MARTIN DAWES: Strange ideas are sprouting at sea...
COME Christmas Day we know what Wayne Keble won't be having with his roast turkey. Sprouts.
Wayne is captain of the Royal Navy's assault ship HMS Bulwark who caused a bit of a stink the other week by banning sprouts from his warship.
He called it the Devil's Vegetable although he denied it was part of a wider plan to prevent flatulence among his 390 sailors.
In fact, Captain Keble denied he had even mentioned sprouts, full stop, until the reporter showed his immaculate shorthand note and someone else had a recording of the captain saying what he did.
What particularly tickled me was that when the Ministry of Defence swore blind that black was white newspapers reported a small voice at the back.
"The MoD can say what they like but Capt Keble runs the ship and he has categorically said that sprouts are banned," said a source. Or should that be sauce?
I think there are several things here. Any fan of Blackadder will tell you that the original Devil's Vegetable was a turnip, but the sprout is not the only vegetable to cause a sharp egress of methane when we least expect so why pick on it?
Why not have a go at baked beans, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus and so on?
You might begin to understand Captain Keble's attitude if he had been commander of a submarine where fresh air is at a premium but not on a ship ploughing through the high seas. After dinner, anyone so troubled has only to go up to, say, the poop deck and let it out gently.
And you might ask what right has anyone, even if he is a Royal Navy captain, to dictate what food people should or should not eat?
The sprout has always been a misunderstood vegetable. It is misunderstood universally by children who hate it with a vengeance. It is not until later in life that you appreciate what it has to offer.
I was one of those kids who could make themselves sick at the mere sight of a sprout. Possibly part of the problem was that I grew up at a time when people overcooked their vegetables into submission.
No, you want a crisper kind of sprout – peppered ones, as mentioned in the song, are pretty good – but even then I carried on abusing the poor vegetable for years.
You see, I got it into my head that you had to make a cross-shaped nick in the stalk end but all that does is let in the water and make it soggy.
To be honest, for most people sprouts are for Christmas and then "only a small amount, please" but you do only need six, packed with vitamins C, D and folic acid, to make up one part of the adult's daily fruit and vegetable requirement.
There are people who form great bonds with sprouts. I know a man who had a sprout as a companion for years.
It seems it accidentally dropped into his pocket unnoticed one Christmas (he must have had a few drinks) and when he found it he made it a sort of a pet. Over the months it fossilised into a small, hard ball. He'd get it out and put it on the pub table when he was having a drink.
The captain's antics make all this seem a bit of British foolery. You can imagine the jokes in a Carry On film or that it might have been the subject of one of the Goon Shows – the Royal Navy unleashing a deadly weapon on foreigners by sailing off the shore and releasing a barrage of smelly sprouts to get them to surrender.
Despite the sprout being a laughing stock, I only know of one sprout joke.
Q: What's the difference between a sprout and a bogey?
A: Kids don't eat sprouts.
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