blank face,' the 28-year-old from Gloucester laughs. 'They don't get it at all.' In fairness to these supermarket strangers, Stock's job is not necessarily easy to 'get'. It is possible that in the entire history of the working world, no one's nine to five has ever looked like hers. On Mondays, for example, she can often be seen eating the entirety of a supermarket's own-brand range. On Tuesdays, you'll catch her pulling apart cookies or doughnuts from independent bakeries. Wednesdays see her comparing food items from different brands: who, exactly, sells the best frozen breaded cod? By Thursday, you shouldn't be surprised to watch Stock order 14 various dishes in a restaurant, and – after a quick digestion break – Sundays are the biggest and busiest days of all. This is when Stock announces, say, the best of Müller's 16 different Corner yogurts, or which of Waitrose's 31 meal-deal sandwiches are the tastiest. (Spoiler: the brie, bacon and chilli relish one.) They say that the world's first food critic was Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de La Reynière. In the early 19th century, the elite Frenchman evaluated dishes with his 'jury dégustateur ' and published the results in eight volumes of restaurant reviews. Grimod declared that his work 'only seems superficial to those of common minds', arguably paving the way for Jonathan Gold to become in 2007 the first restaurant reviewer to win a Pulitzer Prize. But since then, food reviewing has become less esteemed and more democratic. The internet has changed not just who reviews, but what they're reviewing. Today, almost half a million TikTok followers watch Stock evaluate stock – which is to say, the stuff that lines supermarket shelves. @beccaeatseverything Where's the raspberry one gone?! And are the bites worth it? Let me know what I should be reviewing next #foodreview #foodcritic #ukfood #foodhaul #krispykreme #doughnut ♬ original sound - Beccaeatseverything Stock is far from the world's first (or biggest) convenience food critic. In 2016, American teenager John Jurasek went viral after donning a suit to evaluate energy drinks and hamburgers. Since 2020, Yorkshireman Danny Malin has reviewed chips, pizzas, curries and fried chicken on his YouTube channel, Rate My Takeaway. And Keith Lee, a Las Vegas-based TikToker, is undeniably the fast-food reviewer du jour: he currently has a whopping 17 million followers (although he did anger the British ones earlier this year when he gave beans on toast a 1/10). What sets Stock apart from the competition is the sheer quantity of the product she reviews: everything on the McDonald's breakfast menu, £60 worth of Marks & Spencer own-brand biscuits, and 17 Pot Noodles – all ranked from worst to best. She certainly lives up to her social media handle: @BeccaEatsEverything. 'I can't believe this world, this job, it's just absolute madness,' she says, sitting in her garden on a sunny Friday, her all-black goldendoodle, Benji, lolling nearby. She's just finished ranking eight different flavours of Kettle Chips and is just about to taste-test six doughnuts from Nottingham-based bakers Doughnotts. It all started – as so many things seem to have done – during the pandemic. Working a commission-based insurance job, struggling with £25,000 of debt, and living pay cheque to pay cheque, Stock mostly subsisted on discounted, yellow-stickered food. But whenever she had a spare bit of cash to splash on something new or fancy, she often found herself disappointed. She took things into her own hands in the summer of 2021, when she had an unexpected £20 left over before pay day. She purchased five different brands of lemonade and filmed herself comparing them; the resulting video got 384 views. 'The reason I started this was to help people like me,' Stock says. Her family initially disapproved, arguing that it was 'silly', and that she should pay off her debt before spending money on food reviews. But Stock's timing was fortunate: with lockdowns keeping people at home, TikTok jumped from three million to 14 million UK users between 2019 and 2021. A review of curry sauces was Stock's first 100,000-view video – then she went viral in 2022 for comparing different hash browns. Nowadays, her reviews seemingly make an impact on sales: after 2.2 million people had watched her give Tesco cheese hot cross buns an 11/10 in 2024, she made local news headlines and the buns quickly (and possibly not coincidentally) disappeared from shelves. Stock has now discovered that the worst Tesco sandwich is the tuna and sweetcorn ('bitter and unpleasant') and that the best one is the pulled BBQ beef, which melts in the mouth. @beccaeatseverything"If that's cheddar then i'm a horse" 🐴 #foodie #foodreview #foodtok #ukfood #honestreview #tesco #mealdeal #sandwich #foodhaul #supermarkethaul #lunch #quickmeal #ranked #rating ♬ original sound - Beccaeatseverything The worst thing she's ever eaten for a video was a tin (yes, tin) of burgers ('Even my dog was like, 'Nah, thank you'') and the best was a stack of crêpes from a local business. It's perhaps not a surprise that Krispy Kreme's number-one doughnut is the original glazed, but Stock caused controversy in September 2024 when she gave a Burger King favourite, chilli cheese nuggets, a 1/10. 