What will the future hold? Let us look to the vegetables

EVER on the lookout for emergency income streams, I was agog reading about Worcester-based fortune-teller Jemima Packington, who has been wowing crowds at the British Trade and Travel Fair in Birmingham by claiming to predict the future via the mystical medium of asparagus. She even coined a job title almost as catchy as her natal moniker: "Asparamancer."

Being familiar with ways to scry – cards, runes, tea leaves, animal innards… I've nosed round the lot – I found the description of her methodology not dissimilar to the ancient Chinese art of reading the I Ching. She throws asparagus spears down on t...