BS: Don't call me a couch potato!

Subject: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 08:25 AM

Latest phrase to be under threat!

Couch Potatoes

Well, if we can't have a chairman or a blackboard why should be be unfeeling of the sensitivity of the common spud...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 08:47 AM

Personally, I think Sofa Solanum has a nice ring to it! Let's go Up-Market! (or was that veg market?)
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 09:18 AM

If we want to go upmarket, why not call them suite potatoes? Or is that something else?

This protest is (as I suspect the organisers know full well) not going to result in the language being changed. But it's got British spuds into the world's media - which may just have been the potato marketing people's aim in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: *Laura*
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 11:28 AM

The... the... The British Potato Council!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: jacqui.c
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 12:25 PM

OK, what's going to be on the banners the demonstrators hold up?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 12:34 PM

Slice 'em, dice 'em, and boil 'em in oil!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 12:50 PM

Must be a song challenge as well...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 01:18 PM

The spud dudes out here in Idaho think that the British Potato Council is being damned silly. Expo.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 01:56 PM

Don't call ME no couch potato!   I'm a mouse potato!

(Actually a trackball potato, but that expression doesn't fly very well.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 02:05 PM

Speaking of healthy foods I looked at the nutrition of various fruits and vegetables and found out that watermellon has the most nutrients of all.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 02:31 PM

I live alone... soooo, would I be an ensuite potato?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 02:34 PM

Jaysus. Just read the link. How PC we gonna get?

Potato
Potatoette

Hey, are there girl and guy potatoes?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: rumanci
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 02:37 PM

dunno but
they've usually got eyes on each other for some reason

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 02:52 PM

Grooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: bobad
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 03:04 PM

gnu

you can be a gnu potato from gnu brunswick

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 03:40 PM

Would the Jersey Royals use a Windsor Sofa?
Quack
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 07:15 PM

Would an English potato travelling by ferry to Franch be couchette potato?

Pomme de terre sur chaise longue does not have the same ring to it.

Why did the Arabs get the oil and the Irish the potato? Irish had first choice ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 07:24 PM

Mmmmm. New potatoes. Soon. And all those delicious veggies. I loves me veggie stew. Potatoes, corn, green beans, wax beans, carrots, turnip, cabbage, beets with the greens on, onions, spinach, Swiss chard, a pinch of summer savory, two pinches of salt, and a large dollop of butter. I can hear my guts rumbling already. Mmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,Shanghaiceltic
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 08:47 PM

No doubt 'new' potato's will be banned as a term, ageism!

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 08:52 PM

Since when did potatoes have a reputation for being unhealthy? I mean, they could be if one were to hit you on the head, but otherwise....nah...

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 11:50 PM

I've never associated the term "couch potato" with health. I've always associated it with immobility. A couch potato sits on a sofa and doesn't move. Last time I checked, the ability to move of its own volition was not one of the potato's principle characteristics. Are the protesting potato purveyors trying to tell us that potatoes are, in fact, mobile? Will we be seeing potatoes arising from sofas and running marathons?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 08:08 AM

I've seen stranger things running in the telly broadcasts of the London Marathon!
And would a King Edward be a Throne Potato?
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 08:43 AM

Okay. I'm gonna tell you all the truth about potatoes.

Because what I'm going to relate is hard for some people to grasp, let me preface these remarks by saying that ever since I came to Idaho and the Snake River Plain I've been awed by the numbers of spuds produced here. Last fall I was stopped at a crossing by a train of 127 hopper cars, each of which was filled with taters. Potatoes are such big business here that the motto of Idaho is "Famous Potatoes" and is found on license plates.

Idaho is proud of this vegetable, which is eaten by folks around the world.

And it's a lie.

After considerable research, digging down deeply to get to the truth, I've discovered that the potato is actually a parasite.

Yes, a parasite. What you see above the ground is actually bait. The potato, which is actually a blind, subterranean creature similar to a mole (without the fur -- sort of like a chihuahua dog), moves below the surface eathing rhizomes, slow earthworms, mycelium, nematodes, and similar things. But the American Indian discovered centuries ago that these dim-witted critters can simply love the roots of Solanum tuberosum, a plant of otherwise no significance at all.

