fruit en groenten

The silly season is upon us. With everyone from builders to politicians heading off on holiday, the newspapers have to find something to fill their columns. So, today I read that the city of Bruges is to investigate whether it should introduce little bags, similar to poo bags for dogs, where people could put their chewed gum or cigarette butts. A fag end in a plastic bag sounds dangerous, but the plan involves airtight bags. I can still smell burning, though.

Yes, the komkommertijd is upon us. Apparently, this comes from the no longer used English expression cucumber time, which was the slack summer period when the rich fled to their country estates and left Londoners with only enough income to buy cucumbers.

Komkommers are cool, especially in a salad. Now, the Dutch for a salad is sla, whose main ingredient is lettuce, which in Dutch is also sla. Slice some tomaten, perhaps een ui - an onion - and you're done. Tomatoes aside, most vegetables are green, so it is no surprise that the Dutch for vegetables is groenten ("greens").

Fruit is fruit, which rhymes with an Ulsterman's pronunciation of out. Make a salad of this lot: sinaasappel - orange; perzik - peach; pruim - plum; kruisbes - gooseberry; druif - grape; bosbes - bilberry ("wood berry"); aardbei - strawberry ("earth berry"); and appel - apple. And it is the last that has inspired this week's column, and in particular one Granny Smith.

Most royal families are blessed with a queen mum, and Belgium is no exception. Queen Fabiola is known for having a mind of her own and sometimes rubs people up the wrong way. One person has taken such offence that he wrote to Fabiola threatening to finish her off with a crossbow during the ceremony that marked Belgium's national day last week on 21 July. While the rest of the family paraded through the streets towards the royal stand outside the palace, Fabiola was sitting on her seat waiting patiently for the others to arrive.

You had to feel sorry for the old dear. Security was tight: the loyal subjects who wanted to glimpse the royal podium had their bags searched for crossbows, among other things. The parade passed off in sunshine with no bolt from the blue. As the royal party rose to leave, Fabiola produced from her enormous handbag a green Granny Smith apple, which she held up for a moment tempting our latter-day William Tell to have a shot. If she had shouted: "This is not an apple!", it wouldn't have surprised me more. As my transatlantic cousin, here on a short visit, exclaimed: "What a dame!"