mia makes great potato salad

That's an anagram, but like the best anagrams, it also happens to be true when taken at face value. I am not sure where she got the original concept from but it might have been at least partly inspired by our Denver friend Naomi who also makes a great potato salad. Pickled gherkins, or dill pickles as they may also be known, are key.

I think we let potatoes down a lot, not Mia and I, I mean everyone, except possibly Mia and I, and Naomi, because we tend to regard them as a stodgy filler for whatever flavour we are up for at that moment. But potatoes do have a terriffic flavour of their own. They are not the vanilla of vegetables, so don't say they are.

I mean I suppose unpickled gherkins, whatever they may be (are they immature zucchinis? It's incredible and wondrous to me what I don't know - like absolutely everything in my life I blame, naturally, the Victorian Education Department of the 1970s/early 80s and specifically the grotesque John Gardiner High School of Burgess St, Hawthorn) might also be seen by many as, if not stodge, at least a template, characterless in themselves. But I say not at all. Not at all. Or am I being contrary.

I have been watching the first season of 24. My verdict over half way through - well, life's too short, but then again as my friend the philosopher Andrew Withycombe (name droppin') once said, 'Life's not that short'. And both of those notions are true.