Postcards From the Veg: Heaven

Uh oh. You know something big is going down when an angel appears in your bathroom while you're flossing.

So there I was, with the little piece of white string still wrapped around my index fingers, when a portal opened above my shower curtain and a being of light and grace popped out. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He/She/It (hard to tell) handed me a golden scroll, gave me a wink, and tootled off to more important matters.

It's bad news, guys. Brace yourself.


Dear Vegemites,

Mourn me not! For I am not dead. Well, actually, I am dead in the very real sense of the word, but it turns out there's a heaven and it's ACE! A bit like Butlins in a zoo but with room service. I've been given a lovely chalet with a real fireplace and an en-suite. I'm not even having to share, as there's no shortage of space given that this is a metaphysical state of being rather than an actual country. Marvellous.

So yes, you didn't save me from the desert island and Roary ate me. But I don't want you to feel bad about it. Life is just too short to spend in regret. However, I wouldn't like you to feel too good about yourselves either. You didn't really try to help, did you? And I'm not just talking about helping me. I'm talking about helping each other generally and being nice and good and kind and stuff like that. And growing more vegetables. It turns out growing more vegetables is the key to world peace. No, I'm not allowed to explain why. It has something to do with allotments, that's all I'm saying. You have to work it out for yourselves.

And so I bid you farewell. Ta ra. So long. Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you. Live long, and prosper. Or don't. I just hope you get lucky enough to be allocated a chalet next to me at the end of it all. I have to go - the synchronised swimming competition is just kicking off.

Angelic hugs,

Neilio.



Goodnight, sweet Playmobil Prince. We will miss you.

I wonder if he gets a reincarnation option. He probably wouldn't take it, though, what with a real fireplace and synchronised swimming, right?

Postcards From The Veg: Desert Island

I was enjoying a lovely day out at Woburn Safari Park yesterday. There are elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, monkeys, and swans. Well, giant swan boats, in fact, and while I was dabbling around in the water a small green glass bottle clinked against the side of my own sturdy little swan boat. I picked it up and examined it. I guessed it had once contained Becks beer, by the remnants of the label, but now it was home to a rolled piece of paper. A message in a bottle! How utterly exciting! And quite strange, given that it was in a boating pond in land-locked Bedfordshire.

Guess what was inside. I bet you can't guess. Go on, have a try. A wild stab in the dark. No, just have a go. Oh go on, go on, go on... yes, okay, it was the latest postcard from Neil on his travels around and above the planet. Sheer luck brought his latest ramblings to me. Funny how the world turns, innit?

Dear Vegemites,

HELP!

I don't know where I am. Well, I'm on a desert island, dear readers, but as to which one I have no clue. Re-entry into the atmosphere didn't go as smoothly as one might have hoped for, and I was lucky that my capsule crash-landed near to this place. Roary the litte polar bear and I managed to swim to shore, and have found a cave and some fruit and a football that we've nicknamed Wilson for the hell of it, but no humanity. Not a single person. Not even a signal on my I-Phone.

Actually, it's quite pleasant.

At first I was confused from clinging to a floating barrel for two days with only a hungry and annoyed polar bear for company, but things are really looking up now. With nobody around to cock this place up, I can honestly say it's a small patch of paradise. Did you know banana trees grow fruit all year long? Amazing. Roary adores the yellow flesh, and I'd imagine he's the first polar bear to discover the joy of slipping around on the discarded skins. He enjoys himself immensely, sliding first one way, then the other. Marvellous.

But now I really would like to get back to espressos and Doctor Who (has a new series started yet?) and sugar free gum stuck to the pavement and all the other great things about England, so please come and find me. Please. Before Roary gets any bigger and decides that his diet needs meat in it.

So, hoping this is au revoir and not farewell forever,

Neilio
xx




Eek! What shall we do? I'm hopeless at Geography.

Postcards From the Veg: In Orbit

While I was in Devon buying surf-wear and eating pasties, Neil was having yet another adventure of his own. He's a brave one, and his murderous tendencies seem to have worn off for the time being. Which is good news for Astronuat Jip Tuckerer, who showed our very own intrepid traveller around space. Not all of it, obviously. Just the teeny bit of it above our planet.

