Mandarins

I can recognise implicitly that I should write about the mandarins. They are so strikingly orange. They nestle into my wooden fruit bowl like clouds above a low valley, or better still, like bloody offal in a saucer – the offal, perhaps, of a slaughtered white horse that is scooped up to feed cats. They can also be likened to a group of football players packed in closely to gee themselves up for a big effort – their shaved heads so closely pressed together that they resemble clouds or offal. But these are definitely mandarins. One even has a blue label, which is fortunately bound to come off before I eat the piece of fruit. It is my practice to always skin mandarins prior to eating them. The good thing about mandarins is the you can eat as many as you like. There is no sense of excess if one eats a substantial number in a single day. In this sense, the mandarins may be likened to cigarettes for somebody who has a pack a day habit.