Anidazen

Wow. It’s been a real long time since I was writing one of these columns. A lot has changed since then. Why, back when I was last writing the internet was primitive, slow, and made entirely out of papyrus, and I was hammering these damn things out on my great-grandancestor’s abacus. Since then, seasons and even whole years have come and gone. Days have turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years. --That’s inflation for you.

And through it all, after all this time and everything that’s happened, I still can’t figure out where to put the semi-colons.

It’s good to be back, staring immediately, a full eight lines into my newest masterpiece, into the face of writer’s block. But I won’t let it beat me this time. I am a serious journalist now. One with class. What I need is a sober subject. Something relevant to the new, politically charged world of Today. Something with all the brannyness of bran, but without the unpleasant tasting plastic packaging. In researching potential topics, I found myself flicking through a great deal of breakfast-time news. And then it hit me. A theme. A pattern. This was it -- something that was there behind almost every story.

That’s right: cornflakes.


Breakfasts such as these have been the staple food of the morning for generations, and the recipe has remained largely unchanged for generations. Except for last week – when I opened a fresh pack of Kelloggs Crunchy Nut and found my cornflakes confronted with a large black coating of what I can only assume to be Original Sin. That’s right; its exact form has divided religious scholars for generations, and it has eluded us for thousands of years, but I have discovered it, and for a limited time only -- it’s yours FREE in special packs!

I am pretty sure that this hasn’t always been part of the recipe. (For those of you wondering: yes, Original Sin does indeed taste blumpy.)

For confirmation, I check the ingredients list, and there I made a shocking discovery. Right there, in printed letters on the top of the box – it turns out that cornflakes do in-fact, contain corn. I’ve been eating grain all along. Still, this does not aid me in my quest. Relishing my new found journalistic professionalism, I move on.

I found no change. It seems that for some reason Kellogs had neglected to mention the recent addition of dark-matter to their cereal. Flakes are also suspiciously absent from the list. This is odd. I check the funky new nutritional-information: 100g of cornflakes contain 529 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 grams of protein, four Turkey Hams, three French hens, two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Also salt.
–Again, there’s absolutely no mention of 12g of saturated evil. Although I did find 0.1g of zinc, which is odd: they don’t taste zinc-y. Both the partridge and pair tree used to be almonds, before exposure to the black goo caused them to evolve into mildly superior species.


Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s because I’m a Serious Journalist now. You’re thinking “But Sam, what does this story about you finding some unpleasant stuff in your cornflakes, have to do with me, the average Joe?”

----- Well Joe, you’re right. You don’t want to know about this. It has absolutely nothing to do with your life. You want to know about the allergy advice.

Nuts. In a curious twist, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, and this is a completely serious quote: “may contain nuts”. Interesting. But nowhere does it say “may contain liquid doom”, “not suitable for those of mortis intolerance” or “may corrupt your soul, manifest your destiny and try to sell porno to your cat”.


Hang on a second. I think I’m getting somewhere here. It is my professional opinion, and here I stake my reputation as a Serious Journalist, that the black goo is not, in fact, an intended ingredient of the cornflake process. It is neither corn, nor flake – an anomaly. A genetic mutation. Or perhaps something more sinister.

Forgive me, but I think I may be just about to put two and two together, carry the one, and come up with something mildly resembling a brainwave. Firstly, I think that I should stop eating these cornflakes. Secondly, I think that I should seek immediate medical attention, but thirdly – I think that I may have stumbled upon the answer to this whole conundrum, which means that we can resolve this case, which means that you good people can go back to reading that small portion of the news which does not concern my breakfast.

Were there not a great deal of warheads that got misplaced in a recent territorial spring-clean of the Middle East? I know this because – as a Serious Journalist – I’ve been watching Celebrity Weapons Inspection Squad, where Les Dennis was recently evicted by phone vote after failing to spot a six foot battleaxe which Camilla Parker Bowles’ second cousin had cunningly concealed inside a Christmas pudding.

See where I’m going here?…

Of course. This is genius.

Think about it. If you wanted to hide chemical weapons, where is the last place that anybody would look? (Excluding, of course, special prize boxes.) That’s right, your pants. But, if there’s one thing we all learnt in Junior High Chem Lab, it’s that it is a bad idea to insert Original Sin into the direct vicinity of one’s penis. This was the first experiment that we ever did.

Another mystery solved, I feel, by this new serious-minded journalist.

So, on that note I can confidently say – one column down, and little do you all know, this column is not only Serious, but also deeply political. You see, I passionately believe that it is every man, woman and child’s right to indulge in a nutritional breakfast –rich in fibre, energy, and partridge-- without being exposed to a thick acid coating of the black death.

If you ask me, something smells blumpy.

__________________
http://www.samsmith.co.uk - My attempts at light humour columns.