497: A poem (epic) about bananas

Banana banana

Banana banana banana

I haven't worked out this poem yet

but there's a bit at the start

where I introduce the subject matter

subtly

It then progresses,

(the poem I mean, not the banana)

on a path of its own

encapsulating life, the wider world,

the non-banana world,

but all along anchored

by the humble banana

And so, as I said,

it started subtly

The poem not the banana

But bananas too also start

from humble beginnings,

they grow on plants

long cultivated by humans

The seeds they contain

are residual at best,

I've never known anyone complain

of a banana seed 'tween their teeth

Their name means 'finger'

in Arabic, or so I'm told

by Wikipedia

In other media,

QI to be precise,

I learn the banana plant can 'walk'

of its own accord

The truth of this I cannot confirm

It might be true,

it might not;

How would I know?

Others know and have known

more on the subject of bananas

than I would ever want to know

I'm sure its fascinating

For botanists and their lucky spouses,

but honestly

I'll always be biased 'cause

Unfortunately

for Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole and Fyffes

I can't stand the stuff

The white mush

which looks so good

yet smells so bad

sits securely inside

the yellow skin,

pleasing to the eye

the illusion of design

Every year or so

I'll give them a try.

One's taste buds change

and develop over time.

Aged seventeen I couldn't finish

a pint of Guinness

but now I could, and do

with relish,

now pour me another

So one day maybe,

just maybe,

I'll taste a banana and love it

Until that day,

I'll retain suspicion

maintain inhibition

disdain their incompatibility with my otherwise adventurous constitution

I feel the same way too

about poetry

I think

It seems tenacious

and perhaps that's a sign

that people prefer their lives

to contain occasional bananas

and occasional poems

Despite my proclamations

to love this or hate that

Secretly I am loathe to make judgement

Until further evidence is presented.

I could be right,

or it might all be a matter of opinion

fluid, elastic, subjective opinion.

Liable to change

at any time.

If ever bananas develop a taste

pleasing to my buds,

or conversely those taste buds

change to accommodate the banana

I'm sure I'll mention it

In a blog or something.

496: Headache day, and unrelated banana mention

I woke up this morning with a serious severe painful pain in my face, above the brow, penetrating back into my head, with the feeling its shattered my skull, like a stiletto, and is busy making immoral merry with the grey gunge of my synapses. I didn't want to, but I called in sick for work; a rare happening. Unfortunately all that could be done was drink water, take paracetamol and try to sleep through the worst of the headache. I tried to wake up, but it hurt. Waking up. Waking up hurt. I've had better days.

Recent developments have allowed me to bare staring at the computer screen for a few bloggy moments. So here I am, back again, desperately trying to eek out a word count, by clumsily forcing sentences together using words that don't fit, and attempts at jokes I don't even get. I've slept all day and, when occasionally awake, struggled to look at a book, struggled to listen to some music quietly.

I've been toying with the idea of experimenting with endurance by just writing blog posts about bananas for as long as I possibly can. If, as I intend, I'm going to write this blog for the rest of my life, it might be necessary to attempt such seemingly pointless tasks. I find the thinking behind that difficult to explain at this moment, but be gladdened and encouraged by the thought that I'll probably get around to it sometime in the next fifty years. Until that happens, its bananas all the way down.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting continuation of my arbitrary obsession with the annoying and ever present banana (headache permitting): same banana blog, same banana url. It's bat time, bat channel. I was doing a play on that, you know, from Batman. The TV series from the 1960s. It wasn't very obvious, and it didn't really work. So I explained what I was doing to avoid confusion. I hope that's cleared that up.

495: I want to talk about bananas

Two bananas, yesterday.

Bananas; love them or hate them, bananas they will remain. How can evolution be true when the banana is so clearly designed to fit in our opposabled-thumbed hands? They even come with their own naturally occurring wrappings, and by slowly turning black they have an outside indication of their internal edibility. OK, that's evolution over and done with; looks like the banana is evidence for an intelligent designer. Only one little problem that designer forgot to perfect. When he/it (not she) was working on the shape, skin, and colouration, he/it forgot to make the inside of the banana taste nice. He/it didn't even grace it with a texture that isn't like a gooey roux of wheat flour and vomit.

For the sake of brevity, and common sense, let's assume the creator of bananas -all bananas, not just some of them- was a man, and let's call that man Bananaman (not that one). Bananaman (not that one) began with a desire to create a healthy and convenient alternative to the sausage roll or Scotch egg; he thought handy, he thought healthy, he thought yummy: he contrived to create the perfect snack fit for the human hand, heart, head and large intestine. He fucked up proper and good. The meat of a banana is a globulous melting filth; a stem of white pus oozing from a phallic yellow spot; a garish gash of ghastly grunge; slightly sweet but with a soggy cold-breakfast cereal texture designed to trigger the gag reflex; a frozen yogurt lolly of puke and alienesque miasma; a hollow fruit of pure unfiltered sadness and unwanted attention; a disagreeable melange of bullying and xenophobia; a distracting subjugation of all that is good and proper; a torturous sentence of a thousand lifetimes; a dirty little secret spread wide for all to see; a snotty nose and a spotty bot; rotten, unwanted, smelly and squidgy.

"You are wrong, they're very yummy."

Once I felt the same about mushrooms. My first job; in a mushroom farm, one well-known in the Lancaster area, and situated close to Galgate village. Mini-bused from Lancaster out to the farm to spend a few evening hours in the dark, legs spread across the aisle, standing between the mushroom beds, climbing high to the third bunk. Picking the mushrooms with the special knife, breathing in the foetid cemetery vapour of the rotting earth. The smell of mushrooms was indelible. Washing would not remove it, for the sinuses were lodged deeply with stinking masses of spores. Years later (when the smell had finally dissipated) I ate soup of the day: mushroom in the university canteen. What can I say; I was depressed, it was a call for help, there were no bananas at hand. Confounding expectations the mushroom soup was delicious, and didn't kill me. I discovered many different kinds of mushrooms in many colours, shapes and sizes. I tried them raw, fried, battered, boiled, poached, scrambled and devilled. I loved them.

So, Bananaman (not that one), I ask you, where are the varieties of banana? Plantains? OK, that's a start. They are nice grilled or fried with a curry. That's it; that's all I know. There must be more? Maybe there isn't. I'm starting to think that perhaps the design argument isn't as good as it might have seemed...