Core principles: the return of ‘real’ cider
“When I started out 10 years ago, only three of the makers here were even in business,” says Felix Nash, gesturing to the reams of golden bottles that line the shelves of his shop.I’m at the Fine Cider Company in London Fields, east London, with its founder, having arrived with the hope of lapping up all that fine cider has to offer inside a neat hour.(Spoiler alert: I leave thirsty and inspired.)Although much of recent cider-making history is defined by mergers and mass-market production, there’s also an exciting re-emergence of terroir-focused production, though that is something Nash claims has always been a part of the UK’s agricultural DNA: “One of the first things the Royal Society ever published was on perry and cider, when John Beale, an early fellow, recognised that an apple variety called redstreak grew particularly well in certain parts of Herefordshire, a concept we now understand as terroir.”These days, much of the UK’s cider production is mass market, which has to be only 35% apple concentrate, and the fruit can come from just about anywhere.
“Whatever’s cheapest, they’ll ferment the syrup up to 14% or 15% ABV, cut it back with water, and then it’s ready in two weeks,” Nash says,“That’s the norm for the big makers, which is sad, because until the 1950s some of them used to make champagne cider,Now, terroir isn’t so much as given a thought,We have some of the best ingredients to make cider in the world, and more people need to know about it, otherwise it’s turned into concentrate,”Ninety per cent of our apple orchards have disappeared since the second world war, whether replanted for other crops, rooted up for development or just plain neglected, and 50% of the ones that do still survive are in poor condition.
That’s why cider makers are calling on the government to protect our traditional orchards, while local projects such as Find & Foster seek to restore small orchards using old maps from the People’s Trust for Endangered Species.(For a deeper dive, read Tomé Morrissy-Swan’s fabulous article for the Observer.)A good way to support the industry is, as always, to buy from it.Nash notes that he’s currently seeing a funnelling of natural wine drinkers into fine cider, with those who have a penchant for the funky being priced out of buying their favourite bottles as often as they’d like after significant price rises.And for those who want to drink something British, but don’t have the budget for English sparkling wine (more on why that costs what it does here), fine cider might also be a solution.
If you’re still on the fence, let the makers convince you themselves – the London Cider Salon is coming up on 21 June at Tate Modern in London, and provides an opportunity to taste your way through 30 producers (early bird tickets are now on sale for £20),I’ll see you there,Townsend Farm Wild-Ferment Cider £3,50 Delli (330ml), 5%,A single serve of assorted apple varieties from Ledbury, dosaged with jonagold apple juice.
Wilding Cider Quercus £13.50 Beckford Bottle Shop (750ml), 7.5%.Textured, full and intense – one for amber wine lovers.Kingston Black Pét Nat 2022 £15 Little Pomona (750ml), 7.
7%.A single, spontaneous fermentation produces a bright, effervescent cider.Homage to Hogg Premium Cider £16 Naughton Cider Company (750ml), 13%.A Scottish cider aged in oak for 10 months and bottled on cork, like a champagne.
AI firms warned to calculate threat of super intelligence or risk it escaping human control
Artificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems. Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probability that a highly advanced AI would pose an existential threat. The US government went ahead with Trinity in 1945, after being reassured there was a vanishingly small chance of an atomic bomb igniting the atmosphere and endangering humanity.In a paper published by Tegmark and three of his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), they recommend calculating the “Compton constant” – defined in the paper as the probability that an all-powerful AI escapes human control. In a 1959 interview with the US writer Pearl Buck, Compton said he had approved the test after calculating the odds of a runaway fusion reaction to be “slightly less” than one in three million
Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa among artists urging Starmer to rethink AI copyright plans
Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.Describing copyright as the “lifeblood” of their professions, the letter warns Starmer that the proposed legal change will threaten Britain’s status as a leading creative power.“We will lose an immense growth opportunity if we give our work away at the behest of a handful of powerful overseas tech companies and with it our future income, the UK’s position as a creative powerhouse, and any hope that the technology of daily life will embody the values and laws of the United Kingdom,” the letter says.The letter urges the government to accept an amendment to the data bill proposed by Beeban Kidron, the cross-bench peer and leading campaigner against the copyright proposals
‘Tone deaf’: US tech company responsible for global IT outage to cut jobs and use AI
The cybersecurity company that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to “AI efficiency”.In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business.“We’re operating in a market and technology inflection point, with AI reshaping every industry, accelerating threats, and evolving customer needs,” he said.Kurtz said AI “flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster”, adding it “drives efficiencies across both the front and back office”.“AI is a force multiplier throughout the business,” he said
Leave them hanging on the telephone | Brief letters
Regarding dealing with cold callers (Adrian Chiles, 7 May), it’s irritating I know, but if you don’t mind your phone being inaccessible for a few minutes, why not say: “Hang on, I’ll go and get him/her”, and then leave your phone until the caller rings off? At least you will have wasted some of their day.Robert WalkerPerrancoombe, Cornwall Re fostering a love of reading in children (Letters, 6 May), one of my fondest memories of my teaching career was story time in the infant class in a local village school. Most of the children came quite a distance on buses. They adored Michael Rosen’s poetry. There were many afternoons when it was home time and they would shout: “Please read another Michael Rosen one, Mrs Mansfield, the driver won’t mind waiting
Wikipedia challenging UK law it says exposes it to ‘manipulation and vandalism’
The charity that hosts Wikipedia is challenging the UK’s online safety legislation in the high court, saying some of its regulations would expose the site to “manipulation and vandalism”.In what could be the first judicial review related to the Online Safety Act, Wikimedia Foundation claims it is at risk of being subjected to the act’s toughest category 1 duties, which impose additional requirements on the biggest sites and apps.The foundation said if category 1 duties were imposed on it, the safety and privacy of Wikipedia’s army of volunteer editors would be undermined, its entries could be manipulated and vandalised, and resources would be diverted from protecting and improving the site.Announcing that it was seeking a judicial review of the categorisation regulations, the foundation’s lead counsel, Phil Bradley-Schmieg, said: “We are taking action now to protect Wikipedia’s volunteer users, as well as the global accessibility and integrity of free knowledge.”The foundation said it was not challenging the act as a whole, nor the existence of the requirements themselves, but the rules that decide how a category 1 platform is designated
Tech giants beat quarterly expectations as Trump’s tariffs hit the sector
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, and this week in tech news: Trump’s tariffs hit tech companies that move physical goods more than their digital-only counterparts. Two stories about AI’s effect on the labor market paint a murky picture. Meta released a standalone AI app, a product it claims already has a billion users through enforced omnipresence. OpenAI dialed back an obsequious version of ChatGPT
Woolworths is cutting prices from today. Expect more supermarket competition – but not an all-out price war
Thames Water CEO says crisis ‘decades in the making’; US inflation hits four-year low – as it happened
Trump strikes a blow for AI – by firing the US copyright supremo
House of Lords pushes back against government’s AI plans
Court urged to jail Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s father for ‘regime of repeated abuse’
Olympic wrestling champion Kyle Snyder arrested in Ohio prostitution sting