Sideswipe: April 08: Wouldn't want to meet this tomato in a dark alley

Anthropomorphic veg is pretty low hanging fruit in the comedy stakes, but this tomato is exceptional.

Headline

In New Zealand we send around 122,500 tonnes of food to landfills every year — enough to feed everyone in Dunedin for two years. In an attempt to lower this number, eco-conscious consumers have embraced the ugly food movement — offering customers misshapen produce at a discount price. Crop scientist Sarah Taber isn't buying it. She thinks it's a bit of a rort and explains the bigger picture. She writes: "Most 'ugly' produce gets turned into soups and sauces. You think that stuff gets made from the pretty fruit and veggies?! Jeebus, think about it for a minute. The amount of produce wasted because of labour problems and bad weather — melons that rot in the field because it's too hot/wet — WAY outstrips produce thrown out because it's "ugly" ... we eat a LOT ugly produce. You just wouldn't know it because it's salsa. After it leaves the farm, most produce goes to a packing house. This is where they cool, wash, sort and package it. In other words, it's where the ugly fruit people think all this "waste" is happening. The only time packing houses throw out fruit is when IT'S ACTUALLY INEDIBLE. Like it's either rotten or (in the case of one watermelon field that one time) it had rained so hard that the melons filled up with water and were completely tasteless. Also about to explode."

Never take on a writer on Twitter

The writer of the Wire, David Simon, eviscerates Piers Morgan on the bird app. It goes like this: Piers tweets that his interview with Tucker Carlson about his a feud with Meghan Markle, a woman that he met once, is streaming now.
David Tweets: "In an ocean of talking-head sewage, what are the chances that the two most pouty and puckered assholes in broadcast television would ever swim through the brown, find each other, and discuss the events of the day?"
Piers: Talking of sewage, Dave ... you were all over me like a sycophantic chap rash when I interviewed you. Yet now you play the vicious horrible illiberal liberal to appease your vile woke base. All a bit sh*t really. But on a positive note, I loved The Wire.
David: You met me once, on a stage at Cannes with Aaron Sorkin on a panel I attended at the request of HBO. 1) Didn't know you from a fart in high wind. 2) Was polite to said fart at Richard's request as that man was a Medici to me. Now go lick some racist royalty.

Now that's an auto correct mess

Thanks to a kind stranger

"On Friday, March 12, at 12.20pm, we had a bathroom break at Waipukurau on our way back to Auckland," writes Judy McKee of Pukekohe. "In the car next to us were two ladies. On returning I had a medical event. One of the ladies rushed across the road to get aspirin from the local chemist in case it was a stroke while my husband called 111. By the time she returned the ambulance had turned up. Like us, she must have been passing through, as not known to chemist staff. She very kindly used her credit card to purchase aspirin. If we are unable to personally thank her we will pay it forward. After two weeks in Hastings Hospital with a collapsed lung, I am now at home recovering."