Just as I was about to sit down to watch The Wombles - one of my favourite evening sitcoms - I came across a huge bowl of walnuts in a forgotten corner of the sitting-room. Christmas seems a distant memory and it's a mystery as to how these walnuts have been overlooked - there they lay, all dusty, wrinkly and unloved, shivering in a corner.
I hunted high and low for one of my Christmas gifts: a 24-carat gold set of walnut-crackers sent from Lady Sybil Trumpington-Bonham-Hyde of Aberdeenshire. Not really a friend, more of an annoyance really, especially that unnecessary triple-barrelled name. But a gift is a gift, and it's the thought that counts, even from that whiskey-belching, old trout. This is what the walnut-crackers looked like.
Pure gold walnut-crackers: a gift from someone or other, they were one of a kind, very rare and expensive, and keeping with my penchant for all things erotica.
I couldn't find the buggers anywhere and a nasty suspicion dawned upon me that one of my delinquent serving-staff had stolen them, so I instantly sent command for a full body strip-search and interrogation of every single member of the staff first thing tomorrow morning! In the meantime, a walnut is useless if you can't get the shell off, so I naturally tried this technique (not recommended if you're wearing dentures).
Although I'm quite used to having nuts in my mouth, this type of nut is tedious and hard work, like trying to bite in half a marble. So I thought of another solution. As many of you know, during last summer I've been riding a bicycle, or more precisely a vintage Penny-farthing, around the lanes of Buckinghamshire, Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common (as well as often seen parked outside the men's toilets in Waddesdon village for long periods of time). Anyway, riding such a heavy piece of vintage bicycle up and down hills, I've developed butt cheeks so strong I estimated I'd easily be able to crack a few walnuts between them. Here's how I did it on the sitting-room floor:
You have to get into a position you're most comfortable, such as lying on your back (a position I'm most accustomed to). I was, however, quite keen not to miss The Wombles on TV, so I went as fast as I could.
Before you could say "Uncle Bulgaria", this is what the bowl of walnuts had become:
I was able to crack over 200 walnuts in just 6 minutes. Is that a world record? Will I be in the Guinness Book of World Records alongside Jeremy Beadle? Yes! And I got to enjoy a lovely mouthful of nuts whilst watching The Wombles. Needless to say, such cracking doesn't come without a price. Afterwards I needed four ice-baths to cool the burning sensation in my nether regions, followed by the urgent need to spray twelve cannisters of Ralgex muscle spray one after the other onto the affected area.
