I’m down to my last 9 Cadburys Easter eggs. I did a stock-take yesterday. And at average rate of consumption that supply will last… errrr… probably until Monday. Possibly Tuesday if I ‘ration’. And why is this relevant? Well, I actually try and keep absolutely everything I write totally irrelevant, as well as inane, trite, pathetic and worthless. Where’s the fun otherwise?

Anyway, chocolate. Most important thing in my life. And I’m glad to note that others are finally taking it as seriously as I do. Although my limits on ‘chocolate’ generally begin and end with Cadburys, we have a family tradition at birthday time. 97% of British families share this too. We celebrate with a ‘Colin the Caterpillar Cake’ from Marks & Spencer’s. Ok, so 97% of staunchly middle-class suburb-dwellers, champagne Socialists and Tory party members. We may have other cakes as well, we may have parties on occasion, we may do all sorts of things. But when we get together and there’s a birthday nearby, the lights go out, the tension mounts and into the room is carried a Colin, lit up by a million candles! Ok, normally 3, whatever the value of the birthday, just because you almost have to use a drill on the chocolate to get the candles in there and who can be bothered?

And a secret that is no secret, (I don’t even ‘love’ Colin’ that much!!!). The chocolate is ‘inferior’ (read: ‘Not Cadburys’) and even speaking as the man with the sweetest teeth ever implanted to replace those rotted by a lifetime’s sugar, its too sweet!!!

However, tradition is everything, so I love Colin from a ‘cultural perspective’.

And then Aldi, those upstart, downmarket, German(!!!!) supermarketeers from… Germany!!!, introduced ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar Cake’. A cheap, poor-person’s, working class, Aldi-shopper type product of decidedly inferior nature. So M&S are taking Aldi to court of the fact that Cuthbert is not merely a Colin-imposter, but an instance of cultural appropriation!, if not outright Class War!!! And I whole-heartedly support their actions in this. You can’t just make a chocolate cake shaped like a larval insect and hope to  get away with that. 

Happy Friday

A xxxxx