There was jubilation across Britain yesterday as one of the
country's worst miscarriages of justice was finally overturned. After
almost 38 years in the wilderness, the much maligned egg has been
pardoned by the very scientific community that condemned it as
unhealthy, sentencing it to a sordid life rotting at the bottom of a
rubbish tip.

Mr Yolk, a leading member of the egg fraternity,
choked back albumen as he spoke of his ordeal. "You have no idea about
the other foodstuffs we encountered in that dump. We had to share a
cell with turkey twizzlers, chicken nuggets and some ready meals
saturated in trans fats. Nobody should have to go through such an
experience, least of all a good egg like myself."

Scientists have
admitted that, contrary to the received wisdom that eating more than
three eggs a week is bad for your health, they can actually help people
to lose weight. Furthermore, when it came to increasing dangerous
cholesterol in the body, there were far worse offenders. "There is
cholesterol present in eggs but this does not usually make a great
contribution to your level of blood cholesterol," said Victoria Taylor,
a senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation. Her comments were
welcomed by Mr Yolk. "For years we have been accused of causing ill
health, when all along the real perpetrators were fatty meat, cakes and
pastries."

After spending the war years predominantly in
powdered form, eggs became one of Britain's nutritional stars during
the 1950s and 1960s. They starred in television adverts alongside the
comedian Tony Hancock and became so popular that most Britons refused
to go to work without eating at least one. The public appetite for them
was such that the average person was consuming five a week.

But
in 1971, tragedy struck. Eggs were linked to cholesterol that caused
heart attacks, and the government urged people to cut back on their
intake. But nobody in the oeuf community could have prepared themselves for what, or rather who
was to come: Edwina Currie, a junior health minister, announced in 1988
that eggs were unsafe to eat as most of them were infected with
salmonella. While her claims were dismissed and she was forced to
resign, the accusations stuck. "If only people were aware of her affair
with John Major," sighed Mr Yolk. "Then they would have known that she
didn't have very good judgment.

"At times it has felt as if we
were walking on shells, but we have soldiered on in the face of
adversity. We may not be a trendy food like sushi or edamame beans or
what have you, but we are good, honest British cuisine and we are also
very versatile: you can fry us, poach us, scramble us or boil us."

Mr
Yolk tearfully thanked his friends in the world of bacon, sausages,
chips and baked beans. "They have campaigned tirelessly for our return.
Without them, none of this would have been possible."

But enough
of this silliness. Let us concentrate our thoughts on the sorry shower
of bankers who this week "apologised" for leading the economy into
collapse – the poor little lambs know how we feel, because they have
lost money and jobs too. Even worse, we now learn that some
bankers cannot afford to divorce the wives who want out now their
husbands are no longer rolling in it. My heart truly does bleed. But
that, folks, is what I call punishment.

ŠBack to food. A
Domino's pizza restaurant in Birmingham has banned pork products in
favour of halal meat. "This is only the beginning," said Masood
Khawaja, president of the Halal Food Authority, rather sinisterly. I
fear that it is not long before pork suffers the same fate as the egg –
and a world without crackling is a world not worth living in.

By:: Bryony Gordon