Travel: December 2004 Archives

It turns out we're not the only ones puzzled by the maddening paradox that is the deep fried Mars bar. According to BBC news, the respected medical journal The Lancet is publishing an article that goes in search of the truth. As Dr David Morrison, one of the investigators, says, "We live in Scotland but we'd never actually seen deep-fried Mars bars for sale. We thought they might be fictitious. But the Scottish diet is a major health issue and it's important to know what the facts are. We can now confirm that there is no doubt, the deep-fried Mars bar is not just an urban myth."

In fact, Dr. Morrison discovered that 22% of Scottish chippies sold the product. An additional 17% used to do so but no longer do--because, I am guessing, their original clientelle has all died off.

By the way: the BBC's summary of the Lancet article was headlined Deep Fried Mars Bar Myth Dispelled. Yahoo reported on exactly the same Lancet article with the headline Deep Fried Mars Bar Taking Scotland By Storm. Apparently, the deep fried Mars bar is so powerful that it creates a quantum uncertainty field in which the same Lancet report can simultaneously perpetuate and dispel the myth of a fried-Mars-bar-mad Scotland.

Also, alert reader Dan Simon has corrected some embarrassing errors in my original Mars bar essay, as well as providing some interesting additional information. You can find his comments here if you scroll down to the bottom of the page.

I am disappointed to report that the Amerika Taxi sticker I saw in the taxicab window in Budapest turned out to be just a promotion for movie that has just been released in Hungary as "Amerika Taxi." It is better known in the US as either Taxi or "The movie that Queen Latifah actually thought would be a good move for somebody who has just gotten an Oscar nomination."