Selfsufficientish.com

http://www.duchyoriginals.com/

The raspberry and lime jam stuff is utterly fantastic! Some nice recipes on the website.

*Grumbles* Living a few miles away from the mess that is Poundbury, you'll have to forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic about Duchy anythings!

Explain?

The publicity you hear about "the Poundbury project" is relentlessly positive, but everyone here hates the thing because;

it's huge and growing fast, swallowing greenfield land

from a distance it looks like disneyland


the houses are cheaply rendered and look tatty in a few years

the houses may be Charles-approved for architectural merit, but the developers jam them in so tight that all the tiny gardens are in deep shade - although that needn't matter because they have no topsoil anyway

despite some council-owned dog kennels (aka "affordable housing") it's still breathtakingly snobby at the moment

Prince Charles is not allowed to sell off Duchy land, but he can invest in new projects like this one to increase the value of the estate and then sell it when the leases run out. The development is beginning to pull trade away from Dorchester (which it overlaps) and the council is running a publicity campaign to stop people "discriminating against Poundbury residents". It's a bit of a laugh, every time Charles visits they paint stuff and chuck lorry loads of yellow sand on the paths but it all gets washed away again in a month or two!

Good to have this inside information... The problem I have with the Duchy products, they are so incredibly expensive. There's other organic stuff that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and tastes just as nice. I think about 20% of the price is paid for the "Duchy" on the packet.

That's the same with other brands, of course.

Just remember the Duchy brand slogan... "of every pound you spend, 20p goes straight in Charlie's pocket"!

Charlie's pockets are quite big, aren't they!

Wait a minute; are you lot implying that this Dutchy Original shortbread that I'm eating has not been made by Camilla herself?

It's easy to tell - has it got hoofmarks in?

Owwwww

Funny hedgewizard

I,ve never bought 'Duchy' products, because they ain,t cheap, and I definately won,t start now!