Latest news with #Crockford
BBC News
10-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Man says he spent 12 hours on trolley in Scarborough Hospital
A man with a history of heart attacks says he "didn't feel human" after being left on a trolley in a hospital corridor for 12 Crockford, 77, from Bridlington in East Yorkshire, said he feared he was having a cardiac episode on 4 March but had to wait four hours for an ambulance at his retired foster carer said the ambulance then queued outside Scarborough Hospital and claimed he was not seen by a doctor until the following Ambulance Service said it did its best to respond as quickly as possible to all emergencies, while the NHS trust that runs the hospital said its clinical teams prioritised patients according to need. Mr Crockford said: "You don't feel human when you're in there [A&E corridor]. You're just bunged on a trolley."He said once inside A&E at 19:00 GMT, more than eight hours after his initial 999 call, he was met with a "queue of trolleys all the way up the gangway".He added although nurses took his blood pressure and did blood tests, he claimed he did not see a doctor until 14:00 the next day."I just don't think the system works anymore. I think it's totally and utterly broken," he added. Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) NHS Trust said some patients were having to wait longer for an ambulance response "due to system-wide operational pressures", and had to "prioritise those with a life-threatening condition".Mr Crockford believes he needs surgery to fit a stent and is on the waiting list for a married wife Tina in October 1966 and said he was worried he would not survive to see their diamond anniversary."My aim is to reach 60 years of marriage," he said. "It's 59 this year, so I've got a year and a bit to go and I'll have cracked it." 'National situation' York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it recognised some patients faced longer waits than it would like but was working closely with health and care partners, including YAS, to "understand how we can safely speed up the handover of patients".A spokesperson said: "The operational pressures facing the NHS are well documented, and our hospitals are no exception - experiencing high levels of attendance and ambulance arrivals that reflect the national situation." Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
New York Times
02-04-2025
- New York Times
Eating Your Way Through Europe. Or Anywhere, Really.
On an interrail trip across Europe in 1989, years before you could buy Cool Ranch Doritos in Copenhagen or Oreos in Amsterdam, supermarkets and convenience stores in eight countries were comforting for two 19-year-olds from Los Angeles. I know because I was one of them. The stores had a certain familiarity, with the same harsh lighting and aisles of breakfast cereal and laundry detergent found at home. But they also provided a museumlike experience, a chance to sample the culinary quirks and specialty foods of places and their peoples. That summer, Europe came alive to us through salty licorice, prawn-flavor potato chips and wheels of dark rye bread. What has in recent years become widely known, online and in travel circles, as supermarket tourism can take many forms. Its practitioners rave about seeing familiar foods in unexpected flavors, while others embrace it as a means to people-watch or decipher the local palate — all while avoiding pricey restaurant meals homogenized for tourists. For Keith Crockford, the chief executive of the Bucket List Company, an adventure travel operation based in the English county of Devon, 'the allure lies in the thrill of the discovery. It's about unearthing exotic fruits and vegetables I've never encountered before, deciphering labels in unfamiliar languages and marveling at the sheer variety of products that reflect the local tastes and preferences.' A sudden rise last year in travel influencers' social media posts and blog entries extolling the joys of shopping in foreign markets and convenience stores prompted Mr. Crockford and his team to conduct some research on supermarket tourism, the results of which were released in November. In the study, which Mr. Crockford said was conducted by analyzing online search terms using Metis software, tourists and travelers appeared especially interested in the supermarkets and convenience stores of Japan, Mexico, Italy, South Korea and Thailand. And their favorite products? Sake- and matcha-flavor KitKat bars in Japan and Takis, rolled tortilla chips, in flavors typically not found outside Mexico, were among the snacks and candy popular with travelers, the research showed, as were onigiri, or rice balls, in Japan, along with Mexican foods made with tamarind. Italy was prized for its affordable artisanal pastas and baked goods, while South Korea stood out for its wide assortment of ramen and local foods such as freshly prepared banchan, the vegetable-heavy dishes that function as appetizers or sides in Korean cuisine. James Ian, who has visited 83 countries and is the founder of the travel website Travel Collecting, said in an email interview that he enjoyed experiencing a new place through the ingredients of its local cuisine. 'For example, in Norway, there's a lot of brown cheese,' he said. 'It's kind of caramely and is often eaten with waffles — and I've never seen it anywhere other than Norway.' Mr. Ian and his husband, Kevin Dakan, recalled in 2019 sampling salty licorice potato chips in a supermarket in the Sodermalm neighborhood of Stockholm. While Mr. Ian said he still prefers roast chicken chips, a flavor popular in his native Australia, the licorice variety was a hit with Mr. Dakan. Mr. Dakan said he knew that Swedes liked salty licorice, but he was surprised to find the flavor in a potato chip. Still, 'they were oddly enjoyable,' he wrote in an email. Supermarket tourism — and the recent buzz it has generated — likely emerged from a desire among tourists to experience destinations more authentically. 'In recent years, travelers have become increasingly disillusioned with superficial, prepackaged experiences,' Mr. Crockford of the Bucket List wrote in the report. 