In the Summertime

It's summer, or nearly summer, with the first really warm days in many months lifting the spirits as well as the temperatures.

At such times the change of breakfast from the winter fare of hot porridge to the refreshing hit of a bowl of cornflakes is most welcome.

Being  a 'mine of useless information' my thoughts turned to how cornflakes were first discovered.  It transpires that an Adventist with a penchant for strict discipline was feeding the patients in his Sanatorium a diet that was designed to decrease libido.

Kellogg (for that was his name) believed that spicy or sweet foods would increase passions. In contrast, corn flakes would have an anaphrodisiac property and lower the sex drive.

Interesting he chose a rooster called Cornelius to be the mascot of his fledgling company; a bird that is renowned for its sexual prowess and clearly not a great devourer of cornflakes.

But advertising at Kelloggs was not all 'fowl' and the odd spot of violence was also promoted, as this 1908 poster depicts.

The late John Lennon counted cornflakes amongst his favourite foods and during the Beatles' reign wrote two songs related to the cereal.

"I Am The Walrus" had one line about "sitting on a corn flake", and the song, "Good Morning, Good Morning" was inspired by a jingle for a British corn flake cereal commercial.

I regret to say that no one was similarly inspired by a bowl of porridge although Bob Marley's hit song, "No Woman, No Cry", contains the lyric "Then we would cook corn meal porridge of which I'll share with you".

Just think what he could have written if he'd laid off the ganga and eaten cornflakes instead.

One final thought on the subject, if Singapore is serious about raising the fertility level of its population maybe NTUC needs to stop stocking cornflakes on its supermarket shelves.