Cornish recycling drive sows confusion among Reg Standards Bureau
- Reference: 1766136615
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/19/pasty_standard/
- Source link:
Cornwall Council announced that its revamped food waste collection service had [1]boosted recycling rates by more than a fifth to 52 percent – a remarkable achievement for any authority, even one presided over by a hereditary Duke with virtually unlimited feudal powers and a penchant for flogging overpriced own-brand groceries.
New measurement alert: Liz Truss inspires new Register standard [2]READ MORE
The feat is particularly impressive given that Cornish folk traditionally prefer to bury unwanted items down mines or incorporate them into holiday homes.
To illustrate the program's success, the council revealed it had collected a "staggering 20,000 tonnes of leftovers, teabags, and everything else that goes in your food caddy."
Then came a Reg -ian twist: "That's the equivalent weight of more than 66 million pasties!" Quick math: 303.03 grams per pasty. Our reader immediately nominated it as a unit of measurement.
[3]
And that's where the confusion began. An escapee from The Reg freelance bench heard the ensuing discussion, and piped up: "How could a pasty weigh 303 grams? It would never stay in place."
[4]
[5]
Blank faces from the standards board. True, we've never attempted to stick a pasty to a wall. Well, not often. And certainly not on the window of the 11:30pm train after The Reg Christmas party. But the filling can be viscous enough for a majestic vertical slide.
Our freelancer asked: "And does that include the tassel?"
[6]
Tassel? Why are we talking tassels instead of a crisp ridge of hard-baked pastry, firm enough to hold betwixt finger and thumb, assuming the rest of the casing doesn't break, sending a mix of scalding hot potato, beef, turnip, and God knows what else sliding down your wrist and inside the cuffs of your fisherman's jumper.
[7]Japan stops measuring train crowding by ease of newspaper readership
[8]Forget feet and inches, latest UK units of measurement are thinking bigger
[9]New measurement alert: Liz Truss inspires new Register standard
[10]Global tat supply line clogged as Suez Canal authorities come to aid of wedged 18-brontosaurus container ship
Then the penny dropped. Pasty also refers to a disc of fabric or other material to protect the nipple. The long-distance runners among you will know the agony of chafed chests, particularly following a just-above-zero midwinter exertion.
Which got us thinking. Could the pasty be just the sort of circumference measurement we've been waiting for?
Some quick googling, and it seems that pasties come in a variety of diameters, roughly between 2.4 and 4 inches. But it seems pasties are also rather variable, from 280 to 350 grams.
So, to ensure maximum efficiency, this will mean a lot of additional work to define both a standard pasty, and, critically, a standard pasty. And that's before we can begin to decide whether the latest addition to The Reg standards canon is a pasty or, alternatively, a pasty.
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Or we throw the decision across to you, dear readers.
Is a pasty not just a European Commission-endorsed foodstuff, but a much-needed unit of mass? Or is it an ideal way of signifying radial measurements AND a cunning way of preventing inadvertent chafing?
Readers, the [12]choice is yours . ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-news/transport-streets-and-waste/cornwall-s-recycling-rate-increases-by-more-than-20-after-new-collections-rolled-out/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/truss_reg_standards/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUUwRq0n85-_SE9NnysjOwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUUwRq0n85-_SE9NnysjOwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUUwRq0n85-_SE9NnysjOwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUUwRq0n85-_SE9NnysjOwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/06/japan_train_crowding_measurement/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/16/uk_measurement_silliness/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/truss_reg_standards/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/24/evergiven/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUUwRq0n85-_SE9NnysjOwAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Proper Job!
Thinking about it, the A303 is the road that takes you through the crap bits before you get to Cornwall, so I propose that 303 is the final figure
I have to commend and support your remarkable perception regarding the A303 - but I find your lack of appreciation for East Devon as a "crap bit" highly disconcerting...
The difference between a Cornish and a Devon pasty also requires careful consideration, the obviously superior and almost always award winning Cornish pasty is a multifunctional device of measurement, diameter, weight, length, angular* and also direction (a pasty, when suspended by a string, will always point to it's home county)
* Each edge crimp is an increment of 9° on a proper job.
I love pasties whether Devonian or Cornish, and as a Devonian I have to mention that the first recorded use of the word pasty was in South Devon.
An excess of pasties ....
.... has both increased my weight, and my circumference!
-----------> Mine's the one that's wider in the middle!
2.4 and 4 inches. But it seems pasties are also rather variable, from 280 to 350 grams.
Oh for Bob's sake. Make your mind up if you're going to use imperial or metric, please!
