P&J Column 9.2.17

Spiralized Courgette? It’s the thin end of the veg.

How are you surviving the great vegetable famine of 2017? We asked 3 regular contributors for their views

Davina Smythe-Barrat, ordinary mum.

Just when we thought that with Trump and Brexit, this year couldn’t possibly be worse than 2016; I find myself unable to supply my (almost certainly gluten intolerant) children with their life-saving spiralized courgette. Will this waking nightmare never end? Worse still, I’m throwing a dinner party at the weekend for some of the other ordinary mums from my Friends of the Earth group. We meet once a month to discuss ways of reducing our carbon footprint. At Stobo Castle. It’s a bit of a hike for everyone, but the spa is amazing. Anyway, I’ve promised those eco-warriors Snezhana’s authentic ratatouille, and I can’t let them down. I’m just going to have to airfreight my veggies from the States. Tragic.

Kevin Cash, Money Saving Expert and King of the Grips

Dizna mak ony great odds to me.  As lang as Asda still his Pot Noodles and its ain-brand Red Bull, yer pal Kevin will nae go withoot nutrition.  But I see the poshos is having an affa time o’ it.  Bless. But never forget – a wrinkle in the rules o’ supply and demand means that there is money to be made for someone.  And me and my pal Mick the Pill hiv decided that someone is gaan tae be us.  Following an extensive cost-benefit analysis, Mick his decided to switch production o’ his dedicated artificial-light growing facility in the sticks (I’d be mair specific, but then I’d hiv to kill ye) fae cannabis tae iceberg lettuce.  He’ll be selling the first fruits o’ his labours roond the wine-bars to avid veg-heads desperate for a leaf to munch as early as next Thursday.  In the meantime, we’re experimenting on creating modified aubergines.  Aye, nae genetically modified, we’re jist spray-pinting tatties purple.  That’s the value!

Tanya Souter, local lifestyle guru

Hear me; I seen a sign up at Aldi this wik saying that lettuces wis limited tae 3 per person.  Weel, I da ken aboot youse, but I didna think onyb’dy I ken wid lose ony sleep ower that. But fan I mentioned it tae my pal Big Sonja, she wis ootraged. She says ‘First they came for the lettuce, and I didna spik oot, because I dinna like lettuce. Then they come for the jaffa cakes…” and then she gied me a look, a look I ken of auld fit means ‘If Aldi thinks it can limit Big Sonja tae three lettuces, it’s got anither thing coming’. And that is fit wye she is on CCTV legging it doon the Lang Stracht wi half a dizen cos in a Sports Direct bag, fower icebergs up her jumper, and a little gem aneth each oxter. Fan she got oot o’ the cells, she told me the bobbies hid confiscated the lot except a bug o’ rocket she’d managed tae secrete aboot her person. ‘Far did ye pit the rocket?’ I asks her. ‘Far d’ye hink? She says. We jist hid chips for wir tea.

Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who calls a club a club

As my regulatory readers will know, old Kenny enjoys watching a sportsman lose their tempura. Normally it’s football, but on Sunday night it was a tennis player what suffered a flush of blood to the head.

In case you never seen it, 17 year old Canadian Dennis Shufflepuff got a bit hot under the collarbone and tanned a tennis ball right off the umpire’s coupon. This meant he got disqualified and Great Britain won through to the quarter final of the Dickie Davis Cup. I felt sorrow for the young lad though. Up until then he had been struggling to land the ball inside the court, so he done really well to catch the umpire clean on the dial first time.

It minded me on a time when I struck the ref during a match. Accidentally, that is. I’ve intentionally struck the ref more times than I’ve had cold dinners. It was when I was playing for Locos against Brora Rangers up at Dudgeon Park. Basher Greig headed the ball to me on the edge of our box and he says to me, he says “clear it Kenny, Row Z!” Well, I must have taken both my eyes off the ball because when I hut it, I sclaffs it smack in to the whistler’s unmentionables. When he finally got his breath back and his eyes stopped watering, we had a good laugh about it. Until I cleaned out their winger 5 minutes later and he sent me off. So I kneed him in the chuckies.