John Gibson: Hands off the broon sauce, guys

Outraged, so I was. How dare they! They’ve been tinkering with HP sauce. Reducing the salt content from 2.1 per cent to 1.3. Government orders. I’d tuck up in a tent at St Paul’s if I thought it would make a difference.

But let me tell you . . . now I know why I’ve had a lifelong lust after the broon sauce and I’m not kidding. I’ve discovered it could be in the genes. My genes.

It has emerged that HP, the nectar itself, was invented by a Nottingham chemist, Gibson by name. I owe it – the nation owes it – to Frederick Gibson Garton The genie is in the bottle. Leave it alone.

Treasure trove

Weird stuff some nerds are guzzling but only for the TV cameras. Snail porridge for you, sir? Er, thank you no, I’ll leave that to Heston (Blumenthal, not Charlton Heston). Charlton, below, caught his chariot to heaven in April 2008. He was a steak man. Loved his porridge but snails a no-no.

How do you know, name-dropper? Because we suppered together – he and wife Lydia, when he came to Edinburgh in the summer of 1990 to plug the remake of Treasure Island. The interview, a collector’s item, appeared in the Evening News on June 19, 1990.

Fat chance

Fatima Whitbread. The picture in the papers. I’m sorry Fatima. But no.

Afterwords . .

. . . Some of our top docs should be given free time away from their patients to reflect on their profession. Time to think. According to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. To ponder over what to do with their earnings of up to £100,000 year?