The Dark Secret Behind Pineapple Pizza

It is one of the most divisive issues of our day. Mention politics or religion, and people may well just change the subject. Slide the triangular wedge of pineapple on pizza into the conversation, and no such tact will be forthcoming. More polarizing than the question of fitted sheets, this is a hill which many will choose to die on.

For a long time I was not one of them. A distaste for pineapple on pizza I considered to be simply part of my personal preference for savoury and sweet to keep themselves to themselves and not go indiscriminately oozing into each other. Others could do as they pleased, and it didn’t bother me.

But that was before I learned the dark secret about sweet and savoury, and the ominous combination thereof – a secret revealed in an episode of Doctor Who (S3E8).

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The Body Language of the Carrot

When we are born, very little in this world makes sense. (Some may feel that this continues to be the case.) As time goes by, we begin to perceive patterns which bring a sense of order to our tiny selves. Scream like so, for example, and lo! the source of all comfort appears. These features arranged like this always come with that particular voice, and in time we realize that this is A Person.

As the years go by, we start to notice patterns in behaviour. When that person’s face goes that colour, they’re going to shout. When someone stands like that, it means they know they’re in trouble (and they hope you don’t know it yet).

Some people develop this to a finer art than others, but nearly every mind, having got the hang of it, gets completely carried away and starts noticing these patterns everywhere. Those clouds are sticking their tongue out. That tree looks surprised. And this carrot…

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The Other Half of My Brain

It is often said that one half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives. I had no idea that this was true of brains as well. I have long been aware that there is a part of my brain that does the hidden work of creating characters and so forth. What I hadn’t realized is that this bit of my brain has such different tastes and interests as to verge on being the Other Half.

What has the Other Half been doing to spark these wild surmises, you wonder. Playing chess? Concocting recipes for a new and improved pain au chocolat? Alas, no. What I caught the other half of my brain doing, shortly before I woke this morning, was writing a country song.

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