Track of the Week

Know your Organic Paraguayan Melons

If you want to know what it’s like to do your groceries in Japan, you could do worse than shop in an organic supermarket. In both places the going rate for a melon is about 40 quid. The other great thing about the organic supermarket, though, is that you can feel better about buying yourself healthy stuff there like melons that come over from Paraguay in a jet and change the climate. Always insist on your organic supermarket selling you your organic  Paraguayan melons when they’re in season. Don’t be brushed off. ‘Of course they’re in season’, you can insist. ‘Look, it’s snowing outside. It is August.’

Track of the Week

Sorting Out Your Plumbing

There is some documentary evidence that sexual encounters arise from ladies requesting the services of a plumber. In each case, the response time appears to be prompt because the lady never appears to have had time to dress properly or check whether her clothing has been properly secured. The plumber notices this, but to the credit of the professional standards they uphold, never because he was hoping to see something. The ‘reveal’ has always come about accidentally while he has been concentrating on something like the U-bend of a blocked sink. Porn film producers may have felt themselves (most certainly they have after a few takes of any one scene) very fortunate in capturing these moments, but they should be made aware that in the event that the unsuspecting plumber cannot achieve what we might call ‘the required amount of pride to complete the job’, the trade to which he belongs will insist on a call-out fee.

Perhaps producers of pornography would be better advised to contact workmen of other trades who will call round and offer a free estimate.

The Prodded Avocado Dilemma

We prod avocado pears to gauge whether they are ripe or not. Or we do if we know what we’re doing around avocadoes. A slight squishiness is what we’re after, just the right side of a squelch. But often the hope far outweighs the expectation. We may end up prodding every one of a supermarket pile of breeze-block hard unripened pears hoping that one will yield. And well one might, if and only if, you are the 20^th prodder to perform the ritual, by which time one may have been softened up enough to give the impression that it is ripe. The avocado is much like celery – you put more energy into getting it into your stomach than you get out of it. (Apparently somebody found that eating squirrels will also leave you wanting more (if you liked the first one) – probably somebody who survived on something more than squirrel (else he wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale), on what we might term a ‘squirrel-supplemented diet’.)

The avocado was first introduced to the West at ‘small gatherings’, which is middle-class speak for a drink at somebody’s house where you’re not supposed to invite any psychotic drunks. This was some time in the 1990s where the avocado was sporting itself in guacamole. A hostess might leave the guacamole in a bowl next to some Doritos and entreat members of the gathering to try it by saying ‘Dips?’ in a slightly high-pitched tone; or take the bowl to members asking ‘Nibbles?’

Damp Sleeve Becomes Damp Squib

The clothes horse contributes to creating more dampness issues than it solves in drying.

Note we say that it ‘contributes’ rather than it is responsible, because it is the washing machine that gets the ball rolling. Consider the long johns top and bottoms. When we take them out of the wash we witness a phenomenon. One arm of the top and one leg of the bottoms have turned inside out. Naturally they are damp and need to be hung on a clothes horse to dry. So here’s the conundrum. Do we hang them up as is, the limbs twisted so that they ride the clothes horse side saddle, or do we brave reaching within the damp long john arm or leg to correct the disfigurement? Either way we run the very real threat of experiencing uncomfortable dampness. If we hang twisted, the crotch on the bottoms or the armpit on the top will dry at a slower rate than the rest of the garment. On the other hand, if we reach inside the sleeve or leg, we dampen the sleeve of the top we are already wearing.

‘So, we are left with dampness in the crotch’, you might think (flippantly). ‘I’ve dealt with underpants in the past where I wore them before the waistband properly dried’ you say with a touch of bravado. ‘They dried off in the wear’ - much like you run off a dead leg if you take a hit in a football match. ‘Sure they left a little red rash or sore’, you admit. But what if you’re a resident of Greenland? A Greenlander? Present any dampness to the Arctic air and you’re playing with frostbite. And frostbite is not a fun playmate (usually, or perhaps never – definitely veering towards the ‘never’ scale of things). So you right the damp leg of your long john bottoms, your sleeve emerges damp, the doorbell rings, you answer, you hold the door open for a delivery man to duck under your arm and deliver whatever he is delivering, next thing you know you’ve a frozen sleeve holding your arm aloft in the holding the door open position in a kind of frozen ‘Seig Heil’. Or had you hung up twisted, you’ve exposed a damp armpit.

Now, frostbite is ‘alleviated’ by amputation. That’s the best it can do in the alleviation department. ‘Don’t even bother trying to alleviate if that’s the best you can do’, you might want to say, but frostbite is loathe to reason. Damp armpit solution: armpit amputation. But how do you amputate a pit, a cavity? You could take off the armpit hair and the sweat gland – that’s as probably as much as you’re going to get trying to get rid of an armpit. But what are the consequences? You wouldn’t be able to sweat. A good thing you might suppose. A saving on deodorant you reason. But what if you’re planning a summer holiday away from the frozen waste and walruses of Greenland? Then you’re going to overheat big time. Greenlanders be warned, if you’re blasé about getting chill into your armpits through clothes horse usage, then holiday locally - take a ‘staycation’.

Footnote. Anecdotal information: my partner tells me that I should check that my long johns legs/arms aren't already inside out when I throw them in the dirty washing basket. I shall endeavour to do this, but still check whether the washing machine is responsible for this inside-outing phenomenon.