Another Rant from Dennis

What Ho dear reader.

 

It’s all part of your bloody commitment they said… Write something nobody is every likely to read.  So first off, lets get the promotion stuff out of the way. Late Night Sunday is the tope rated programme on Phoenix FM (well top rated by me anyway ?). It’s totally unlike any other wireless programme… full of Classic road, folk and the more unusual in musical entertainment. And to send you to bed, the unique Phoenix Audio theatre presentation at 11 pm.. 

 

Right, having got that lot out of the way…   how about a little Rant ..

 

Do you remember that time back in the sixties. When the height of sophistication was a Vesta Pawn Curry?  

Ideal for the man about town trying to impress the lady in his life..   Nip into the corner shop – no supermarkets open all night back then. Just a dingy corner shop run by some miserable old crone who locked and bolted it dead on six.

 

No this succulent meal in a box, produced by what was then, by the revolutionary freeze dried method, came when you opened it - in the form of a pile of what looked like wood shavings, bits of bird droppings and a certain amount of dust. But low within minutes of bunging it into a pint of water coming to the boil on the cooker - it would sort of thicken up into a brown mush that according to the box was a tasty eastern edible delight. 

 

Snag is it never looked as tasty as the picture of the box, and strangely girl friends never appreciated my slaving over a hot bubbling pan and soon dumped me.   

 

I was only thinking about this long forgotten fast food other day when standing in one of those Asian owned corner stores – you know open all hours, packed with goodies and a delight to enter – When I spied a large long reddish thing labelled ‘Sweet Potato.’

 

What’s it taste like I asked PJ behind the counter – Now I should tell you at this stage that PJ is not his real name, you need a degree in Hindi to pronounce it, so being a kind hearted soul to his friends he answers to ‘PJ’.   

 

So what’s it taste like, I asked.   “Like a bloody sweet potato he said.   Right said I..   How do you cook the dam thing then.    ‘Like a potato’ he replied, before muttering that if I didn’t want it, I should put it back.

 

I have to tell you. I dumped his sweet potato and left. I mean who wants to eat sweet chips.

 

Although I did hear a story from a mate who did time as an Army cook stuck with the lads at an RAF station on an island way out in the Indian Ocean some years back, There when the supply of Spuds run out and the lads were threatening mutiny, He and the rest of the cooks nipped out into the jungle and brought back piles of green bananas, which they cut into spud shapes to roast or serve up as chips…   And nobody was any the wiser. So maybe there’s hope for the sweet potato market.

 

Of course history have been different had old Francis Rayleigh done a better deal with the Natives then a pile of leaves you could burn and a pile of tasteless spuds.  Can you imagine how much more enjoyable life would be if he’d brought back that other stuff up for offer.. Wacky Backy, plus those Sweet Potatoes or course, and not forgetting those wild mushrooms that give you such interesting dreams..