Lettuce Spray

Who actually likes lettuce? Who sees lettuce on their plate and thinks, "Ooh, lettuce! ... I'm saving that till last?"

Or "Ooh, I just fancy a bit of lettuce. I haven't had any lettuce for ages?"

Or "I used to love the way my mum did lettuce ... on a plate, on its own. Cold?"

Lettuce is just there to make you feel better when you go to McDonald's. That's all it's for. To make you think you're having a balanced diet. "I'm balancing a quarter-pound of beef, processed cheese, bacon, ketchup and mayonnaise with a bit of lettuce. And a slice of gherkin."

Robert Mugabe is a despot responsible directly and indirectly for the deaths of thousands of people. He balances that with the ability to make a nice cup of tea. That's the sort of balance we're talking about here.

Did you know McDonald's invented the chicken nugget? Well, they also invented lettuce, back in 1956. Look it up on Wikipedia, it's true. You find any book from before then and you'll find no mention of lettuce. After 1956, it's another story.

It's not always tasteless, though. That's because the boffins were sitting in their lab one day, scoffing some smokey bacon crisps, and one of them thought, "I know - flavoured lettuce."

So they tried lots of different flavours - prawn cocktail, Worcestershire sauce, pickled onion... And what did they pick in the end? Earwax.