Skip to main content

All Sorts of Compelling Mayhem



While making the tea the other night I idly wondered how much green potato you would have to eat to get solanine poisoning. Potatoes are in the nightshade family (look at the flowers – similar to tomato flowers, above) and I am sure I once read that if they were introduced now they would not be approved as a food plant.

According to a swift web-trawl, the answer is, apparently, not all that much. Solanine develops due to the action of light on potatoes but the green colour that the potato skin becomes is down to chlorophyll rather than the toxic glycoalkaloid. So although the two things are related, the green-ness is no absolute indicator of how much solanine is present. Solanine is part of the plant’s defence against pests and apparently commercial varieties are screened to minimise human consumption. And since the lethal dose is around 5mg for each kg body weight, green potatoes are best avoided as the alternatives can include diarrhoea, vomiting, dizziness, hallucinations, paralysis, fever, jaundice and hypothermia. Nice.

The builders doing the loft conversion have discovered what I do for a living (ie what I am paid for rather than random digressions on plant toxins) and are now spending their time coming up with gardening questions to test my knowledge.

Questions include divining the advice given by the man walking past their paved drive*, identifying the plant on a tattoo**, a debate on keeping cats out of the garden*** and whether or not I know Charlie Dimmock****.

But they certainly move quickly and thanks to a new dormer window, the back of my house now looks like Nogbad’s castle (Nogbad the Bad is the wicked uncle of Noggin the Nog, and friend of crows). It is really very exciting. Practically like having turrets. I like a nice turret.

I am also excited because I have organised a gig for pop-ska band Big Hand. According to Music News, they are ‘One of the best live acts in the UK’. According to the press release (written by me) they are “a bit like watching the Chili Peppers have a fight with Madness with Simon and Garfunkle throwing cream buns and Chuck Berry giggling with a bottle in a corner. A gloriously compelling mayhem”.
This is going to be good…!

* sprinkle with salt to get rid of weeds
** a lily
*** they advise orange peel
**** I have met her in passing
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Metamorphosis

Writing a book is often likened to having a baby. And with some justification. There is the giddy conception and whirlwind of excitement, then the warm glow of a contract signed. It then the process starts to lag and become heavier; sweetmeats are deployed to maintain performance – pregnancy, like literature, is an endurance sport. My new book, Published by Green Books, 22nd September  2016 Finally, fat and fecund with promise the manuscript is delivered to the publisher, for supervision and medical intervention if necessary. And, finally, the screaming and anguish suddenly stops. The Author's desk (the buns have already been eaten) And here is where the process differs. After months of to-ing and fro-ing, deliberations about nuanced argument and tone of voice, followed by concerns about stacking words in a column and balanced captions, it is confiscated. They just take it away. To put it another way, it is like watching caterpillars. They eat and eat and eat and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures in Floristry

Ingredients for a bouquet Back in the summer I went on a floristry course to Green and Gorgeous in Oxfordshire. Historically, I have not been at all keen on formal floristry. It seemed rigid and stuffy, coming up with arrangements that had names like ‘Orchid and Sphagnum on a Tortured Twig’. But at G&G they laid my demons to rest with an intensive day learning how to make fashionable naturalistic bouquets. Since then I have had little need to use these dark arts, but as the autumn colours intensified the floristry bug intensified too. Venturing out with the secateurs I acquired Pyracantha berries, bronze and gold forsythia leaves, soft grey goldenrod seedheads (cunningly stabilised with a blast of extreme-hold hairspray to stop the seeds dropping off), and some Sedum flowers. I bought some Physalis and cellophane from Lulu Flowers round the corner – where they also gave me a quick refresher in wrapping them for travel. So, with much garden wire and raffia, I assemb...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Essential Apocalypse Skillset

Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, I was painting the bathroom of a house in Bristol. The window was open and it was a pleasant sort of day and people were wandering past. Around about four o’clock I heard a couple of sets of feet come down the hill and then stop. “Look, cherries!” said one voice (female, mid to late teens). “No, I don’t think they are. They can’t be.” Said the other, doubtfully (ditto). “Well, they look like cherries. Let’s try them!” “No, they are probably berries. Completely different. Some of them are not red, they are blackish. They are probably poisonous.” “Oh. Yes, I suppose so.” (disappointed) The feet moved on. I looked out of the bathroom window at the large and heavily laden cherry tree leaning over the wall of the garden opposite and wondered what the world was coming to. Red Sky in the Morning, Shepherds Warning ((c) N Slade) I am actually still wondering. When my grandfather was a child, he and his brothers (and a dog) ...
7 comments
Read more