Across Difficult Country

I was drinking scotch (Dewar's, rocks) and reading Fruit-Inform (the leading information source on the fruits and vegetable markets of Ukraine, Russia and other Eastern European countries), like I do most afternoons when I wake up, and I noticed the big Potatoes & Vegetables of Ukraine 2014 Conference was scheduled to be held in Kiev this Thursday. I’m no conspiracist, but isn't it curious Ukraine explodes in unrest and the Russians move into Crimea just before this crucial conference? “I too find it curious,” observed Across Difficult Country's foreign correspondent Ismail Mat Taib . “If I were not so busy patrolling this damned beach on a motorcycle I would go and do some reporting from there. Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time a barge that I thought was full of potatoes had —" Yes, yes you did.

A Florida man began the new year by attacking his girlfriend with a banana. Just think, in the near future, after bananas have been wiped out by a putrefying fungus , this sort of assault will be carried out with a mango, or an apple, or a pomegranate, or in tragic circumstances, a potato.

Scientists warn a putrefying fungus could wipe out the banana industry "in the near future", which reminds me I should finish the mystery novel I've been writing about Bananas Foster, a mentally unstable private detective whose investigation of the suspicious death of a noted pastry chef exposes a cover-up that goes all the way to the top.

I lack the progressive fervor for buggery, so if I were President I would never call and congratulate someone for being a homosexualist. I would, however, call and congratulate someone for  squandering his life savings on a carnival game in exchange for a giant-stuffed-Rastafarian banana with dreadlocks. Partly for reminding us there is little at all done among men that is not full of folly, as Erasmus put it, and partly because just look at that banana.

High atop a lonely mountain, deep within the Philippines jungle, a carnivorous plant that eats rats has been discovered, by a crack team of British carnivorous plant experts who just happened to be in the area. Giant carnivorous plant Nepenthes Attenboroughii Remember the cow eating tree in India known as the pili mara ? Hopefully this amazing find will force establishment botanists to reconsider the evidence for its existence.

Was a cow really attacked by a carnivorous tree in Padrame (or Patrame), India? 1 Skeptics have repeatedly pointed out how unlikely it is a tree, which after all only has slender branches to strike with, would attack prey as large as a cow. Birds, rodents, or other small game perhaps, but a cow, the skeptics argued, would be too bulky, and honest cryptobotanists conceded they had a point. But now, thanks to the fieldwork of intrepid reporter Melka Miyar , we have more details on the case, including a photograph of the injured bovine, a photo which changes everything . Everyone assumed the animal in question was a big fat Texas-style cow, the kind white men turn into delicious steaks and hamburgers. In reality it was a tiny jungle cow, roughly the size of a large dog, the kind men who wear towels around their waists instead of pants worship as a god. The tallest of pili maras wouldn’t dare attack the former, but even a small pili mara would have a no problem taking a bite out of the l...

In the village of Padrame in the Uppinangady forest range of India cows are being attacked by carnivorous trees : According to reports, the cow owned by Anand Gowda had been left to graze in the forests. The cow was suddenly grabbed by the branches and pulled from the ground. The terrified cowherd ran to the village, and got Gowda and a band of villagers to the carnivorous tree. The cow escaped after Gowda and the villagers beat the hungry tree into submission. Locals call such trees ‘pili mara’, or tiger trees, and many believe snacking pili mara are the reason so many of Padrame’s cows have been coming home at night with missing tails.