'I now don't trust your reviews,' wrote one commenter, earning 19,000 likes. Another declared: 'That's not a review that's you [sic] opinion.' It's a fair enough sentiment: after all, what exactly qualifies Stock to arbitrate and adjudicate? 'It's hard for me when people say I'm a snob or [that] I think I'm Gordon Ramsay,' she says. 'I'm thinking from the perspective of a consumer, not thinking, 'I want this to be a five-star Michelin meal.'' Stock began cooking when she was 11 – her parents split up and her mother worked in the evenings, so Stock would make dinner for herself and her brother. After she left school at 16, she worked in various professional kitchens over the years; her first cheffing job was admittedly a microwave-heavy gig in a Hungry Horse, but she made her way up through higher-end chains until she started working in a garden centre café, making soups, curries, quiches and scones from scratch. 'I took pride in the fact that I didn't get stuff sent back to the kitchen.' Stock had quit her insurance job and was working in this garden centre when her TikTok really took off: 'The deals I was getting in from brands were paying me more than what I earned for my week's wage.' Like most content creators, Stock is paid per view by TikTok and also earns money by creating adverts for brands (these are clearly marked so viewers don't mistake them for her regular reviews). Stock quit her day job in April 2023 after she got a last-minute brand deal that offered her 'four times what I would have earned for two days' work'. 'I literally just texted my boss and said, 'I ain't coming back to work tomorrow,' at like midnight,' she says. Stock can now charge up to £2,000 for a single sponsored video. She opts to do around one a week so that her profile doesn't become too ad-heavy. With her earnings now into six figures a year, it's enough to sustain two people: her partner quit his insurance job and now helps her with shopping, editing, accounting and cleaning up. But can the world trust a reviewer who is also paid to do adverts? Stock says she won't continue with a brand deal if she dislikes the taste of a product, and if she's sent a range of items to feature in an advert, she'll include only the ones that she likes. 'I am not going to sit there and tell people that rubbish is good.' Still, people do accuse her of dishonesty – in particular, after she praised the McDonald's McRib in an advert last September. @beccaeatseverything AD | Can you guess the exciting new menu item landing in @McDonald's UK today?? The iconic McRib is back 😭 😭 You don't want miss out on this one. Get the McRib before it sells out – I'm looking at you superfans! #McRibReturns #superfan #mcdonalds ♬ original sound - Beccaeatseverything 'People thought, 'Oh, you've just taken the money, you sold out, you're lying,' so it is difficult,' Stock says. One commenter wrote: 'This is absolutely brilliant. You are the first person and only person to say the McRib is any good.' But six months on, Stock is adamant: 'I loved the McRib. A lot of people hated it, even my partner said to me, 'That's horrible,' but I liked it; I don't know why, I just really enjoyed it.' This sort of distrust is understandable since a scandal has recently rocked the fast-food reviewing world. In April, the self-proclaimed 'UK's Number One Food Reviewer', Matthew Davies-Binge, issued a statement to his 911,000 TikTok followers after a dessert shop owner accused him of being a 'phoney'. Truro-based Lisa Bennett, 45, invited Davies-Binge to her dessert shop and was shocked when his management said he would visit if she paid him £750. 'I have never, and will never, be paid for a positive score,' Davies-Binge clarified in an online statement. 'The VAST majority of the content I make is completely organic.' He added that if a restaurant invites him and 'looks like a good fit', he charges a fee simply to cover travel and production costs. 'I don't charge,' says Stock as she squats on the floor in her kitchen, holding a doughnut up to her phone camera and ripping into it with her fingers to show her viewers its texture. Stock used to accept gifts from companies but stopped because she felt it made her reviews seem inauthentic. 'I'd much rather just place an order, I'd rather buy it,' she says. A year ago, she'd spend around £300 a month to make her videos; she now spends around £2,000 a month on food. Distrust isn't the only downside of this dreamy-sounding job, however. Believe it or not, Stock has a gluten and dairy intolerance so, she says, 'I will never plan a sandwich haul the day before I'm about to travel because I just know it would end badly.' She says she also sometimes gets 'food fatigue' and – because she feels obliged to polish off the hot food she orders – often feels 'greasy and horrible' afterwards. 