Why, oh why, oh why

There's often a downside to Simon's Good Ideas, and I've discovered the one intricately entwined with his (on the face of it, brilliant) pumpkin carving competition.

Pumpkin.

You see I was brought up by a mother (and father too, but this didn't apply to him so much as he was in Forrin Parts [no, not that sort so shuttup at the back] at the time) who coped with wartime rationing, and the concept of throwing away food is just not possible. So having toasted the seeds (probably shelling them first would have been good) the problem arose of what to do with the flesh of two pumpkins.

There's pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, mashed pumpkin, pumpkin souffle, roasted pumpkin, pumpkin chips. Pumpkin - why? No wonder as soon as potatoes were brought back from the New World and people stopped trying to smoke them and ate them instead, this waste-of-space fruit (if it's got seeds it's a fruit not a vegetable) was abandoned with alacrity from the British menu, no doubt with national rejoicing and a public holiday.

Addition: Ooh! I've just discovered another of its vilenesses. If you keep your two-day old carved masterpiece indoors it makes the room stink like a pair of sweaty trainers.