ICE CREAM PARADOX

I left the tent up. As I munched on my Cheerios this morning, I glanced outside and noticed that the local birds had used it as a kind of giant blue toilet.

I do a lot for birds. At lunchtime today, I sat huddled over an ice cream, dropping chunks of fudge and hundreds-and-thousands over the paving stones. Messy. There had been a company giving away free ice cream, so I queued up with everyone else by the lake. As I wandered off, cone in hand, it was already running down my wrist and splodging onto the floor. The ducks and the geese are going to love it.

I'm not complaining. It's nice that people do that kind of thing for free, albeit an advertisement for something or other, but the gesture was very much appreciated on such a hot day. Not least by the local wildlife.

I'm not sure I've ever really enjoyed ice creams. I know you're supposed to, like it's expected of you from the first time you recognise the ice cream van jangling away outside. I know they're supposed to be a lovely treat. I just don't know whether I really like the experience. I like food that behaves itself while you eat it without falling apart in your fingers.

Is it a control thing that makes us salivate whenever the ice cream man cometh? By the way, my canny parents told my sister that that sound was the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You can have that one for free, parents; use it wisely.*

If it is a control, it's a bit like Disneyland. I still don't understand what's so great about it - the idea of giant silent cartoon characters looming over you sounds utterly terrifying. I never wanted to go - but everything and everyone around me told me that I really ought to want to. I never did.

It's also a bit like alcohol and grownups, I think. I'll revisit this idea sometime because it's too powerful to gloss over, but there are moments when I wonder whether people really do like wine, beer, whisky, whatever - or whether they've simply been conditioned into thinking they like it. Controversial. I'll let you think about that.

Anyway, boo to Disneyland with its sugary nonsense! And boo to ice cream!

Yet *ahem* there I was with everyone else, queuing up for an ice cream today, perhaps compelled by its appealing price tag (free) and the inbuilt to desire to cool off (naturally) with the saccharine flavour of delicious raspberry ripple topped with fudge and hundreds-and-thousands. What a hypocrite.

Still, I hope the birds enjoy it.


*Don't use it.