As a Nation said,

They feed young branch of tree,
bark of a free,
grass.

In Bed With The Man From Marks&Spencer

The following is a cover version of Wolper’s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, The Inventing Room scene:

Late in the dark of the night Val lay in bed with Marks who part-invented Marks & Spencer, talking.
“I simply love your apples” she said sincerely. “I wont buy them from any other shop.” Then she paused for a moment to let wonder form, then asked “Why ARE they so special? Is it all down to the soil in the place where they come from? Do they have really caring farmers?”
“Aaaah my friend” said Marks, which Val heard with her face as well as her ear, for her cheek was on his chest. “I have something rather special to tell you. But this is the most secret mechanism in all my enterprise. I can only give it to you if you solemnly swear to keep it to yourself and never show it to another living soul as long as you live. Agreed?”
“Agreed” said Val predictably and happily.
“Good. Because du komme jetzt in den interessantesten und gleichzeite geheisten Raum meine Fabri. Meine Dame: Der Inventing Room.
Now people are very funny about fruit flavours. As long as it’s sweet, you can almost replace their orange-juice with apricot-, so long as they don’t see the label. Asked to articulate, they will often tell you ‘It tastes fruity’. And so it does. But, now, why would you want to replace orange with apricot (except out of mischief)? well now I’ll tell you. The fact is, apricot is simply a special variety of orange. It’s at a different value on the circular Fruity Spectrum; nevertheless, it IS a spectrum, all items are gradual; and the flavour of apricot is extreme orange. So if you give it to someone who thinks they are drinking orange-juice they will taste that it is special extra-tasty orange-juice. The imposter fruit IS registered, but only in as much as yum. It gives it a little kick,”
“I see.”
“Now take this to our apples. We realised that they needed a little more jelly fat to have the edge on other shops. So, one day, way back when, we take a syringe to an apple and extract all the apple-taste. Then. We take a number of strawberries (it depends on how big the skin of the apple is), and repeat the operation with a new syringe, sucking out the strawberry flavour. Then swap the syringes and insert the imposter flavours. A little coloured ink and voila. Testing this sort of experiment on yourself is inpossible so I gave one of each to my stepmother, unsuspiciously. She eats and all is fine – remarking ‘What a nice juicy apple’ or some such. We use this method on every single apple that comes through our stores, every year. Fantastic invention. Revolutionised our industry. People can eat ‘em and eat ‘em until their dying days and never know any wiser. Never realise. Never. Least I don’t think they do. And as a bonus we also get tastier strawberries.”
“Oh wow wow wow.”
“I know. Isnt it scrumptious?”
“It’s marvellous.”
“But now remember: no touching, no tasting, no telling.”
“I swear, Marksy.”
Talking stopped for a while while the pair thought of apples, what had happened to them earlier in the day, and the prospect of sleep. Marks had rolled over and later quietly said “Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?”
Val said “Did you say ‘fancy bread’ or ‘fancy bred’?” This writer does not know the answer.

Hair On: Mashes (two varieties)

HAIR ON: RECIPES FROM OLDER RELATIVES
Great Aunt Cally says "Once we were playing the Monster Game and someone drew an apple for the head of one of the monsters. We were playing the Monster Game to fill up the time before teatime. Because someone had drawn an apple-head we tore out the little piece of paper around the picture of the apple with a face and persuaded Mam to boil it with all the fruit and mash it into the apple sauce. I dont know why she let us! Normally she'd have said 'Dont be silly'. Mind you, it did take SOME persuading. No-one could taste the picture and ink but it was exciting, like we were eating something that would write on the inside of our stomachs. That was the most important pork&apple sauce I've ever had, and I'm 87."

HAIR ON: MASHING CARAVANS
Caravans are about one and a half feet above the ground and this means that when they are taken away and mashed it is hard to do an impression of when you were inside and you walked from the fridge along to the sink and back again. There is now a line in mid-air at the level of your kneecaps. But if you do the impression by standing on your kneecaps you double the problem.

I Found This Writing At The Back Of My Oven

I found this writing scratched into the back of my oven, at the top, to the right:

I WASNT SHOUTING I WAS JUST ASKING YOU
WHAT Y - WANTED FOR TEA

It was a bit late, but before I finished what I was doing I went back and swapped for the lemon-flavoured oven cleaner, it being the more edible of the two.