It has to first be accepted that newspaper column ‘advice’ is as changeable as the wind. (I’m working on a new metaphor for that as we don’t have wind any more, nor rain). “DRINK RED WINE EVERY DAY AND LIVE TO 120!!!”, one day, followed the next by “AVOID WINE; IT’LL KILL YOU!!!!”. The response is predictable too, to such advice. Generally, when it relates to something we like, we want confirmation. We want our intuitions to be sound. We will keep drinking red wine, based on the former, because we want to, and we’re consequently probably too pissed to even notice the latter when it appeared.

But sometimes you just have to sit up and take note when a headline grabs you. Like the one above.

As a confirmed anti-lettucer, to see words like that, in print, with the inevitable ‘rent-a-scientist’ validation, is to see true beauty. Is to start questioning if maybe there is some Devine being ‘up above’. A thought I hadn’t considered since Spurs avoided relegation, back in May.

Because this is vindication. This is justification. This is… EVERYTHING!!! I never have to eat lettuce again and I will carry this piece of newspaper around at all times so I can annoy people I find being overly saladish in restaurants. Warning them. I’ll get my old sandwich board out, which says ‘Jesus died to save you!!!’ on one side and ‘Save the Wales!!!’ (Not a typo, it was there from the Charles & Diana days), on the other. I’ll overwrite it with ‘LETTUCE KILLS!!!’ and ‘AVOID SALAD LIKE THE PLAGUE IT IS!!!’

I accept that I’ll probably get thrown out of a lot of places. Possibly beaten up by the salad marketing board, a notoriously militant bunch.

I don’t like lettuce because it brings absolutely nothing to the party. Less than nothing. It is a waste of chewing. Unnecessary wear on your teeth, which need to be kept sharp to rip the flesh from roadkill. Same for ‘rocket’, spinach, all those other ‘leaves’. They’re there for animals to eat. Not humans. We need a more balanced diet. Chicken AND steak. I love potatoes and they’re a vegetable. Not necessarily a ‘leaf’ as such, I grant you, but almost ‘salad’. Almost.

So to Dr Microbiologist, I bless you. You have given credibility to my leafaphobia. Never again will I be the recipient of smug looks over the plates of salad-eating nonces as the juice from my cheeseburger drips down my chin. No more having to explain to people at poncey dinner parties that I’ll pass on the lettuce, thank you very much, BECAUSE I FUCKING CAN’T STAND THE STUFF. I’ll have no further embarrassment walking straight past the salad bar en route to some massive slab of almost raw meat or other.

This is just the best news ever. And I bet me mate Mark agrees.

Happy Meat Eating.

A xxxx