Dangling the Carrot

I heard an interesting thing the other morning. At least I think I did!?

The thing is, I’m something of an insomniac and find myself listening to radio shows at all kinds of unsociable hours. As a consequence I often hear broadcasts while I’m half asleep, and I’m convinced sometimes the stories I hear merge with my dreams – this can feel somewhere between disturbing and bizarre, sometimes plain funny.

A couple of mornings ago I was listening to Radio 5 Live, when something came on a spot called Morning Reports. Now this may sound dumb, but I swear the presenter had someone on air talking about alternatives to carbon fibre for laminate production. The researchers, of whom he was one, were extracting fibre from carrots! And you guessed it, the first application for their new fibre and resin system was in the construction of a new fly rod.

On reflections this seems like one of those bizarre 'fact merges with fiction' scenarios, but if I heard right and it’s not just a strange piece of the twilight zone, it gives new meaning to dangling the carrot!