Pasty dimensions should be specified in Linguine
It's the law
We're British, we buy cheese in grammes and measure distance in miles, we drank beer in pints and buy milk in litres.
......to the eternal confusion and amusement of my german partner! Everything is metric unless its on the road or in a pub, although (whisper it quietly) technically the standard beer serving in a pub is now 568ml
And buy petrol in litres and measure its consumption in miles per gallon.
If only Lester were still with us, he'd know
To wherever he may be ------->
I guess we could always have both units of measurement, appended as follows:
pasty (cornish)
pasty (nipple)
with units of "pc" and "pn" respectively. Given their differences in size, they are both useful.
The GP is a Thermal Unit!
Being Northern, I have to say that I find The Gregg(s) a superior unit to the Pastie, not only does it do weight but it also done thermal as its the unit of measurement the govt uses to be Amibent for tax reasons and we know how wonderful HMRC are, also for health and safety, happy Christmas.
1 Greggs Pasty (GP) = The amount of thermal energy required to be molten-lava hot on the outside while remaining geologically cold in the centre.
The Greggs Heat Scale
• 0.2 GP – Warmish. Safe. You think, “I’ll bite the corner.”
• 0.5 GP – Deceptively hot. Steam escapes. Confidence still unjustified.
• 1.0 GP – Standard Greggs Pasty
Outside: surface of the sun
Inside: Victorian cellar temperature
• 1.5 GP – Tongue damage likely. Regret sets in. You keep eating anyway.
• 2.0 GP – Full mouth burn. Roof-of-mouth skin sacrifice. No lesson learned.
• 3.0 GP (Festival Variant) – Has been under a heat lamp since 6am. Classed as a controlled weapon.
Common Usage
• “That coffee’s about 0.7 Greggs.”
• “Careful mate, that’s at least 1.3 pasties.”
• “Microwaved lasagne? Solid 2 Greggs, edges lethal, middle frozen.”
Key Scientific Properties
• Non-uniform heat distribution (core remains inexplicably cold)
• Time-dependent danger (cooling curve lies to you)
• Overconfidence amplification in hungry subjects
In short:
The Greggs pasty is not a precise unit; it’s a warning system.
Re: The GP is a Thermal Unit!
A downvote for considering Gregg's as acceptable food
Re: The GP is a Thermal Unit!
Down vote as there is no apostrophe, it's Greggs... not Gregg's.... Greggs of Gosforth if you want to be posh!
Re: The GP is a Thermal Unit!
An upvote for your pedantry
Re: The GP is a Thermal Unit!
A downvote for considering Greggs as food
"And certainly not on the window of the 11:30pm train after The Reg Christmas party."
So what was it that el Reg tried to stick on the windows of the 11.30pm train? Curious minds want to know. Or maybe it would be better not to know.
Maybe they saw the Moderatrix down the train and were trying to escape...
Ah, Ms Bee is still missed.
Re:- “sows confusion”
I read that as a confused pig.
But then…
Proper Pasty
Cornish pasties were originally invented to be a complete mean for miners and other workers, and having two compartments, the first containing meat, potatoes, vegetables etc and a second smaller compartment containing the pudding e.g. filled with jam or something similar. The Pasty was designed such that it could be carried in a lunch box or bag without disintegrating.
None of the above mentioned Pasties takes into consideration the jammy bit.
Nice try.
Quite amusing story, but only holds up when written down. And even then requires a misspelling. Cornish Pasty, burlesque pastie. Pastie pronounced like paste, i.e. the adhesive used to attach it. So not really to be confused in spoken conversation. And yes, in NI a pasty is a pastie, but the pronunciation is (basically) the same.
The pasty is usually singular ...
... but pasties come in pairs.
So I'd suggest the pasty is obviously the unit of mass.
Beer: often found in close proximity to either option.
GUT feeling
Maybe what is needed is a Grand Unified Theory. One that connects the mass of a pasty with it's size.
Quantum field theory can help here. We have Einstein's E = mc² to associate mass with energy and QFT can be stretched to consider Planck's constant multiplied by the speed of light. Here "c" might be cancelled from both the energy term and the distance.
Some jiggery pokery might then lead to the wavelength of a (cornish) pasty by invoking wave-particle duality.
The ambivalent nature of pasty / pasty might also be resolved through a Schroedinger's cat approach. Put both items in a box, microwave them and see whether the result smells delicious or like sweaty bodies.
After that, you're on your own
The main thing is that you don't get over-excited and get your units confused and add Linguine to a pasty
Mine's a pint of Skinner's -->