now that's what I call a jumbo sausage

I've just been watching Could You Eat An Elephant? on Channel 4, the synopsis of which made it sound quite interesting - two chefs travel around sampling exotic food and examine our squeamish and irrational western prejudices to eating things like horse, beetles, dogs, etc.

There were a number of ways this could have been made really interesting: either just go all out to find the most disgusting things you can and have a go at eating them, or do a proper analysis of why we tend not to eat carnivorous mammals or insects, the cultural reasons behind which are quite interesting.

For reasons best known to themselves, however, Channel 4 did neither of these things, deciding presumably that wheeling in a couple of effete ponces to wander round wittering camply to each other while various transgressive delights were prepared for them and then refuse to eat them and bugger off was the way to go. It's the first rule of a program like this that the presenters have got to try the food, otherwise why bother? All we got was a series of interviews evidently done back in the UK where the two chefs explained their reluctance to try things (I didn't see the whole program but they turned down rat, elephant and monkey while I was watching) by saying, well, it's a bit disgusting, isn't it? That's the whole point, you berks. All the more surprising considering that one of them, Fergus Henderson, runs a restaurant in London devoted mainly to various forms of offal. Frankly if you offered me a choice between the chitterlings and some nice juicy elephant I'd be chowing down on old Babar every time.

They should have got Ray Mears and Bruce Parry in; they would have been ripping the legs off dogs and sucking their brains out through a bit of bamboo without a second thought.