The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Going bananas about fruit
I’ve been a bit obsessed with food recently – even more so than usual, it must be said – partly because of all this stockpiling malarkey and the news that, in spite of all kinds of efforts, the Scottish diet has failed to budge an inch (like most Caledonian waistlines) over the past 15 years or so. No more fruit and veg to speak of is insinuating its way into our battered national digestive system, still beset by a predilection for getting most of our five-a-day input from Irn Bru and pizza toppings.
But even I was surprised to read that a new study, albeit not solely highlighting the habits of Scottish youth, has posited that huge percentages of youngsters have no idea where even the most basic fruit and veg comes from.
Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a great many people do not have much of a relationship with what they consume, except to ease the pangs of hunger and keep the kids quiet in front of the telly or Xbox.
One thousand children aged between six and 12 years of age were asked about various fruits, from apples and bananas to kiwi and pineapple. And many definitely don’t know where it’s been before it gets to the shelves of Aldi, Lidl or the local foodbank. Which, ironically, is currently one of the very few banks actually to be opening local branches, but there you go.
Although it did emerge that they ate about 10 pieces of fruit a week. It may not be a five a day but what the hell, it’s a start. Great oaks from little acorns grow.
I’ve really got the flavour of this survey, haven’t I?
I did feel it a little harsh to assume colossal ignorance when some unsuspecting bairn suggested that a banana comes from a tree, rather than a plant.
Tomay-to, tomah-to, maybe? I wouldn’t have known that myself but the young don’t have the excuse of being indoctrinated at an early age by being forced to listen to Harry Belafonte (remember “Yellow bird, up high in banana tree…”? Thought not…).
These days, of course, we are all told that money does not grow on trees, except for the magic money tree that the fragrant Theresa May somehow always manages to conjure out of thin air and, obviously, some very effective form of manure, when she needs to encourage support. But I digress…
A total of 96% of the kiddies didn’t understand the origins of raspberries and 95% were equally ignorant about where strawberries come from. Mind you, given the employment prospects in the currently beleaguered soft fruit industry in this country, it can surely only be a matter of time before they’ll all be out there harvesting what is currently rotting on the vine. And yes, I do know that strawberries don’t grow on vines, thank you very much.
It’s a kind of contemporary version of sending small children up chimneys – “Get up that polytunnel if you know what’s good for you!” – like some kind of contemporary Simon Legree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Pick the bones – if not the strawberries – out of that.
Flames
Just when you thought that strangeness and satire couldn’t get any stranger or more satirical, it’s a true pleasure to come across a story that literally takes, well, not exactly the mick…
I was tickled (or maybe that should be tinkled) pink to read the glad tidings that a young man out with his family in heatwave-hit Southend last week helped to put out a fire.
This broke out on the iconic Southend Pier, only rebuilt about a dozen years ago after a hugely destructive blaze in 2005, and this coolheaded passer-by distinguished himself by relieving himself on the flames.
Apart from this gentleman, his partner and their offspring, the pier was happily deserted at the time so no one was pit oot (apart from the fire) by his quick-thinking actions. It takes you back to the halcyon days of ’Allo, ’Allo, when the speech-mangling Officer Crabtree always just happened to be “p*ssing (instead of passing) by…”
This one-man sprinkler system restores something of my jaundiced faith in human nature, as did the nicely humorous response of the local fire services who ran with the joke and didn’t even mention issuing him with a summons for doing such a thing in a public place.
I am only thankful that it has not yet dawned on the local authority, in these days of austerity and public service cutbacks, that here might be yet another way to save money and get the general public to do their work for them. It takes the notion of trickledown economics to new levels, too.
As I have felt constrained to point out on previous occasions, the only effect that most of us experience from the notion of wealth percolating down from the top point 0002 % of the rich to the rest of us down below, is of being trickled down on from a great height.
“96% of the kiddies didn’t understand origins of raspberries