The potato senses the presence of S. tuberosum by microscopic receptors in its skin and will travel amazing distances to reach it. Once it finds the roots, the potato (or "potatoe" is it is sometimes spelled by Dan Quayle) attachs itself to a convenient root and sucks the sap of the plant.

Idaho and Maine, to use but two examples of potato country, used to be as flat as central Illinois. Beneath their soil potatoes moved, going about their potato business of buying and selling, reproducing, pawning their watches, mortgaging their homes, driving too fast for conditions, and searching for roots to suck. Especially the last.

When the Indians, and later the White Man, found our about the little suckers' sucking habits they would deliberately cultivate S. tuberosum, creating huge fields of "bait." When the time was ripe the tops of the plants would be cut off and a few days later the suckling potatoes, their skins now hard, would be dug up and ignominously tossed into a basker or other container to be stored for winter food.

So well has this been done for so long that both Idaho and Maine have had huge swathes of land subside because of the harvest of that subsurface parasite, the potato. In Idaho, for example, the subsidence in the Mount Borah area alone has been over 12,000 feet (more than 3,657,600 millimeters). I will leave it to you to figure out how many potatoes have been harvested in this one area alone! Mt. Katadin, up in Maine, is yet another example.

So there you have it: potatoes are really soft, pasty, creatures that humans have addicted to an equivalent of a crack cocaine and methamphetamine cocktail. Humans then rip these inoffensive beings from their dark, warm home beneath the soil after subjecting them to the potato equivalent of "cold turkey" drug withdrawal, throw them into bins, store them in darkness without food, and eventually cook and eat their dead flesh with butter and sour cream.

And it's been going on for ten thousand years.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 10:05 AM

A very interesting explanation, but how does it explain the affinity which the little blighters have with soft furniture?
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Peace
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 10:15 AM

Gawd dammit: Is there or is there ain't male and female potatoes? You folks don't seem to differentiate between serious and frivilous questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: sixtieschick
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:17 PM

Pray for peace and grace and spiritual food,
For wisdom and guidance, for all these are good,
But don't forget the potatoes.
                  —Prayer and Potatoes, by J. T. Pettee

What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
                —Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Emma B
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 02:00 PM

An attachment á la Plato
for a bashful young potato...
       -W.S.Gilbert
       Patience

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:16 PM

Yes, Geoff, potatoes are male and female, but nobody but potatoes care. They might even swap back and forth, the little perverts.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:26 PM

Well that seems to cover the subject, and, based on the posts, the eyes have it.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: sixtieschick
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:48 PM

Rapaire, have you contacted Homeland Security yet? Your shocking revelations should raise the alert-o-meter to at least an orange.

M.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 04:11 PM

Orange alert? You mean they're spraying the potato tops with Agent Orange again just before harvest? I thought they were using Round-Up now... wait, no, that's illegal too... oh yeah, now they use Vision so that the harvesters don't gum up. Much better stuff. Wash your potaoes REAL good folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 04:27 AM

Rapaire - my query was about the predeliction which pota(and their)toes seem to have for reclining on a couch, not about their sex.
Personally, I do not wish to hear about the sex of potatoes, and would like to suggest that if they DO intend to have sex, they take it to their bedroom and not do it on the sofa, Thank You!
Even better, perhaps they should take it into another thread and leave this one alone.
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 04:54 AM

"Will we be seeing potatoes arising from sofas and running marathons?"
Now that's just silly!
Everyone knows they leave that to the runner-beans

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,Wouldn't a female potato be a potata?
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 06:33 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 08:43 AM

Potatoes, as I said, are male and female. I shan't discuss the matter beyond that, even though I (shudder!) know more about it than I really want to know. I will say, and only to satisfy your prurient interest, that What Goes On is degrading, disgusting, degenerate, and other, similar, words that begin with "d" -- and the word "pervert" quite adequately describes them.