'They crave genuine interactions, a deeper understanding of the places they visit.' Emma Denley, a travel influencer who lives in London and writes as @dens_destinations, wrote in an email that she thought supermarkets provide a good insight into the local way of life: 'Is there lots of fresh fruit and veg available? Are there healthy snacks or is it more of a ready-meal culture?' 'For me,' she continued, 'I'll always remember my first 7-Eleven ham and cheese toastie in Thailand, and every time I go back, it's the first thing I need to get.' (Carrefour supermarkets in France and Spain, 7-Eleven stores in Thailand and Walmart in the United States were among the retail chains popular with travelers, according to the Bucket List research.) Henna Honkaniemi, a travel blogger, recalled the mild culture shock she experienced seeing wine for sale in supermarkets in Hungary. She was visiting in 2009 from her native Finland, where alcohol is tightly regulated and spirits and full-strength wines still are sold in government-run stores today. After more than a decade — and visits to 23 other countries — selecting a bottle in a foreign grocery store no longer strikes her as unusual. 'But back then it was odd,' she said. Raspberry-broccoli yogurt is one of the more unusual things Bryan Stubbles came across while living in and traveling widely throughout Indonesia. 'It was surprisingly good. Refreshing,' he said, adding that he bought it more than once. (He also became a fan of the banana-flavor milk in South Korea.) During the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, Mr. Stubbles found himself in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he discovered jamu, a flavorful liquid concoction made from natural ingredients such as roots, bark and flowers, at a nearby Japanese convenience store. The jamu came in two flavors: turmeric and honey, and fermented rice. He purchased a couple bottles of the tonic, which is thought to have immune-boosting properties, for about a dollar each. He now makes a version of jamu at his home in Layton, Utah, using turmeric as well as ginger, lime juice, lemongrass and other ingredients. 'The jamu was obviously homemade and home bottled,' he said of those first plastic bottles of the liquid he encountered in Jakarta. 'I liked that a 'modern' convenience store carried something traditional like that.'
CBC
14-02-2025
- Science
- CBC
How do male chimps ask for sex? It depends on their local dialect
When a male chimpanzee wants to hit on a female without causing a scene, he sometimes has to get a little creative. "The alpha male, he can mate with whoever he wants, whenever he wants, and he gets at least half of the offspring," Catherine Crockford of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "The subordinate males, they want to have their go. But, you know, they can't if the alpha male spots them." To avoid the alpha's wrath, Crockford says males use covert physical gestures — which she calls "the sneakies" — to solicit sex. These mating moves, which she and her colleagues documented for a new study, vary between chimpanzee communities, suggesting chimp populations have their own distinct dialects. Crockford says the findings, published in the journal Current Biology, show that chimpanzee conservation is about more than protecting animals; it's about safeguarding entire cultures. Northern knuckle-knockers Crockford and her colleagues looked at the use of mating signals over the course of 45 years among chimpanzees at the Taï National Park in Ivory Coast. Four groups of chimps call the park home, identified by which area of the park they inhabit: north, south, east and northeast. The researchers observed four distinct ways males signalled a desire for sex: knocking their knuckles on a hard surface, kicking their heels, tearing strips from a leaf and waving a branch. While all four groups perform the branch and heel gestures, only the chimps in the northeastern part of the park knuckle-knock and only the southeastern chimps use the leaves. It's a surprising difference for two populations who have a shared gene pool and live just 500 kilometres apart in the same habitat, Crawford said. "The only way that this can come about is that the young males must learn from watching the older males," she said. Julie Teichroeb, who studies primate behaviour at the University of Toronto Scarborough, says she's not surprised by the findings. After all, she says, differences in vocal communications have been well-documented in many different types of animals. Different populations of whales and songbirds, for example, are known to have unique regional dialects. Recent research suggests elephants may even have their own distinct names for each other. Chimpanzees, too, have been shown to have geographic differences in their "pant hoots" which are loud, long-distance calls. In that case, Teichroeb notes, it's unclear whether the differences are cultural or genetic. Culture is fragile In the case of the Taï National Park study, Crockford says there's clearly a cultural factor at play. And cultures, she says, can be lost. In fact, the scientists have already seen this play out. One of Crockford's colleagues, field assistant Honora Néné Kpazahi, first noticed decades ago that males in the park's northern population were knocking their knuckles to get females' attention. But over time, the gesture's prevalence declined as several disease outbreaks, some spilled over from humans, ravaged the population until only two males were left. Illegal poachers killed one of those males, Marius, in 2004. With only one male left standing, the gesture was no longer needed, and it's been lost to that group ever since. Now, only the northeastern chimpanzees do it. The same thing, she says, can happen to other learned behaviours, like the use of tools, which also varies between populations. "The sad thing is that we now know that not only does [poaching] kill chimpanzees, but it kills the cultures," she said. "These cultures can take generations to emerge, we think. And, you know, if you lose those skills, then it might actually impact your survival." Teichroeb said in an email the loss of that knuckle-knocking gesture among Ivory Coast chimps shows "how fragile animal culture is, just like human culture."
