Starch is Life
Ned Kelly liked a potato or two. He would have immortalised potatoes in his final words (commonly quoted as “such is life”) if a slip of the tongue hadn’t caused “starch” to come out as “such”.
You can’t blame him for cocking up the words though. He was about to be hung from the neck until he was dead, dead, dead. He knew his bowels would loosen and soil the judge’s lounge room. That’s more than enough pressure for one man to handle.
Most superheroes agree they gained their superpowers from ordinary potatoes, or possibly mutant radioactive potatoes.
The original script for the first X-Men movie had Magneto building a huge starch reactor, the fallout from which would turn all the regular humans into mutant potato men that the X-Men could use as a convenient potato substitute and lubricant.
Ironically, movie executives canned this script over a lunch of potato salad, French fries and shepherd’s pie.
Since starch has been called the “building blocks of life”, the potato (primary supplier of starch to our ravenous gutses) could be called the “Lego of the Vegetable World”. I’m not sure if potatoes are more like Town Lego or Space Lego, but they’re definitely one of those varieties.
The last five Prime Ministers of Australia have all dedicated their success to the starchy goodness of the potato. I had a link to their quotes, but I lost it...
Anyway, I need to go and have Starch is Life tattooed onto my stomach.