Shameless Marmite Plug!

My dear friend Maggie Hall, the person most relied on to drag me out of my office tomb most afternoons around 4ish, to air out the void between my ears, removing a days worth of common dreck...and reloading it with fresh dreck of an uncommon hue, is off this afternoon for a month in England (poor me) to peddle her brand new, hot off the presses book, "The Mish-Mash Dictionary of Marmite."

This "anecdotal A-Z of 'Tar in a Jar" contains 206 pages of things to do, and things that have been done, with what most right-tasting souls (i.e. me) consider one of the foulest substances on earth.

So what's to be found that fits my off-kilter gardening blog? Aha! On page 139, burrowed in the "P" section (which also contains bits on Kim Philby, pickles, pigs, pms, and prostitutes), is this tidbit on plants: "Empty Marmite jars do have a great use. A really good one is to start seedlings. The darkness of the glass will protect the roots --which do not do well exposed to light -- and the jars certainly look a lot nicer than those black plastic boxes."

Clearly, there's something here (and often a most wonderfully silly something) for everyone. As one wag put it on Amazon (oh, that would be me again),  "Here you have the perfect bathroom reader; an opus that can accommodate any length movement."

Check out Maggie's blog for details -- and buy one for Christmas for every displaced Brit on your list!  http://mish-mash-marmite.blogspot.com/