The carrot is to return to its roots when it goes on sale in what’s said to be its true colour of purple this summer.
Growers say they have dug up the vegetable’s original colour and will revert to the new hue this summer for the first time in Europe in five centuries.
It’s not April 1. I checked.
One slow July 4 weekend when I was with UPI, the Hartford, CT bureau produced a story about a farmer who had grown a crop of red white and blue pickles. They’d picked the story from a local weekly. The regional bureau in Boston thought this was a terrific story and made it available to all UPI clients in New England, as well as alerting the national and international desks in New York.
While those desks were pondering this item, the Photo desk realized that they really need a picture of these pickles to move on the wire. So Photo asked Boston, which asked Hartford, which got on the phone to the weekly, which got on the phone to the stringer who wrote the original article: the UPI Photo desk in New York thinks this is a terrific story and they want a picture to send to their clients around the world.
You’re k idding, the stringer said. It was a put-on. Who the hell believes you can grow red white and blue pickles?
The retraction stories were entertaining.
And somehow, no one got fired.
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