I’m often asked why I swear so much on here, and I reply
that if I didn’t then this would just be another boring blog about veg wouldn’t
it? You fucking prick.
I had a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon judging the veg and
fruit classes at a local show somewhere in deepest, darkest Leicestershire, and it was nice to see numbers and overall
quality was up. The runner bean class had a lot of entries and had me earning
my corn, and as usual there were plenty of entries in tomatoes, French beans,
and cucumbers, and the steward who was accompanying me was asking plenty of
questions about how I judged things which I was happy to answer as I went
along. He thanked me afterwards and said he’d learned a lot.
A few years ago at this show I had to ‘NAS’ a dish of
tomatoes that had 7 fruits instead of the requisite 6 when the steward and my
wife ganged up on me, when my request to remove one of the 7 whilst my back was
turned was refused. That same steward benefitted from the disqualification by
being placed 3rd when he was out of the tickets and the incident
left a bad taste in my mouth. Well, I managed to get it out of my system on
Saturday afternoon when I came across a set of French beans with one too many
in, so I simply picked one out and asked the steward to hide it. The beans were
placed 2nd and no-one was any the wiser. Apparently Medwyn is
discussing this very same subject in his column in Garden News this week and
I’m glad to see he agrees with me. I have been asked to judge the Southern
Branch Championships of the NVS next year and I will state here and now that if
a similar situation happens down there I shall adopt the same method. A judge
who disqualifies an exhibit because it has too many on a dish is a joyless
jobsworth in my eyes.
When it came to giving the best veg in show award I went for
a single cabbage unusually. I knew it was going to be controversial as you
don’t often see cabbages getting best in show, but it was a large cabbage, with
no blemishes and had a lovely bloom to it so in my eyes it was a clear choice.
The problem then came when I had to get together with the
other judges to award best in the whole show. This is an impossible task in my
opinion, as how can you compare a cabbage against a flower arrangement, a cake
and a quilt?? Answer is you can’t. Initially I got together with the dahlia
judges and agreed that their choice of 3 dahlias trumped my cabbage. Having
exhibited dahlias in the past I’m quite happy comparing flowers against veg
knowing the degree of skill and difficulty involved in both. Last year I stood
my ground on a nice set of onions and they agreed with me for instance. I
thought that would be an end to it but the decrepit old dahlia judge wanted to
know why I had gone for the cabbage and not the shallots. He used to grow and
show veg himself at a reasonable level, and sees himself as an authority on all
things horticultural I guess, but he really has had his day and is now a bit of
an embarrassment I’m afraid. Not a criticism, it’ll come to us all one day, but
I had to show him a small split on the winning shallot entry and the fact that
they were all different shapes and sizes if you looked closely. That seemed to
satisfy him but not before he went around all the other veg to satisfy himself
there was nothing else to question me on. Dear old codger bless him.
There were some nice tomatoes on display, with the 2nd
placed set showing the yellowing calyces that I have suffered from in the past,
most notably on my 4th placed set at the Dundee National in 2015.
This tends to affect me towards the end of September so it was a surprise to
see it mid-August, so I’m now more convinced that this is down to extremes of
temperature between night and day. We have had a sudden downturn in
temperatures as the gulf stream dragged cooler Arctic air down towards us. I’ve
often seen it recommended that you should keep the door on your tomato
greenhouse open at all times, but I’ve always closed it at night and that is
bound to help when the temperature tumbles.
And finally, I shouldn’t really discuss private matters on
here but I am a bit concerned for my health as my cock suddenly turned bright
orange over the weekend, and I mean bright fucking orange, so I was just
wondering if any of you might be able to offer me an explanation? Someone
suggested to me it may be stress related but I had a very peaceful weekend, therefore
it is a little worrying I have to say. My wife was away on a hen-do all weekend
so I just had a couple of quiet, ‘blokey’ nights in on my own, minding my own
business, watching some porn films and eating several bags of Wotsits. Send me
an email if you think you can advise please.
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