I bought a book on apples recently. Did you know there are over 2,000 varieties of apples? Moreover, the original apple came from Kazakhstan in Central Asia and populated the world from there.

Not only are there two thousand of them but they come in all sorts of different colours shapes and sizes. I suspect you knew that bit. And did you know we can have flat, flat-round, short-round-conical, round, round-conical, conical, long conical, oblong conical and oblong shaped apples?

So, I’m amusing myself by reading the glossary of apple names which seem to tell a few stories. Many are named after people - quite a few who seem to be Barons or Duchesses or Lords. I suppose creating your own apple variety was what posh folks did once upon a time.

Furthermore a lot of apples are named after places, which again makes sense. I hope I don’t upset too many but can you really have an apple called the Beauty of Stoke?

Then there are mysterious names. What could we make with a Bloody Butcher, a French Crab, a Gene Pitney and a Gooseberry?

And I think if you were suitably obsessed you could name your children after apple varieties. For example there’s Alice, Caroline, Catherine, Francis, Graham, Jennifer, Joyce and Priscilla.

More importantly for us the book documented over 90 different cider apples. My overarching conclusion from this research is that many would make great characters in Game of Thrones. I mean Black Dabinett is surely a dastardly knight, Broxwood Foxwhelp is obviously a young retainer, Morgan Sweet, a love interest, Kingston Black, yet another villain and Redstreak, our elusive hero. so I'm off to persuade the boss to create the Game of Thrones variety pack. Don't hold your breath. 

Anyhow enough, back to the reading.