The news that shipworms could be the latest “must eat” seafood had me reaching for my phone. What, those white grubby things in driftwood my sister Nancy has spent so much of her life studying on beaches all over the world?
I read that in the world of seafood dominated by the “big five” — cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns — shipworms offer a sustainable alternative.
I ring Nancy who tells me this isn’t news to her. Apparently in the Philippines shipworms are an appetiser delicacy called tamilok. “But they are worms!” I exclaim. “No, they are clams,” she says calmly, claiming they are “highly modified” clams who use tiny shells to bore into wood.
There is even a move to rebrand them as “naked clams” to get away from the worm thing. Nancy notes that they are cheap, a healthy source of protein and bursting with B12.
“But they look like worms and they are gross!” I say, reverting to language I last used in 1975. “Well, no one ever said the geoduck clam was pretty,” says Nancy, as if this somehow clinches the argument. I look up “geoduck” (pronounced gooey-duck) and find it is indeed a thing in foodie circles. Could she be right?
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Blair’s beans
I am reading Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit, a book that really does dish the dirt on Mr Eric Blair. I especially love his ability to jump from the trivial to the important without warning. Take this letter to one of the many women he was pursuing in 1933, a time when he also had an allotment.
“Today I nearly broke my own back, using the turfing iron and yesterday gave myself one on the shin with a pickaxe. Have you read Ulysses yet?”
Here’s another, to another woman: “We have had lashings of peas, beans just beginning, potatoes rather poor, owing to the drought I suppose. I have just finished my novel, but there are wads of it that I simply hate.”
That must have been Burmese Days, which wasn’t, it must be said, as successful as the peas.
Garden spectacle
My ability to lose important items is high and, to counter this, I used to own four pairs of spectacles. Yes, I know it’s extreme and don’t tell me to buy the cheap ones at Boots because they give me a headache. But as spectacles became more expensive I have had to cut back to two pairs, which hardly allows for my usual misplacements.
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• How fake is your garden? Why the rich love plastic plants
I have had to vow to never — EVER — wear them in the garden as, in the past, I have “planted” several pairs. But three weeks ago, I forgot my vow as the small print on seed packets was driving me mad.
Sure enough, later that day, after checking the top of my head, plus each room in the house, every shelf in the garage, the garden paths and even the fridge, I realised I had “planted” another pair.
Despair. This week, gardening in the rain, I was attacking the couch grass invading the crocosmia when I suddenly found them, glinting in the dirt. Joy.
• Chelsea tractor drivers: get your big, fat bumpers out of my grille!
Tractor tax
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You could divide the world into those who love SUVs and those (like me) who don’t. Many SUVs now seem more like luxurious mini-yachts than actual cars, so big they think lines in the road (and car parks) are for others.
Not surprising, really, that most people (ie those without SUVs) support the idea of charging more for larger cars to park in cities. That could easily happen, couldn’t it? Could there be a “business class” in normal car parks? I think we know the answer.
