18: Strawberries

Ah, Wimbledon fortnight. When the entire country pretends to like tennis and we're treated to endless images of the middle classes and aristocracy munching on strawberries in their little enclave in south-west London.

I don't like strawberries. Saying this to most people causes them to stare at me like I've got a conjoined twin stuck to the side of my face, and said twin is spreading messages of hate with its little reedy voice. I imagine it wouldn't have a brilliantly developed voicebox. But I don't like them. I would go as far as saying that I despise them. I hate their taste, their texture and the fact that they look like obese raspberries.

For the record, I also hate raspberries.

My mother took around 25 years of my life to be able to accept that I don't like strawberries. In her very British way, me saying this is akin to me denouncing the joys of roast beef and yorkshire pudding or suggesting we join the Euro. Before she accepted the fact, I dare say that she would have been able to accept the news that I was - lets say, a transgendered serial killer - in a much more calm and orderly fashion than she did my refusal of strawberries.

Before you imagine that I'm ok with strawberry flavouring - in the same way that tomatoes are evil to eat on their own, but ketchup is a staple of my diet - I'm not. As a child I would be the only kid who would leave the pink part of the neopolitan ice cream to fester in the bottom drawer of the freezer, the only one to turn down trifle, the only one to eat the yellow and green Opal Fruits over the red. Fuck off, they're called Opal Fruits. Starburst sounds like a godawful 1970s nightclub in decadent New York.

Thing is, I like puddings. Love them. I sport an impressive set of man-breasts thanks to this lust, and have an ample beer-gut despite never really having drunk beer. This is the result of years of cake, pies, biscuits, sweets and ice cream. Why, just the other day I stopped on the way back from a gig for ice cream. At 1am, nothing entertains petrol station staff more than a heavily tattooed man trying to decide what frozen treat is easiest to eat whilst driving at 90mph.

It's a Maxibon, by the way.

At this time of the year though I have to hold back from the desserts because everyone serves up strawberries. If I was on Come Dine With Me this week (and lets be honest, a boy has to have dreams) I would inevitably be offered up strawberries, or summer fruit suprises, or strawberry pavlovas, or some other hideous concoction that makes a mockery of fruit and all of its joys.

There are only a few fruits that I approve of:

Bananas - The rolls royce of fruit. I could actually overdose on them. Not green ones though. If you like them anything other than slightly blackened then you're a freak.

Oranges - For which to make mandarin cheesecake and orange jelly. And to flavour calippos.

Lemons - For to flavour sprite.

Limes - For to also flavour sprite.

Apples - Mainly pink lady ones, because I'm classy.

All other fruits can go away. All berries can, to be frank, fuck off. Stupid sickly, tart little beasts with their horrible gritty seeds and disgusting texture. I don't care one jot if I can go to a godforsaken field in Somerset and pick my own, nor if they provide one of my five alleged portions of fruit and veg a day - a law in itself which was, like Valentines Day was invented by Hallmark, dreamed up by the Munch Bunch. Strawberries aren't healthy if you cover them in sugar and cream. Although you can tell how working class you are dependent on what topping you put on your strawberries. Use my sliding scale below:

POSH

Mascarpone and champagne
Double cream
Single cream
Squirty cream
UHT cream
Several creamers stolen from a coffee shop
Dream Topping
Fussell's Condensed Milk

SCUM

Another thing. Where to people get off putting a single strawberry on top of something as wonderful as a chocolate cheesecake (served in an individual glass ramekin) as some kind of obscene garnish? No thank you, sir or madam. It's like decorating a fine Fruits De Mer with a sea urchin, or a beautiful rabbit shaped blancmange with dead woodlouse.

Finally, if I ever find the person who invented strawberry jaffa cakes then I will thrash him until an inch of his life. Until his brain is revealed, like said cake's smashing orangey bit.

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