the times | Wednesday December 22 2021 2GM 5
News
Grapes used in popular French, Italian
and Spanish wines may actually have
originated on the edge of western Asia,
according to a study.
Michele Morgante, a professor of
plant genomics at the University of
Udine in northern Italy, and Gabriele
Di Gaspero, a researcher at the city’s
Institute of Applied Genomics, exam-
European winemakers have Georgia on their mind as home of grapes
Cameron Charters
A barrister sued senior prosecutors for
harassment after a fellow lawyer asked
him to stop breaking wind in a small
shared office.
Tarique Mohammed worked at the
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and
blamed his severe flatulence on
medication he took after suffering a
heart attack.
He told an employment tribunal that
his bosses and colleagues targeted him
after he returned to work from medical
leave, which not only embarrassed him,
but also violated his dignity.
The tribunal rejected his claim,
ruling that it was reasonable for his
colleague to request that he stop break-
ing wind due to the size of the office and
the repetitive nature of his farting.
The flatulence allegation was part of
a series of disability-related claims
brought by Mohammed against the
CPS, the organisation that prosecutes
crime in England and Wales. He also
others to help spread the word about
the world’s favourite outlaw.”
Nottinghamshire’s county cricket
team is nicknamed the Outlaws.
David Clarke, of Sheffield Hallam
University, who contributed to Eaton’s
book, said: “Loxley was identified as
Robin’s birthplace in two sources that
date from the early 17th century.”
Clarke added: “All we’re saying is,
there is a lot of evidence that someone
who called themselves Robin Hood was
born in Sheffield, not necessarily the
Robin Hood, because there is no such
thing as the Robin Hood.
“The fact that people are getting so
hot under the collar about it, even now,
800 years after this person is supposed
to have lived and died, suggests it does
actually mean something to people.”
There have been calls for a statue
depicting Robin Hood as a young boy to
be put up in Sheffield as part of the city’s
Robin Hood tourist trail.
Yorkshire’s claim even reached
parliament in 2004 when David
Hinchliffe, MP for Wakefield, raised
concerns that it was not making the
most of its connections to the legend.Sheffield claims Robin Hood
as a merry Yorkshireman
George SandemanTribunal tries to clear air
in flatulent barrister case
accused colleagues and bosses of
discriminating against him by deliber-
ately throwing his water bottles away,
asking him to work one day a week at a
venue 60 miles away from his normal
office, and failing to pay his barrister’s
practising certificate fee while he was
on sick leave.
All those claims, along with the
flatulence complaint, were dismissed
by the tribunal.
However, Mohammed will receive
compensation after the CPS accepted
that it had treated him unfairly by not
allowing him to work from home two
days a week or leave work early to help
him manage his condition, and by
removing him from court duties.
The hearing at a tribunal in Reading
was told that Mohammed began work
in the Thames Valley area as a senior
prosecutor in 2004. Ten years later he
suffered a heart attack that left him re-
quiring daily medication.
The tribunal heard that Mohammed
complained formally to his bosses afteranother senior prosecutor disposed of
up to five of his used water bottles,
which he had left on a shared desk. Wil-
son said he thought they were rubbish
but Mohammed accused colleagues of
“ganging up” on him.
The next year he started sharing a
small office with another prosecutor,
Paul McGorry. The tribunal was told
that after two or three days McGorry
noticed that his colleague had flatu-
lence. “On one occasion Mr McGorry
asked, ‘Do you have to do that Tar-
ique?’ ” According to the ruling,
Mohammed explained that the flatu-
lence was the result of his medication.
McGorry “asked if he could step outside
to do it” but Mohammed “said that he
could not”. The tribunal added: “It was
not an unreasonable question to ask.”
The tribunal found the CPS was
guilty of disability discrimination and
failing to make reasonable adjust-
ments. It encouraged Mohammed and
CPS officials to agree on compensation
without the need for a further hearing.Jonathan Ames Legal Editor
A teacher claims he has found proof of
where Robin Hood was born after
discovering a stone marker and carved
cross behind the playground of his
primary school at Loxley, near Shef-
field, South Yorkshire.
In a new book, Reclaiming Robin
Hood, Dan Eaton claims that the
artefacts mark the cottage where Robin
of Loxley, also spelt Locksley, was born.
The literature is sponsored by Shef-
field council as part of its campaign to
“Bring Robin Home” but it has drawn
the ire of the Sheriff of Nottingham, an
office whose one-time holder clashed
with the outlaw, according to folklore.
“Robin Hood is as much from
Sheffield as Jarvis Cocker is from
Nottingham,” said Merlita Bryan.
“Everyone knows his arch-rival wasn’t
the Sheriff of Sheffield.”
She added: “We get it, Yorkshire
wants a piece of the legendary action.
We’ve had similar claims from Kent,
Wales and elsewhere before, but really
everyone knows that he was from Not-
tingham. But we’re always happy forANDREW MATTHEWS, JANE BARLOW/PA; SIMON PIZZEY/SWNSSwimmers
celebrate
the shortest
day of year
C
lassical ballet
dancers, hardy
swimmers and
a yoga group
braved the cold
to celebrate the winter
solstice early yesterday
(Ross Kaniuk writes).
At Portobello beach inEdinburgh, Agnes
Pachacz, Sasha Udell,
Charlotte Gardiner and
Andrea Taylor went
swimming at the end of
the longest night of the
year, while the dance
group greeted sunrise at
8.13am on SelsleyCommon in Stroud,
Gloucestershire.
The common enjoys
spectacular views over
the river Severn and is
the site of a large
neolithic burial mound.
The National Trust’s
Corfe Castle in Dorsetwas the setting for a
yoga session at first
light. The castle, which
dates back to the 11th
century, was one of the
first to be built at least
partly from stone, and
its hilltop position and
distinctive silhouettemake it a popular tourist
location all year round.
The winter solstice
falls on, or around,
December 21 every year
in the northern
hemisphere, marking
the point in which there
is the shortest amount ofdaylight in the calendar
year.
This year, there were
only six hours and 11
minutes of daylight on
the shortest day in the
Orkney Isles, with the
sun rising at 9:04am and
settling at 3:15pm.Swimmers in Portobello,
Edinburgh, rose early to
mark the winter solstice,
as did dancers in
Gloucestshire and a yoga
class at Corfe Castle, Dorsetined the genomes of 204 common
grape vines in Georgia, which is
thought to have been making wine
longer than anywhere else in the world.
They found that grapes used in varie-
ties such as merlot, chardonnay, sauvi-
gnon blanc and pinot noir emerged
during a single “domestication” in the
region. There then followed an exten-
sive period of inter-breeding with
grapes from Georgia and Europe.This differs from earlier theories sug-
gesting that European wines came from
the harvesting of wild grape species on
the continent without cross-breeding
with grapes from western Asia.
The latest findings also indicate that
grapes in Italy and France have the
most genetically diverse background in
European countries.
The research, published in the jour-
nal Nature Communications, “identifiedthe genetic footprints for domestica-
tion and breeding selection, which de-
termine the grapes used for today’s
winemaking. The authors observed
similar levels of genetic diversity in wild
grapes and in the varieties used for to-
day’s winemaking.”
Popular Georgian grapes used for
wine include the saperavi, which can be
turned into a dry, semi-sweet wine that
is often served with spicy foods. Muchof Georgian wine is shipped to the US,
where its sweet flavour is popular.
Georgia is thought to have produced
wine for 8,000 years. The Soviet period
was initially good for its winemaking
because the produce was considered
better than others available to Russians.
But Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol
campaign in the 1980s cut off some of
the older wineries. It has taken the
industry decades to rebuild.