Mellow hello.

I miss the sunshine.

It's raining here and everything's all mushy. Puddles are forming and I just don't seem to get the pleasure from splashing in them that I used to just thirty-odd years ago. Now I worry that my shoes will get wet.

*Sigh*

In an attempt to avert the onset of some Seasonally Affected Depression, a condition with the most unfortunately apt acronym ever, I'm going to think positive and cheer myself up with a post on that most un-wintery colours:

Yellow.

Yellow Thing Part One

Bananas.

Nothing like 'em.

They taste nice. They're a nice colour. They're shaped like a smiley mouth. Even the name sounds nice.

Banana.

Banaaaaana.

They've been bred for possibly 7000 years from the wild strain so they're all sweet, seedless, easy to unwrap yet still good for you, and to make religious nutballs look even dafter.

Hmm . . . bananas.

Yet, I can't help but be a little disappointed with this one:

It's tiny!

In my fat little opinion, the bigger the better when it comes to bananas. I'm trying not to appear too ungrateful here, because one should be pleased that they are present at all. It's not as though I'm complaining about it not coming naturally smothered in melted chocolate and hazelnut pieces though is it? I just want a bigger one.

Anyway, that is a minor point.

I discovered just the other day that, all my life, I've been eating them wrong.

I peel them from the stem, which usually works pretty well, but occasionally breaks off and you have to bite the damn thing open and are then left with a taste like rotting dandelions in your gob for a few moments, taking away from the overwhelming pleasure that eating a banana should impart. This method usually works, and is relatively satisfactory.

Is that how you eat a banana?

Thought so.

Well, prepare to be amazed, because you have been doing it wrong. Just ask a monkey.

Well, don't literally ask a monkey because they're unlikely to answer and might attack you, or throw their poo at you, so maybe just watch from a safe distance and then take note.

You see, monkeys turn the banana upside down, so the stem is at the bottom, and the little nubby bit is at the top, then they pinch that nub and pull. Then, Hey Presto! the banana is de-gloved with minimum of fuss.

It's much easier that the usual way humans open them and goes to show that, although monkeys have an undeveloped Wernick's Area in their cerebral cortex, thus reducing their conversational capabilities, their Banana-handling centre is positively bulging with neurones.

If you haven't got a monkey to hand, or your monkey is bananaless, then have a look at this link: Nana unpeeling: simian style.

Go on, give it a go. You know you want to.

Yellow Thing Part B

Yesterday we went to our local wildfowl and wetlands trust again, where they also have various amphibians for you to gawp at if you're afraid of the birds. This must be a relief to all the ornithophobes that frequent the bird sanctuary.

One of them (amphibians, not ornithophobes) is called Mr Custard, who is an American Bullfrog with a certain banana-esque hue about him:


What a mellow yellow fellow. If only he played the cello.

They say it's a natural mutation, but what if he's actually got chronic liver disease? Bit of an insensitive name then, reminding him of his condition. He's got enough on his plate without being called Mr Custard.

Just the drink problem for a start.

And no, before you start accusing me of being judgemental, I'm not simply assuming that anyone yellow has a liver problem, and anyone with a liver problem is automatically an alcoholic. There are other signs that give it away.

Just look at his eyes:


If that doesn't suggest a lifetime of hard liquor and loose spawning, I don't know what does.

Bet he plays poker as well.

Actually, that last bit may have been a tiny bit judgemental.

Ignore it.