I don't know how Neil is funding this adventure. I-Phone sales of The New Goodbye must be doing pretty well, huh?


Greetings vegemites!

Thank goodness I packed my NASA space pen! Or there would be no postcard from this location, that's for sure. I'm in space, orbiting the planet in the top secret, privately owned SpaceRace laboratory as they conduct fruit-related experiments to try to find answers to the world's many problems. Leading the way is astronaut and top fruitarian Jip Tuckerer, who explained why the SpaceRace lab maintains orbit over the Himalayas.

"When satellites' orbits degrade through malfunction, the same thing always happens; they end up caught in a constant pattern over one part of the Earth - the Himalayas. This effect, caused by stuff that is too complicated to explain to anyone without a degree in astrophysics, is known as the Himalayan Gravity Well. And we at SpaceRace have been looking into utilizing that effect to human advantage. But first we must truly understand it.

How did Newton begin to formulate the theory of gravity? He turned to the lowly apple. And if it's good enough for Newton then it's good enough for us. We have been throwing an apple a day into the Himalayan Gravity Well for the last two years and monitoring the results. Interestingly, the only solid result we have so far is the disproving of an old aphorism - since I myself have four PhDs it can definitely be said that an apple a day doesn't keep the doctor away! Ha ha ha."

Jip allowed me to release apple number 675 from the airlock. What an honour. Next time you think of the Himalayas, think of my little piece of fruit above it, and all the other little pieces of fruit - evidence of the effort that are constantly being made to unite the world in peace, harmony and understanding. Wow. Although how they will manage that remains to be seen, but let's not be picky right now.

And so, until next time, keep eating your five a day and give the sky a special wave.

Neilio.



I can't say I liked the sound of Jip Tuckerer much. Still, what a very interesting subject. Yeah.

Postcards From The Veg: The Arctic Circle

Right, so, for those of you not in the know, Neil has buggered off on a journey around the world to find the answer to the energy crisis (or any other crisis you can think of)via the medium of vegetables and today I received a postcard from the Arctic Circle. Yes, I know he was in Cape Verde last week; I can only assume that his geography skills aren't that hot. Like the rest of him, being in a rather chilly location. Heh.

Here's what he had to say:

Greetings Vegemites!

The dwarf pirates of Cape Verde were more than helpful - one of them, Sneezy, happened to have a good doctor friend who also treated the son of a transport magnate. Twenty-seven quick phone calls later, and I was on a flight to Norway, and then transferred to a luxury cabin upon an expedition ship headed for Longyearbyen, a port situated on the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago.

It was pretty cold, and my luggage had mysteriously disappeared. Later I saw a member of the crew walking past in my best feather boa. Still, the crew was polite, if a little light-fingered. They pointed out many of the wonders of the area to me, including icebergs, ice floes, and icebergs. And polar bears, including a little orphaned bear we found floating on an enormous frozen celeriac. No, actually, it was an iceberg.

The little polar bear - nicknamed Roary - was delightful as long as it wasn't annoyed. I fed it cows' milk fortified with a paste made from Swedes. That's the inhabitants of Sweden, not the vegetable. Well, I don't think polar bears eat vegetables, do they? And there was a plethora of Swedes on board, attending an iceberg-shaped souvenir selling convention. Nobody missed a few.

So - world peace via vegetables not achieved this week, vegemites. But one little polar bear kept happy. Perhaps the little things are all we can really aim for. Huge happiness can only be made up of so many tiny good deads, right? I mean deeds.

Signing off until next time,

Neilio

xx



This trip seems to be taking a macabre turn, wouldn't you say? Hmm.

Postcards From The Veg: Cape Verde

Phew! After an anxious weekend spent wondering what has happened to m'blog-buddy, I received a letter this morning. Things had indeed got a bit hairy for him while travelling from Fuerteventura by boat, but his common sense and chutzpah carried him through:

Dear Vegemites,

I took a slow boat from the Canaries, planning to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to reach Madagascar, but after only a few days on a barely seaworthy vessel (never make your travelling decisions at 3.00am after a large amount of tapas and Napoleon Brandy, that's all I have to say) it became obvious that the captain did not have my best interests at heart. I was locked in a small cabin and fresh drinking water was only provided if I agreed to perform the Macarena every evening for the amusement of the crew. It was humiliating, and in no way helpful on my tour to find out about the top secret usages of vegetables around the planet.

