I do love mushrooms, they are among my favourite food, and so far they haven’t managed to kill me. However, while travelling in Russia a few years ago I became a bit mushroomed-out as every restaurant we flopped into each night seemed to have a tasty freshly harvested wild mushroom dish on the menu that I just couldn’t resist. Hunting for mushrooms among the forests is a national pastime in Russia, with empty cars parked beside the road each morning. Then in the afternoon the successful hunter-gatherers have their baskets of delectable mushrooms for sale by the roadside, collecting a handy ruble or three to help the family survive.

But it is not just Russians. Most Europeans, Balts and Scandinavians love their wild mushrooms. The ones favoured in France are cèpes or porcine mushrooms, which grow in the oak and chestnut forests. Locals have their secret spots to collect cèpes and are unlikely to tell anyone where they are. I have a friend who spends a lot of time in France and she reckons, "the French are possessed by the cèpes," telling me that if a local sees a strange car from out of their village parked near the forest, it is not unusual for them to have their tyres let down.

In France you can take mushrooms to any pharmacist, who will happily identify them for you. Apparently identifying deadly mushrooms forms part of their university qualifications. Mind you, just about any primary school kid in France can also tell you which mushrooms are safe and which will kill you. In Italy the fungi police regularly check the local markets to be sure dodgy mushrooms are not being sold. Here on the Southern Highlands mushroom gathering is quite popular (and quite legal) out in the State Forests, but it is wise to be cautious, unless you really know your fungi - if in doubt, go without, is the safest philosophy to adopt.

ONE of Dudley’s old flames bumped into him in the street and, after exchanging pleasantries, told him she was soon to be married for the fourth time.

“Congratulations Maude, but what happened to your first husband?”

“He ate poisonous mushrooms and died.”

“Oh, bad luck,” said Dudley.  

“What about your second husband?”

“He too ate poisonous mushrooms and died.”

“Bloody hell,” exclaimed Dudley, “Don’t tell me the third bloke died from eating mushrooms as well.”

“No way Dudley, he died of a broken neck,” said Maude with a cheeky grin.

“The old bastard wouldn’t eat his mushrooms.”

WHILE we are talking about things living in dark places, I reckon everyone has a few stray socks in their smalls drawer. We all lose a sock or two at some stage in the cycle between wearing, washing and finding the way back to its mate, don't we? One friend tells me he went looking for his son's lost sock in the sand-pit at the long day-care centre.

"Eureka, I've found it," he proudly proclaimed. But alas, it was the wrong colour. So he kept digging and found another, and another, and yet another, but not the one he was looking for. Yep, nobody knows where socks go, they simply vanish.

Although I've got a mate in Queensland who reckons he never loses socks.

"Don't own any, mate. We wear thongs all the time up here."

But for those of us who hate wearing thongs, there must be a solution.

Former Art Gallery boss, Edward Capon had a good idea, he always wore odd socks. And why not? American activist Ralph Nader only ever wears socks of one colour, so he just goes into a shop and buys 40 pairs of black socks at a time.

Those are good solutions, but for the rest of us, I guess we will have to live with lone stray socks littering our drawers – socks we never seem prepared to toss out.