Life In The Fast Lane

Growing potatoes is easy – until you try to do it quickly. Then it requires skill, equipment and cunning, says Toby

- Toby

ALEKSANDR Krushelnitckii is a name I won’t forget in hurry – he was the curler caught using drugs at the Winter Olympics. But why did he bother in a sport that makes racing snails look high octane? Could it have been to cope with the tedium? We’ll never know…

The danger of professional doping is that, sooner or later, it filters down to amateur enthusiasts – and even gardeners! I once judged a celebrity potato-growing competition where one of the entrants administered the growth hormone gibberellin to his crop.