Talking Vegetables

”WHAT’S that, Skippy? Trapped down a disused mineshaft you say? C’mon, boy - you show me where…’

‘You marvellous little ball, you!’

We have known for a long time that kangaroos are highly intelligent animals - in Australia they pretty well form a fourth emergency service rescuing kids trapped in disused mineshafts up and down the country.

Intelligent they may be, but they’re not great conversationalists.

You wouldn’t invite a kangaroo to a dinner party, say, especially if you could get a border collie along instead - like Rico (see Tabloids).

But what about vegetables? Prince Charles has been talking to them for years - and we’re not talking about the dear departed Queen Mother.

And this morning he tells the Guardian his two favourite dinner companions - the brussel sprout and the leek.

Both are said to be very good listeners, always on hand with a bit of sage advice and boasting a wealth of amusing anecdotes with which to keep the prince entertained.

‘It’s a marvellous little ball,’ Charles exclaimed about the humble sprout - an opinion not shared, it seems, by his future subjects.

Not for the first time, in February the sprout was voted Britain’s most hated vegetable, although we prefer to think of it as misunderstood instead.’

Posted: 11th, June 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink