I'm a great fan of mystery stories - they're my great escape. Over the years, I have started to note and "collect" ugly British names for food. For example: bangers and mash, toad in the hole, train smash (tomatoes and sausage) and the ever-controversial bubble-and-squeak.

Of course, we all know why they do it. It's to show they are Not French.

However, here is an actual sentence from "Skeleton in the Closet" by M.C. Beaton, a Scottish-born dweller in the Cotswolds.

"They strolled into a tea shop of the olde English variety, beams and horse brasses, and cakes that most of the world had forgotten about - Eiffel towers, congress cake, fly cemetaries, empire biscuits."

FLY CEMETARIES!? This has gone too far.