Beware the Banana

Bananas are an evil fruit. They smell nasty, they taste nasty, they look ridiculous.

The producers of TV programmes clearly understand how nasty a banana is. On programmes like Survivor, contestants are regularly forced to eat horrible insects and maggots and other "food" that a sane person would not normally consider eating. But they've never been forced to eat... a banana. They know that this would just be going too far. The public would not stomach it.

Nothing ruins a fruit salad more than banana.

They are also grossly overrated in the comedy stakes. For years, people have been slipping on banana skins and falling over hilariously. Everyone loves to see somebody slip on banana skin. Except it's all a big lie. It's a conspiracy. Nobody in real life has ever encountered a lone banana skin on the floor, stepped on it and gone flying. It just doesn't happen.

But what you can say about banana skins, is that with a few important exceptions (such as dead birds, sulphur factories and phials of pure ammonia), they are the smelliest thing that you'll find in a bin. If some git has eaten a banana and disposed of the wrapper in a bin near you at work, then every time that bin is opened a huge, horrendous whiff will escape and overpower you, causing you to gag, and wretch, and possibly pass out. And then your colleagues have to revive you with smelling salts and it's all quite embarrassing.

Final thought: It's impossible to eat a banana without looking like a monkey.