Wyatt Earp wrote:

QUOTE:
At a guess, you have the "coriander tastes soapy" gene. Seriously.

Well! Put me in the "I'm buggered" camp, alongside Alderman.

HORN wrote:

QUOTE:
Well! Put me in the "I'm buggered" camp, alongside Alderman.

Mind where you drop the coriander.

Ja, Jever is pretty good, though decidely "crisp" and therefore (at least for me) better in hot weather. They also get points for having sponsored Moenchengladbach.

I don't think that there is a good translation of "herb", whether in things beer or otherwise.

The coriander/soap thing is completely new to me, and reminds me of the similar genetic split as to whether one detects a strong odour when urinating after eating asparagus. Are there more of these things out there?

Jever's lovely when it's cold, but foul when it's slightly too warm, due to its pronounced "herbness".

Now that you mention they sponsored Gladbach, it reminds me of possibly the most ill-advised design ever for a beer-sponsored football shirt.



They won the Cup that year, and there were Gladbach fans all over Berlin that evening sporting that shirt and, shall we say, "customised" versions of it.

Pray explain, for I am a simple soul.

the similar genetic split as to whether one detects a strong odour when urinating after eating asparagus.

Which gender doesn't detect the odour? I know I do, and I remember my former sister-in-law insisting that smelly wee was the only reason for eating asparagus in the first place.

Egg, some Gladbach supporters drank too much after their victory and vomited onto their replica jerseys, thus "customising" them (and in a complementary colour, one might suppose).

Treibeis, it's a gene, not a gender. Some people (not any in my family, as it so happens) can't smell anything.

Grapefruit, ursus.

"Taste responses to naringin, a flavonoid, and the acceptance of grapefruit juice are related to genetic sensitivity to 6-n-propylthiourac"

This is like how cats can't taste sweet because they're all descended from one mutant cat. (a saltation??? surely not)

There is no food subject that I can't turn into a cat subject.

I ate a sweet cat once.

Oh my, this place. The tiniest little ambiguity and - pounce!

All members of all species are the way they are, genetically, because they descend from a single mutant. That's how it works.

So if the human race was wiped out tomorrow and only me and Alderman Barnes were left, no one would ever like coriander again. Good plan.

"The world is dead. The apocalypse has drawn a veil over the living and over life itself. The reaper has come and claimed his due, leaving nought in his wa - ooh, look! A spice rack!"

Ah, but Lyra, wouldn't that depend on whether it's a dominant or a recessive gene?

I asked my mum and dad last night but I don't think they've ever eaten fresh coriander. I might try some out on my daughter tonight in a spirit of Mendelian inquisitiveness.

After the new breed - known as Lyrans - gradually colonise our solar system, they'll finally unlock the secrets of hyperspace. Fleeing the inhospitable wastelands of an earth so devastated by nuclear disaster and global warming that nothing will grow except herbs native to south Asia, they will strike out into the unexplored wilderness of space. A billion billion light years away, the first pioneer colonisers will land on a planet where the vegetation is mercifully free of anything resembling the Apiaceae family. The shy inhabitants of the planet at first welcome their new Lyran overlords, who seem to be bringing trade, straight roads, literature, music. But they gradually grow to realise that the Lyrans' intentions are not merciful, that indeed, they plan to rape and plunder the planet, leaving it barren before moving on to find more fruitful worlds. Why conserve an ecosystem, they reason, when there's billions of them out there? Why not simply use it up, make some cash and move on? Lyrans, sadly, have forgotten the lessons learned on the home planet, for such is human nature, and one little defective gene can't wipe out millions of years of evolution. So these interplanetary space reavers start to show their true colours.

Luckily for the gentle, somewhat bovine natives of planet X432, their scientists have managed to gain a sample of Lyran DNA. Their advanced genome mapping techniques, developed centuries before and hitherto used only to benefit their kin and all of the many smaller, vegetarian species on the planet, unlock the strengths and flaws of the Lyrans with ease. Spies immediately set out on their own sturdy, homely spacecraft, searching for planets with the right sorts of atmosphere. They try several - the mission growing increasingly urgent as reports of Lyran atrocities perpetrated on X432 begin to filter through the space-com - and finally, they land upon an uninhabited paradise. It's beautiful. A perfect earth-type atmosphere and geology have produced ideal conditions for the evo