(AND they do it in the street and scare the horses! Humph!)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:12 AM

Looking out of my study window all I can see is fields and fields of the litle buggers! Rapaire you've got me really worried now......

"where the potato-gatherers like mechanized scarecrows move"
Patrick Kavanagh

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:18 AM

So, like, if there's male and female potatoes, how do they uh, well, you know, uh, how do they--ah, c'mon, help me out here. What's the word I'm lookin' for? Uh, how does he get the starch in her? There. Whew!

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:23 AM

Brucie, I think the word you're lookin for is "root".

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: rumanci
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:32 AM

hmmmm - they saute root about just to create chips off the old block - perhaps they will jacket in now that people have noticed
rum

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: freda underhill
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:40 AM

How do they do it? ....... two potatos gettin'hot together can only mean one thing...

I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

He did the mash
He did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
He did the mash
It caught on in a flash
He did the mash
He did the monster mash

From my laboratory in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes

They did the mash
They did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They did the mash
It caught on in a flash
They did the mash
They did the monster mash

The zombies were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Wolf Man
Dracula and his son

The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds
Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, "The Crypt-Kicker Five"

They played the mash
They played the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They played the mash
It caught on in a flash
They played the mash
They played the monster mash

Out from his coffin, Drac's voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He opened the lid and shook his fist
And said, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?"

It's now the mash
It's now the monster mash
The monster mash
And it's a graveyard smash
It's now the mash
It's caught on in a flash
It's now the mash
It's now the monster mash

Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band
And my monster mash is the hit of the land
For you, the living, this mash was meant too
When you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you

Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash
The monster mash
And do my graveyard smash
Then you can mash
You'll catch on in a flash
Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash

(Bobby "Boris" Pickett)

ps can i have butter & salt with that?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 11:42 AM

Don't Slay That Potato
by Tom Paxton

How can you do it? It's heartless, it's cruel.
It's murder, cold-blooded, it's gross.
To slay a poor vegetable just for your stew
Or to serve with some cheese sauce on toast.
Have you no decency? Have you no shame?
Have you no conscience, you cad,
To rip that poor vegetable out of the earth
Away from its poor mom and dad?

CHORUS:

Oh, no, don't slay that potato!
Let us be merciful, please.
Don't boil it or fry it, don't even freeze-dry it.
Don't slice it or flake it.
For God's sake, don't bake it!
Don't shed the poor blood
Of this poor helpless spud.
That's the worst kind of thing you could do.
Oh, no, don't slay that potato
What never done nothing to you!


Why not try picking on something your size
Instead of some carrot or bean?
The peas are all trembling there in their pod
Just because you're so vicious and mean.
How would you like to be grabbed by your hair
And ruthlessly yanked from your bed
And have done to you God knows what horrible things,
To be eaten with full-fiber bread?

(CHORUS)

It's no bed of roses, this vegetable life.
You're basically stuck in the mud.
You don't get around much. You don't see the sights
When you're a carrot or celery or spud.
You're helpless when somebody's flea-bitten dog
Takes a notion to pause for relief.
Then somebody picks you and cleans you and eats you
And causes you nothing but grief.

(CHORUS)

There ought to be some way of saving our skins.
They ought to be passing a law.
Just show anybody a cute little lamb
And they'll all stand around and go "Aw!"
Well, potatoes are ugly. Potatoes are plain.
We're wrinkled and lumpy to boot.
But give me a break, kid. Do you mean to say
That you'll eat us because we're not cute?

(CHORUS

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 02:21 PM

Great songs!

Being from the great State of Maine I can fully understand why The British Potato Council doesn't see eye to eye with the Oxford Dictionary folks, and why they find the term "couch potato" less than appealing...

We don't get no respect from them half-baked lexiconners!

Potato growers of the world arise! You've got nothing to lose but your skins.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 08:02 AM

Poem de Terre

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 24 Jun 05 - 09:11 AM

Don't expect much respect from half-baked potatoes either.....
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't call me a couch potato!
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 09:18 AM

Or from half Baked Potatoes...
Quack!
GtD.