'Last year, I was filming Domino's, then Subway, then KFC, and I did notice that it was affecting my health,' she says. She now spreads out fast-food reviews and makes sure to eat a balanced, salad-heavy diet in between. @beccaeatseverything Well this was an interesting haul 👀 🍕 My review of the new Dominos Pizza range 17/2/24 #food #foodie #foodreview #ukfoodreview #foodtok #pizza #dominospizza #carbonara #lasagne #cremeegg ♬ original sound - Beccaeatseverything 'If you look back at my first videos, I did look a lot slimmer,' Stock says, but she says, despite internet rumours, she's gained only 6lb in her time as a food reviewer. Negative comments about her weight and appearance naturally do affect her, but Stock says her relationship helps her keep a positive mindset. Like any internet star, she also has to navigate the occasional creepy message: 'Do you want to be my sugar baby?', 'Could you do a voice message telling me goodnight?' Perhaps the biggest thing Stock gets hate for, however, is food waste. 'I'm not completely blameless when it comes to waste, I don't throw away zero,' she says – but she notes she couldn't throw out as much rubbish as viewers think she does, because her binmen would refuse to take it all away. In fact, she mitigates waste by donating leftovers via the app Olio, which connects people with nearby strangers and businesses giving away free stuff. 'People think people won't take open food, but they will,' she says – she's given away sandwich halves, and she has a trick where she cuts a single slice out of a frozen pizza so she can donate the rest, uncooked. 'Because I've worked in kitchens, I make sure that my hands are clean, I make sure it's not contaminated with anything else.' Now, Stock has regulars: a lady who grabs food for the community kids' clubs she runs, and a local mother and her children. With her three lights set up on tripods and a fluffy microphone strapped to her black-and-white stripy top, Stock begins filming her doughnut review (she has been known to test 15 in one go). 'This week, I'm trying Doughnotts to see if any of their food can score a 10/10!' she cries enthusiastically to her phone, which is clad in a case featuring Garfield daydreaming about pie, lasagne and ice cream. There's a glass of water, some powder foundation and a hairbrush just off-screen – she freshens herself up between shots. A bright-pink doughnut covered in sprinkles is up first. Stock takes two bites and chews thoughtfully in silence for more than 20 seconds. 'They've got the dough pretty much perfect on these,' she says. 'The bit that I am not really enjoying is this icing – there's a lot of it on there.' She rates it a 7/10 – nothing can earn a Stock seven unless she believes she'd personally buy it again. Over the course of the next 16 minutes, she tries five more doughnuts: the best is red velvet (9/10) and the worst is a cheap-tasting chocolate (that scores just five). @beccaeatseverything My honest review of @Doughnotts These were paid for with my own money and I have no affiliation with the business #foodreview #foodie #foodcritic #ukfood #doughnut #smallbusiness ♬ original sound - Beccaeatseverything For how long is a career such as Stock's really sustainable? The former New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells quit in July 2024 after a routine doctor's appointment. 'My scores were bad across the board; my cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I'd expected even in my doomiest moments. The terms prediabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around,' he wrote. TikTokers don't just have to worry about their own health, though; they also have to worry about the health of the platform, which Donald Trump is threatening to ban in the United States. Besides which, isn't internet fame inherently fleeting? In late April, a TikToker known as Jelly Bean Sweets spoke about diversifying her content after gaining 2.2 million followers for her 'mukbangs' (videos in which creators eat large quantities of food). 'You're only relevant in one type of thing for so long,' she says, 'I want this to be a long-term career.' 'I really do take every day as it comes,' says Stock. 'As much as I like to think about the future, I don't like to have too big expectations.' Her 'absolute dream' is to expand into more restaurant reviews, meet Gordon Ramsay and perhaps one day be a MasterChef judge. 'Just having more of a presence outside of TikTok,' she surmises. 'Because as much as you can be huge on TikTok, you could walk down the street and people would be like, 'I don't know who the hell you are.'' Strangers in the supermarket still confront Stock – but more and more of them recognise her, too. The manager of the Tesco up the road has told her that staff start chatting on their headsets when Stock appears: 'Ooh, the TikTok girl's in again!' Becca hasn't yet eaten everything – the number of novelty products and new releases will hopefully keep her in work for years to come. 'I have the opinion that if this is the last day I do this, then I'm happy that I got to do it,' she says. 'Most people don't get to achieve their dreams, and I really have.'
