As I have already discussed, blackberries are happening. Another fruit that is happening is apples. The apple and the blackberry make, I think, what is called a ācombinationā – and not just any combination, for any pair of things can be called one of those, but a combination actually recognised by whomever it is who recognises these things. (Maybe it is a āclassic combinationā – Iām not sure.)
A bit like what I did with the blackberries, I can observe a highly funny observation about there being a multinational consumer electronics firm called āAppleā, a name which is almost exactly like the fruit that is called an āappleā. However, āAppleā is what the company called, whereas āBlackBerryā is a product made by another company (called āRIMā, incidentally, which I think might be funny). Oh dear, the parallelism is so spurious that I neednāt have bothered.
Being ginormous pillocks, we own some apple trees. These apple trees of ours, in line with most apple trees, usually produce apples on a yearly basis. Nearly twenty entire days ago, we went and looked at one of the trees and saw that sure enough it had produced some apples, apples that were already being pecked at by birds and blown onto the floor by the wind. We decided to claim some of the apples for our own use, before time ran out. The ones which had been pecked at by birds – all of them, in other words – were terribly exciting, a little bit, because they looked a bit like they had been shot at with guns, and anything with guns in it is terribly exciting.
Of course, the apples hadnāt been shot at with guns ā rather, they had been pecked at with beaks. Anyone could do an experiment to test this, by leaving out some convincing decoy apples, perhaps made from some kind of plastic, substantial enough to withstand the efforts of birds and yet flimsy enough to be entered by bullets. The birds would attempt to peck at the decoy apples, but the level of failure would be miserable, and the decoy applesā resilience would quash any allegations about guns.
I donāt like to think that a person would do that experiment, though, because it would destroy the joyful fantasy about the terribly exciting use of guns. Mind you, I would not pat the back of someone full of nasty enough beans to go around with a gun, blasting holes in fruits that could otherwise be put to much better in the mouths of starving children – the experimentās inevitable conclusion would at least offer soothing reassurance that no such person was operating in the area.
Some notes on the picking of apples. Often the mere smell of the fancy apple-picking tool – like a Dick Whittington–style handkerchief tied to a stick, but with added metal teeth – is all that is needed for an apple to drop onto the floor, lost forever in the undergrowth. Apparently, the apples fall like that because they have been attacked by birds, which slightly makes sense because the bonds would have been weakened by the birdsā movement, but surely the removal by the birds of much of the apple flesh would make the apple lighter, at least compensating for the impaired strength. Maybe it is just an optimistic guess. Again, Iām sure that some kind of unnecessary experiment would produce a definitive answer, but no ideas have jumped into my head this time and mulling it over mightn’t be worthwhile. I shall assume the best.
The bees are out in force, and so are the wasps and the flies. Rotten, bruised, unwanted bits of apple, extracted using a knife, are perfect bait for tempting wasps away from appetising sandwiches, especially when spread with reduced sugar strawberry jam, although the ordinary amount of sugar would take things to a whole new level. (I have a feeling that reduced sugar jam is a nasty scheme that teetotal insects have come up with.) Yet, my apple waste has proved less attractive than others’. This has reduced my self-esteem, because there is nothing worse than being snubbed by a wasp. Am I not good enough? Yes (no), I am not good enough.
The question of whether or not to eat an apple core is contentious. Until recently, I have been someone who eats apple cores, yes, but then I had a bad experience. I ate an apple core, as per usual, and rather than being ordinary – you know, not as tasty as the main attraction, but with the added flavour of virtuous freeganism – this apple core was unpleasant. It was the texture what did it. I am certain that some kind of baby insect vegetable was growing inside. I spat it into the compost bucket, exaggeratedly, like an unhealthy sheltered person from a BBC Three television programme.
“I shall remember this day forever,” I thought to myself. And yet, I have already forgotten when it happened. In a sort of way, I’m sure that that’s for the best, and gives the whole concept more artistic merit.
I used to know an interesting fact about apple pips, which is that they have arsenic in them. Arsenic is poisonous, and we know that because āarsenicā sounds a bit like āArsĆØneā, which is the forename of the man who is the manager of Arsenal Football Club, which is not a football team that I would claim to support. Obviously poisonous, although I knew that an entire bucketful of pips would need to be ingested for any ill effects to come about.
The thing is, I checked with my search engine of choice and it turns out that apple pips do not in fact contain arsenic after all. Apple computer products, of course, are proudly made from glass that is arsenic-free, and now I know that that can’t be held up as an example of them betraying the fruit to which they owe everything. Apple pips do contain cyanide, incidentally, but again the thing about bucketfuls applies, so that’s no reason to eat around the apple core. The disgusting experience is enough, in my judgement.