Monday, October 22, 2007

Apples - Can Things Be Getting Better?

I can't believe I failed to mention yesterday's Apple Day - especially as I was so recently in Normandy, where strange and wonderful varietals hang from every tree (and people actually bother to pick them and use them). This Day is the work of the excellent Common Ground organisation, and has undoubtedly improved matters in England. Several supermarkets now stock interesting English varieties, at least for a while, and they stick litle union jack stickers on their English apples - of which there are many more than there used to be. This is a great improvement on the situation even ten years ago, and shows that, counter-intuitively, things can, in some small ways, get better rather than worse. On the other hand, the hell-bound handcart trundles ever on - the egregious Alan Johnson is at it again. Why stop at children? Why not send the rest of us letters telling us we're fat? I'd love to know, by the way, what the current definition of 'obese' is. A couple of years ago, I had a medical for insurance purposes and the doc declared, with a straight face, that I was 'just' the right side of obesity. I am 6ft 4in tall and weigh about 12 and a half stone.

6 comments:

  1. your link has missing elements, nige

    apple day

    yes, I tried some egremont russets - I even have one on my desk here - very nice. tree matured! that helps I expect. But I don't understand how we got to this relationship with food. We pay the earth for supermarket apples and yet everywhere I look, fruit is left to rot in peoples' gardens - good looking stuff too - plums, cherries, apples and pears, the lot! aren't folk weird?

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  2. A large bag of Pitmaston Pineapple apples here from a farm shop which grows them. Very tasty.

    I've had a similar experience with a doctor (normal bmi = clearly overweight) who promptly ascribed some pesky symptoms to diabetes. They were nothing of the kind, as even I could tell at the time. You'd think doctors were trained to be less not more credulous than the rest of us.

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  3. With a physique of that perfection and an apple a day, you should be able to tell the doctor what to do with his opinions. Or just give the Doc an apple to sink his/her teeth into.

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  4. My god, Nige! You hunk of a man you… I've been searching for somebody of such Herculean proportions to work alternate nights with me. The money's good and you get free thongs. If you feel uncomfortable, you can wear your false nose and glasses. Let me know, ASAP. I'd have to order more baby oil.

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  5. Thanks for the offer Chip - but, being cursed with physical perfection, I prefer to skulk and hide away, unable even to reveal my true identity. It's like the Phantom of the Opera (except the opposite).
    Thanks Ian too for fixing that link.

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  6. Dammit Chip, I was hoping you would convince the man....how about an offer of that pineapple body oil? Would that swing it?

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