Midge burger and flies please

They are the scourge of the Scottish summer, vicious little blighters that can destroy an afternoon in the countryside.

When a bubble of tiny black midges hovers into view, there is little one can do but flee. Some say certain brands of moisturiser will repeal the beasties, while others insist that smoking is the only way to keep them at bay. The latter seems rather an extreme solution.

But one man is ready to take the fight to the midges. Hotelier David Beat plans to offer veggieburgers coated in midges. That sound you hear, dear reader, is your own mouth watering. What food doesn’t seem more appealing if one imagines it covered in thousands of tiny insects? Mr Keat points out that, with ants and grasshoppers on menus across the world, offering midges for dinner isn’t as crazy as it seems. The Scotsman is always keen to champion innovation but we remain to be convinced of the merits of eating anything which one would usually pay to have removed from under the house by a man wearing a biohazard suit and carrying a cylinder with a skull and crossbones painted on the side.