Rip Off Britain: Angela Rippon investigates poppy seeds and power stations

There is nothing more delicious than hot granary toast dripping with butter, but beware! After a few bites you could lose your job, your home, your wife and children and end up on the streets begging for change, eating out of bins, before you die early and your body gets gnawed away by rats. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

On Rip Off Britain (BBC1, 29 May, 10.45am) we met Alan, who failed a drug test at work after he tested positive for opiates. The bewildered Alan, mild-mannered and definitely not a junkie, insisted his favourite seeded loaf was responsible because traces of opiates are found in poppy seeds and can show up in drug tests. Warburtons even has an on-pack warning.

Regardless, Alan was sacked for being a smackhead by the world’s stupidest company, which, reassuringly, turned out to be a power station operator.

Rip Off Britain didn’t name the pathetic operation that fired him. Instead the intrepid Angela Rippon munched her way through a 400g seedy loaf over three days, plus a poppy seed bagel for luck. Then she sent off a urine sample. “You’re positive for morphine,” said the doctor. Her levels were admittedly 10 times less positive than Alan, but the doctor pointed out those levels depend on “how many poppy seeds and how potent they are, and the potency of the poppy seed depends on many factors”.

An interesting segment of a show that taught us two things. First, declare if you’ve eaten poppy seeds before a routine drug test. Second, there is a power station in Wales run by someone dangerously stupid.