Fancy getting your…

Fancy getting your mouth round Uncle Bert’s Purple? And while you’re doing that, the Diary might as well gobble the end of your Whanga Crown. But this is no pornographic fantasy. It’s more readers’ chives than readers’ wives. Because these, along with Long Green Buddha and Boothby’s Blond (pictured), are endangered vegetable varieties, available for adoption from the Henry Doubleday Research Association. As it’s illegal to sell unregistered varieties, the association depends on sponsorship to maintain these historic, and amusingly named, crops. So for just &£12, readers logging on to www.hdra.org.uk can become the proud parent of such delights as the Afghan Purple carrot (which sounds like it ought to be another type of crop altogether), and Loos Tennis Ball. The Diary is sure that one was a tabloid headline at some point this summer…