Milk, Milk, Lemonade...

 I was watching Father Ted recently (I'm Irish, so I have to watch it at least once a week. It's the law.) and as Pat Mustard was putting his enormous tool in Mrs Doyle's box, it made me wonder - what are all the milkmen doing now?

Popular myth would have us believe that they used to shag all round the neighbourhood, so now that having milk delivered is largely a thing of the past they must be gagging for it. Have they transitioned into the adult film industry maybe?

When I was growing up not only did we have a milkman (yes, he was ginger, but my family preferred the 'you came from the knackers' story) we also had D'egg Woman. She was so named, bless her, for her fine dis-dat-dese-and-dose Cork accent and she provided us many happy moments of amusement, as well as d'eggs, when she regularly exclaimed 'Jesus, Mary, Joseph and de dunkey!'

We had a seafood guy too, but we kept our distance - there was something fishy about him. BA-BOOM, TISH! Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week, try the horse…

Speaking of meat and entertainment, my Nana used visit Billy Farrell, her local butcher, practically every day. I'm not saying she stalked him, but she definitely had strong feelings for Billy and I'm not sure if it was his meat or his witty repartee she was more interested in. That came out all wrong. Oh god... Nanas and innuendo should not mix. Moving swiftly on…

Nowadays it seems local fresh produce (and its associated friendly producer) is confined to Farmer's Markets, which carry a much higher than average risk of rubbing shoulders with Barbour-clad types called Crispin and Tarquin, because they 'simply have to try the olives!', or dreadlocked tree-huggers in search of all-natural fair-trade organic wheat germ soap infused with the essence of bee tears.

Not only have the big bad supermarkets been killing ponies, they've wiped out our local shopkeepers and delivery folk. Damn you Tesco /Sainsburys /Waitrose /Asda / Dunnes/ Super Valu/ Aldi /Lidl /Morrisons /Farmfoods /Iceland <Delete according to income level / likelihood of appearance on Jeremy Kyle> Damn you to hell!

In other milk-based ponderings, I remembered a popular little ditty from my childhood:

Milk, Milk *point to boobs*

Lemonade *point to front 'area' *

Round the corner *point to back 'area' *

Chocolate's made!

I think I'd better leave it there.