At least this shameful episode did not last long. On the fourth evening the crew interrupted me mid-hip-sway; they rushed to the side of the boat and pointed at the sail in the distance. The Jolly Roger! As they grew closer I felt hope and despair in equal measure; I had to hope they were a nicer bunch with less predilection for modern dance. I stood utterly still, my hands in the air, as they boarded the boat. They were a fearsome sight - none of them over 3 feet high, and armed with fake beards, pointy hats and cutlasses, they were the dread dwarf pirates of Cape Verde. They killed every single member of the crew, including the odious captain, and I sank to my knees, which brought me level with the eyes of their leader, Grumpy.

I didn't beg. I slowly reached into my bag and took out a radish I had been saving for the journey. I offered it to him - he took it, sniffed it, licked it, bit in, devoured it - yes! He was a vegetable lover, just like me! He unrolled a map on the deck and pointed to where the best vegetables grew around here, then offered me a slice of thick white fibrous vegetable with a sweet taste, which he called Manioc. It was delicious.

Having found something in common, he was delighted to help me out; he instructed his second-in-command, Bashful, to take me to their homeland, the beautiful Cape Verde, and it is from there that I send this letter. Awesome vegetables here, particularly the Manioc. There are two types - one can be eaten raw, and the other must be pulped and cooked to remove the natural toxins. The pirates grate them and sprinkle them over every meal, just as Italians would use parmesan. What an experience!

For now, au revoir, and keep munching,

Neilio

xx



That was a lucky escape, huh?

Postcards From The Veg: Fuerteventura

Yay! Neil arrived safely in Fuerteventura as part one of his mission around the globe to see how vegetables are being used in unique and exciting ways to combat a number of worldwide problems. His first missive has arrived for us underlings - let me share it with you here. Unfortunately, he forgot to take his camera so I've had to recreate his experiences through the medium of Playmobil. Neil is the Playmobil figure in green trousers.

Dear Vegemites,

Hail from sunnie Fuerteventura! Bananas, tomatoes, oranges and olives are widely available here but you won't find much in the way of a root crop, which makes the decision by SPROUT (Society of Progressive Research On Ugly Turnips) to set up shop here quite a surprising one.

SPROUT has been working tirelessly for the last three years on the sister project of CERN's LHD in the search for that elusive particle, the Higgs Boson. There is a little known quote from top Physicist Nils Nilssen - "The Higgs-Boson could be anywhere... so why not start by looking in the easy places? Take a trip to the Canaries and split open a turnip or two." This became the inspiration for the building of the Small Hadron Collider (seen in the picture below - Aliya), which is manned by Mr Harold Trike, formerly of Kettering, and a team of trained parrots.

The SHD (interestingly enough, situated within Mr Trike's own shed) works on mains electricity. The turnip is inserted into the GST (green slidey tray), which then is rammed at great speed into a set of rotating knives. The GST is then removed to the garden area, where the parrots pick over the tiny particles in the hope of spotting the Higgs-Boson. If this was to occur, the lucky parrot would emit three piercing squawks and would attempt to hold the particle still in its beak until the arrival of Mr Trike, whereupon it would be rewarded with a little bell and a cuttlefish. There have been a number of false alarms, says Mr Trike, but no solid results as yet.

When questioned about the likelihood of the parrots spotting an infinitesimally small particle, a SPROUT representative pointed out that, "the parrots don't know that they're looking for it anyway, and wouldn't recognise it if it slapped them around the beak with a giant cuddly toy wearing a tee shirt that said HIGGS-BOSON WOZ HERE on it. This is the upper end of theoretical physics we're talking about here.'

And now, I must away to the next stage of my journey. Good luck in all your endeavours, Vegemites!

Neilio






Well, he sounds very chipper, doesn't he? He must be having fun. I wouldn't have minded a trip to the Canaries. I'm just saying.