Interesting, strange, fascinating, useless and amusing things I learnt this week.

1/ Brussel Sprouts are the food of the devil!

In recent survey’s the Brussel came trumps as Britain’s most hated vegetable, and a few years back a warship even banned the veg from her decks.  However, our fear of this little green faux cabbage appears to go back to the Middle Ages.  The sulphurous smell produced by the vegetable and sometimes by those eating them was a sure sign that the devil lurked among the leaf’s of this tiny bud, cutting a small cross into the base of the Sprout was a way to bless and exercise the demons within.  And to think all these years I thought that it only helped to evenly cook the Brussel Sprout!  On a side note, Brussels as the name suggests come from Brussels, maybe another reason to leave the EU, or not?

2/ In 2017 a new continent was discovered!

Ok, so that’s not strictly true, it was actually found in 1995, but not confirmed as a continent by scientists until 2017.  So how does a land mass 1,900,000 sq miles and home to 5 million people remain hidden for up to 23 million years?  This cunning and devious land decides to sink 93% of its mass under the Pacific Ocean.  I’m not quite sure if that’s allowed within the rules of hide and seek, but like toes poking out from under the curtains, this continent was given away by rocks breaking the ocean waves, giving homes to Hobbits and New Zealanders alike.  While it’s officially been named Zealandia by those in the know, I would like to believe that this could be the fabled Middle Earth.

3/ The Queen’s banana’s!

Oh on, the Queen’s coming for tea and all we have is this bunch of bananas’!  Oh, what to do?  It’s ok, the Queen eats bananas, but how she eats them might seem a little ‘bananas’.  While you and I , might be tempted to grab the fruit and peel it like the monkeys do, the Royal Ma’am prefers to cut away the top and bottom of the fruit, slice away the peel with surgical precision and then proceed to eat the Banana with a knife and fork! 

Now there are some foods that need to be eaten with cutlery and some that don’t.  Surely the Banana falls into the latter?  It’s even comes in a handy wrapper.  I must admit that sometimes I’ve eaten pizza with a knife and fork, it depends on how heavily and precariously laden it is with toppings.  Just before Christmas, while out celebrating a friend’s birthday, I witnessed one of our number order a hamburger and then begin to cut into it with knife and fork, I watched rather baffled and curiously fascinated.  But a banana?  Maybe if it’s covered in Ice Cream and smothered in chocolate