Future looks chipper for my potato cousin

EVEN now, after all these years, I still get a tiny little thrill whenever I see my name in print. Of course, each individual part of that name, Craig and Brown, is relatively common.

This means that there are quite a few Craig Browns, not least Craig Brown, the former manager of the Scotland football team.

In fact, unlike me, most of the other Craig Browns seem to excel at sport: there is an Australian cricketer called Craig Brown, an American curler called Craig Brown and a member of Jamaica’s taekwondo team called Craig Brown.

When I spot the name of any other Craig Brown in print, I still experience a twinge of pride, even though I know it’s not me. We Craig Browns are all in it together, come what may.

Recently, I have been keeping an eye on a couple from new Zealand called Colin and Donna Craig-Brown.

Strictly speaking, theirs is a double-barrelled surname rather than, like mine, a Christian name-plus-surname, but that’s no reason why they should feel any less welcome in the worldwide community of Craig Browns.

Last August, Colin and Donna Craig-Brown hit the headlines when they discovered a giant potato in their garden. This potato (pictured above) weighed 17lb 3oz, or more than twice as much as the average newborn baby.

THE Craig-Browns wittily decided to give their XXXL potato the nickname Doug. They were so proud of Doug that they constructed a little cart in which to parade him up and down the highways and byways of hamilton, new Zealand, for all to admire.

Doug the giant potato has since been featured in newspapers and on television all over the world.

It’s always tricky to gauge something as nebulous as fame, but I’d say that within the space of a fortnight Doug’s fame was on a par with that of Piers Corbyn or The Cheeky Girls; perhaps more so, bearing in mind his international reach.

Given our family connection, I’ve been tracking Doug’s progress and, to be frank, slightly dreading the morning I would open my newspaper to find he had been turned into a pan-full of chips or a great mountain of mash. happily, Doug is still with us.

earlier this week, the Craig-Browns were in the news again, declaring that they had placed Doug in their freezer, following worries that he might be losing weight.

Since digging up Doug back in August, they have been fighting to gain him the title of World’s heaviest Potato in the Guinness Book of World Records.

One might have thought that Doug’s inclusion was a mere formality: after all, the present record-holder, a potato found in Britain in 2011, weighed barely 11 lb, so was a pathetic little shrimp in comparison.

But officials at the Guinness World Records have been demanding a DnA test. They want proof that Doug is a potato and not some other form of vegetable — a parsnip, say, or a swede.

Furthermore, they insist that Doug may not be tested at home in new Zealand, but in Scotland, where white-coated boffins will determine his molecular footprint. The CraigBrowns say that this lack of trust in their discovery has left them feeling dejected.

They have, they say, been on a ‘roller-coaster of emotion’ but vow to keep fighting for justice.

‘Do they think that I genetically modified it?’ asks Mr Craig-Brown.

‘While it’s extremely deflating, I want to prove them wrong. We will do everything they ask us.’

Of course, if they find that Doug is not a potato, then he must still stand a good chance of claiming the title World’s heaviest Parsnip, or whatever they end up calling him.

Or, if he is dead-set on the potato crown, perhaps he would be better off arguing that, whatever type of vegetable identification he is assigned, he is veggie-fluid, and now identifies as a potato.

To ease his transition, when Mr and Mrs Craig-Brown next wheel him around town in his little cart, they could dress him appropriately — as Dauphinoise, covering him in a creamy, garlicky sauce, or as a Spanish Omelette, surrounded by onions, eggs and olive oil.

either way, my potatoey cousin Doug Craig-Brown clearly has a bright future ahead of him.

What with his natural charisma and his uncanny resemblance to Tv’s Gregg Wallace, he must surely be a shoo-in for the job of hosting new Zealand MasterChef.