Daily Record
10 hours ago
- Daily Record
Sydney Sweeney sells bars of soap infused with her bathwater
The new soap apparently smells like "morning wood'. Actress Sydney Sweeney is selling bars of soap that have been infused with her bathwater. The limited run is called Sydney's Bathwater Bliss and apparently smells like "morning wood'. The Euphoria actress broke the news on social media in a joint post with natural handmade soap brand Dr. Squatch. In the post the actress confirms, is 'very real,' and will be 'very limited'. Sydney's soap is described as 'a perfect combination of the two best places on the planet: The outdoors and Sydney Sweeney's bathtub.' While its ingredients include pine, earthy moss and 'a touch of Sydney's very own bathwater'. Sweeney took to Instagram to tell her followers, 'You kept asking about my bathwater after the @drsquatch ad… so we kept it. 'Introducing Sydney's Bathwater Bliss! A very real, very limited-edition soap made with my actual bathwater.' The Hollywood actor often faces unsolicited comments about her body from fans — some of whom have even expressed their desire to consume her bath water. 'When your fans start asking for your bathwater, you can either ignore it, or turn it into a bar of Dr. Squatch soap,' Sweeney said in a press release announcing her new soap. 'It's weird in the best way, and I love that we created something that's not just unforgettable, it actually smells incredible and delivers like every other Dr. Squatch product I love,' she added. 'Hopefully, this helps guys wake up to the realities of conventional personal care products and pushes them towards natural.' The Anyone but You star first partnered with the men's personal care company last year in a viral ad that featured her in a bathtub. Her new soap is made with exfoliating sand and pine bark extract in addition to some of Sweeney's real bathwater. The soap is due to go on sale on June 6. Dr. Squatch has also announced a giveaway of 100 bars of the limited edition soap. Reddit users had a mixed reaction to the news of the soap infused with used bath water. Reddit user Alone-Strain said: 'At the height of KISSmania in the 70's. MARVEL published KISS comic books, they claimed that the red ink was mixed with a drop of blood from each of the band members. 'Same gimmick today.' Shortbus_playboy said: 'This is awesome. They figured out how to get Redditors to bathe.' Sweeney, who also starred in The White Lotus TV series and who is due to play Millie in the film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Housemaid, first partnered with the men's personal care company last year in a viral ad that featured her in a bathtub. Her new soap is made with exfoliating sand and pine bark extract in addition to some of Sweeney's real bathwater. 'It's weird in the best way, and I love that we created something that's not just unforgettable, it actually smells incredible and delivers like every other Dr. Squatch product I love,' she added. 'Hopefully, this helps guys wake up to the realities of conventional personal care products and pushes them towards natural.' Only 5,000 bars of the actor's soap will be made. In an interview with GQ, Sweeney further explained the process of making the soap. 'When we were at the shoot, they had a tub for me. And I actually got in there and I took some soap, and we had a nice little bath and they took the water. So it's my real bath water,' she confirmed. 'I wanted to have it lean towards my home roots, so there's this really outdoorsy scent of, like, pine and earthy moss and fir. So it smells super manly. But then there's some city bath water mixed in.'
Daily Mirror
12 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Clarkson's Farm star Kaleb Cooper admits things are 'not good' in health update
Clarkson's Farm star Kaleb Cooper has informed his fans he won't be able to 'move around' as usual in his latest Instagram update after suffering a 'painful 'injury Kaleb Cooper has bravely opened up about his "painful" health woes after suffering an injury. The much-loved star of Clarkson's Farm took to Instagram stories to update his followers on an unfortunate mishap that landed him in hospital. Kaleb candidly expressed to his fans that he had indeed fractured his ankle and was now confined to a safety boot, remarking "not good". Nonetheless, the resilient farmer is not letting this dampen his spirits or his dedication to his supporters, reassuring them on Instagram that he will be powering through to make it to the Three Counties Show. Kaleb assured with determination: "I may be hobbling around as I've fractured my ankle, but I'll still be at the 3 Counties Show on the Sunday." His commitment is underlined by his promise: "I'll be doing talks throughout the day, and Hawkestone Cider will be there. So, do pop along and say hello. I'll be there - don't you worry! I'm looking forward to it," reports Gloucestershire Live. This news arrives hot on the heels of Clarkson's Farm releasing its fourth season to acclaim on Prime Video, and there's already buzz about a potential fifth series. Jeremy Clarkson himself has hinted at a well-deserved respite for the show during a conversation with The Sunday Times, considering the tireless work of the team. Jeremy reflected on the intense filming schedule: "Whatever happens we'll definitely take a short break as the crews are all worn out. We've been filming here two or three days a week, every week, for five years. Everybody could do with a rest." Since its launch in 2021, Clarkson's Farm has been a smash hit, propelling Kaleb Cooper to fame, leading him to tour the UK and even write his own book. While Kaleb was off captivating audiences with his speaking events, Jeremy Clarkson introduced viewers to the new, glamorous farmhand Harriet Cowan. Amidst a flurry of speculation, Clarkson put an end to rumours that Kaleb had been "replaced" on Clarkson's Farm. In a candid Instagram video, Jeremy set the record straight: " There have been lots of reports that Kaleb has been 'replaced'-well, no, he hasn't." The seasoned broadcaster, now 65, elaborated: "What happened is this, he went away on his speaking tour, for a couple of months because he imagined that after four years, I'd be able to manage on my own. "I didn't - I made a complete hash of everything and had to bring in a young girl called Harriet. Harriet is brilliant and looked after the fort until he returned. That is it - that's the story!".
