I saw the strangest thing the other day walking back to my car in a multi-storey car park.  It was the kind of thing everyone recognises and laughs about but which nobody has actually ever seen in real life.

It was a whole banana skin on the ground patiently waiting for a comedy sketch to unfold.  How weird!  It was even splayed correctly a la Mel Brooks, or Laurel and Hardy.  At first I thought I would hang about to see if anyone came running along carrying a high teetering pile of boxes only to skid on the skin, air run for a few heart beats and then wallop down on their ass.   I don’t really hold with this type of humour and I certainly would not like to see anyone hurt but I was struggling to see any other use for the skin.

Then because I just could not imagine someone stupid enough to eat a banana and leave the whole skin tossed on the ground, I thought maybe the whole thing had been staged for one of those prank TV shows where I was the stooge, and a film crew complete with a scary Michael Barrymore-esque front man were waiting behind a Ford Mondeo to see what I would do.  It was the Michael Barrymore image that made me get in my car, make like a banana and split.  But I have thought about that lonely banana skin often.