Unbelievably, I've already been pipped to the post by in the summing up of this year's Spitalfields Show, but fortunately there are still some notable exhibits that he missed out on, giving this post at least a small raison d'etre.

We knew we were going in the right direction for the farm when we saw three highly stressed 30-something women running around shouting “have you seen a chihuahua?” in posh voices. We hadn't, but that didn't stop Jenny very cruelly saying “Oh, we did see an odd looking man hauling a dog off in that direction” – which was true, but said dog was a hulking great rottweiler. It's possible that the rottweiler had eaten the chihuahua, but it seemed the wrong time to bring it up.

Again, the most magnificent entries in this years show were the categories in which there was only one entry, thus giving a clear advantage to the person who had bothered entering. An excellent example was the “Longest Runner Bean”:

- which was also undeniably the shortest runner bean. No matter. First prize. The black potatoes made a welcome return this year, although it's distinctly possible that it's the same potatoes as last year.

The children's section was, as ever, dominated by children and their bizarre notions of what constitutes acceptable craft. This entry in the “edible necklace” category, a combination of pasta quills, carrot and cucumber, may have contained a couple of major food groups but the piece of wire holding it together would have rendered consumption highly dangerous to any ravenous passers by.

This fruit and vegetable face is the kind of face you will always instantly be able to put a name to:

By far the best entry, however, only gained a 3rd prize in the chocolate cake contest.

The entry was called “Death By Chocolate”, a phrase taken quite literally by the cook and thus incorporating a hideous scene of carnage involving twisted limbs and unruly waves of icing. Edged out by the prudes who didn't appreciate her playful toying with the accepted chocolate cake formula, the talented creator nevertheless posed proudly with her creation for a sea of photographers (well, 3.)

On the way out we passed a gigantic game of Connect 4 which we were too scared to touch in case all the enormous discs clattered to the floor, causing farm animals to break loose from their pens and terrorize the locals:

Then over to Spitalfields Market. There are always a few stalls that are worth a look, but unfortunately there are also significant number of woolly-thinking new-age market traders offering to tell me the colour of my aura, which inevitably sends me into spasms of rage. On the plus side there was an enormous queue at the Square Pie stall, who sell pies, mash, peas and gravy to the bargain hungry bourgeois for £6 a pop. Everywhere you looked, people were tucking into pies out of small cardboard boxes, and in the end we joined the queue. We got to the front to find 3 extremely hard-working women doling out pie and mash while Bob Marley wafted over the sound system. I swear he was singing “No Woman, No Pie.”