{"id":798,"date":"2008-05-27T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2008\/05\/nuts-inside-olives-outside\/"},"modified":"2008-05-27T12:12:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-27T12:12:00","slug":"nuts-inside-olives-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2008\/05\/nuts-inside-olives-outside\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuts Inside, Olives Outside"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So there were these two kids sitting on a bench, and one of them was explaining olives to the other, while the other was proving difficult to convince.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Olives,&#8221; said the bigger kid, &#8220;they are Just Like Nuts. You Don&#8217;t Eat All The Nut. You Only Eat the Soft Bit IN THE MIDDLE.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;OK,&#8221; said the smaller kid, dubiously.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;See, the bit in the middle is tasty, yeah?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sort of.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It IS! It&#8217;s nice. But, it&#8217;s like nuts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s easy when they&#8217;re in bags.&#8221; The small kid&#8217;s plaintive voice stood for a wide world of advertised convenience. The big kid was using a sledgehammer to crack the nut of the smaller kid&#8217;s ignorance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes, but, they are nicer when you get them fresh, innit? Like Christmas,&#8221; said the big kid with inexorable logic, and he stretched out his legs, and gazed about them, satisfied that the argument was well and truly won.<\/p>\n<p>There was a pause. Then the small kid said,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But, you said this before, yeah, and I still can&#8217;t swallow it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Flabbergasted and exasperated, the bigger kid said,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, why not? Just chew it up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve tried,&#8221; said the smaller kid, &#8220;but it&#8217;s too hard. Look.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He pulled a small, dark, oval object from the recesses of his jeans and held it up between thumb and grubby forefinger.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;See? How am I supposed to eat that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dawning was a moment of gentleness, as the bigger boy realised his mistake. Beaming and generous, he lowered his voice, and taking the olive stone, said proudly and confidentially, with a gastronomic flourish,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ah, you see, that&#8217;s where you&#8217;ve got it wrong, mate. Nuts, you chuck the outside, eat the inside. Olives, you eat the outside, chuck the inside.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A deft flick of his strong wrist sent the inedible olive stone flying across the grass, where it was immediately siezed upon by a couple of flapping, pecking pigeons, who took some time to discover that fact. A silent air of deep calm descended on the boys, as the far distant Mediterranean sea lapped at their feet, and sunlight broke through, warming their brows.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/funk.co.uk\/blogpix\/olive_stone.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So there were these two kids sitting on a bench, and one of them was explaining olives to the other, while the other was proving difficult to convince. &#8220;Olives,&#8221; said the bigger kid, &#8220;they are Just Like Nuts. You Don&#8217;t Eat All The Nut. You Only Eat the Soft Bit IN THE MIDDLE.&#8221; &#8220;OK,&#8221; said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[780],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky-original","tag-funky-original"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}