Mark Watson the Comedian

My Internet seems to be back up and running after a chain of negotiations and pleas which went all the way to Australian PM Julia Gillard herself. She invited me to her office and we talked for half an hour about the way forward for Australian broadband. We had a satisfactory meeting and I’m now writing this on her personal computer, resisting the temptation to glance at her inbox.

It ought to be said that the Internet issue on this occasion is one of a catalogue of problems with the hotel I’m in. For now I’m going to resist naming and shaming, but bearing in mind what’s happened to Paul G-ddard in this year’s show, you’d think people would be more circumspect about making an enemy of me. I can only think the hotel management haven’t seen the show yet.

I like to think blogging will now return to semi-regularity, but if it doesn’t, assume I am thwarted by technology rather than dead. Thanks.

The blog has had to be suspended because my Internet has gone down at the hotel. We apologise for any distress caused.

I was going to post a brief message in support of ‘The Apprentice’, as a response to regular commenter and naysayer Andrew, who yesterday added it to a list of gripes also including (but by no means limited to) dogs, Twitter and rugby. It’s going to have to wait though as another of my areas of interest is under threat. I have just been sent a link to a piece suggesting that parsnips ‘could contain small amounts of carcinogens’ according to a new study. Now these ‘studies’ come and go; the Daily Express in particular has more front pages about the possible merits of an Aspirin a day/blueberries curing Alzheimer’s/blueberries giving you Alzheimer’s than it devotes to, you know, actual news. Normally I let ‘health scares’, as they’re known on slow news days, wash over me.

But parsnips?

I’ve gone on record about this before. Parsnips are wonderful. They’re a criminally under-valued vegetable. They get lumped in with journeymen of the allotment like swedes and turnips, veg without a quarter of parnsips’ talent. Parsnips belong in the pantheon of great foods, yet they go about their business with very little fuss, none of the mystique often attached to potatoes. I’ve been banging the parsnip drum continually since in my environment book I first came out as a parsnophile. We had made progress. You find parsnip soup now on restaurants’ specials boards; they sell parsnip chips as a snack quite independently of their more publicised potato cousins. You see parsnip puree on Masterchef. I can’t claim all the credit for this but I know I’ve changed people’s hearts.

And now this. I can only imagine it’s some sort of smear campaign launched by the people behind one of the previously-named vegetables. We’ve all seen it before and it will pass. Until it does, I would ask you not to pay any heed to any so-called ‘news stories’ you may hear about parsnips. Focus on less talked-about gossip items like this business with Tulisa. There are people out there who want to set back parsnips twenty years. I’ve worked too hard for that to happen.

Keep the faith.

Bet Andrew doesn’t like them.

Tomorrow the blog will recommence a full service as I will have dispatched most of my promotional duties for the Melbourne season. And on Saturday it will be time for the return of the much-loved Very Late Review, which Megan has kindly edited. For now, bask in this glowing response to an old Very Late Review, which came into the Comments folder yesterday.

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Four minutes to midnight, UK time. Someone is knocking on my door to check the minibar. Maybe it’s that person who sent the spam. Maybe this is all part of it.

There’s no way I can blog today because of ‘schedule’. It’s a wet Wednesday morning in Melbourne. I hope you fare better with the weather when you wake up.