[PW] Marco Polo and pasta

[SYLVIA MILNE]

Quite honestly that man must have been blind or deaf and must never have
seen a newspaper.
I remember that hoax and everyone was talking and laughing about it the next
day. All the newspapers carried the story with extra suggestions, like the
special flower that yielded tomato sauce.
As for pear trees, England is full of them. I have one in my garden.
I suspect that your mate was indulging in what we call "Urine extraction" or
"Extracting the Michael" ;-)

Sylvia Milne

Please visit me at http://www.sylviamilne.co.uk/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of T. F.
Mills
Sent: 21 July 2008 19:02
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: Re: [PW] Marco Polo and pasta

The 1957 BBC hoax came up on Stumpers twelve years or so ago when I
mentioned 
spaghetti trees in passing.  I had in 40 some years never heard of the BBC
hoax, but shortly 
after it aired I was entertaining an English friend in Switzerland (where
the spaghetti harvest 
hoax was set), and he wanted to see spaghetti trees.  Well this fellow had
never seen a pear 
either, so I pulled his leg and showed him some trees already "harvested."
The hoax 
apparently seared the imagination of millions of Brits, who to this day may
still believe it.

Rather tellingly, "cameraman Charles de Jaeger dreamed up the report after
remembering 
how teachers at his school in Austria used to tease his classmates for being
so stupid that 
they would believe it if they were told spaghetti grew on trees."
(according to Wikipedia).

There used to be an Italian restaurant in Sydney, Australia, that
commemorated this BBC 
hoax with sepia stills from the "documentary" as murals.


T(rees) F(ettucini) Mills

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