‘And Another Thing...’ The Great Tea Spoon Mystery byVince Nolan No, not an obscure Famous Five novel. Let me explain. I was emptying the dishwasher the other day, (The Leader of the Opposition was at her Nuclear Weaponry for beginners class) and I wondered how many teaspoons there might be in the UK, as one does. No amount of searching across various sites gave me any clue. I thought I would go to the Worshipful Company of Cutlers for the answer. Yes they are real and have been around since 1416 which is just after a quarter past two. Alas they had no answer either so I did my own calculation. According to the latest Census there were 27 million domestic dwellings in the UK. Nolan Towers has 20 teaspoons in its collection so if that were an average number there could be at least 540 million teaspoons circulating in UK households alone, enough for 8 each. Of course, the poorer countries of the world would have a much lower spoon ratio per head of population so spare a thought for them this Christmas as they share the family implement. Bet you count your spoons now to see how you shape up! Of course, the most famous cutler was Alan “Adge” Cutler and his Wurzels, that famous English scrumpy and western band. Talking of scrumpy, I went to my doctor the other day due to a constant headache. He told me I should drink more scrumpy to numb the pain and I said: “Wouldn’t that just make me drunk?” He said: “Oh, that’s just a cider-effect.” My Parisian mate Sebastien recently sent me a CV/resume for his mates’ son who was looking for an internship in the UK. It was exceptionally well written, ably showing off the English language skills of Jules, until my eye 10 CARDIFF TIMES
was drawn to his previous work experience which included being a barmaid. Sacre Bleu! In food news, it seems that underwater power cables have been mesmerising brown crabs. Apparently the electromagnetic field emitted by the cables causes cellular changes to their blood. Who studies this stuff? I was speaking to a crab the other day and I said: “What’s your name and what’s that on your back?” It said, “Michelle” (in a slightly scouse accent). I bought some venison steaks. I really am spoiling That Woman. Not really vegetarian minded but I had to think twice about Rudolf being served up at Café Nolan at this time of year. I lost my appetite on reading the warning on the packaging which said: “Bullet remnants may remain in the meat.” Great. I then thought we would try vegetarian “bacon” to balance our green equation. Give me the bullet remnants every time. What do you call a bacon wrapped dinosaur? Jurassic Pork. In other animal related matters, a boy sees an alligator in the zoo and shouts, “Hey, are you a Caiman?” The alligator shouts back: “I’m alright, thanks kid.” We witnessed a young lad in the local pub struggling to gain the bar persons attention due to his lack of height. To help, I penned this on the spot. “It’s hard to be served when you’re not very tall and people look over you. So I’m eating my greens and stretching myself cos I’m going to be six foot two.” Some time ago we invested in a water filter
