This year has really not been the one. And I’m saying this post two absolutely-very-quite terrible years. Years when everything was unprecedented, and meeting up to 6 friends- outside, in the rain, to drink a pint in a takeaway cup while eating a ‘substantial meal’ of soggy crisps was the week’s highlight.
2022 is a different level- literally, everything is broken. There is war, and numerous useless political leaders; it costs about £15 to charge a phone and approximately £7,126,738 to heat a studio apartment. Butter is security tagged in supermarkets, and cucumbers have become a high-risk theft item at Lidl (!). Not to mention current mortgage rates, the shortage of affordable rental properties, and the many varieties of union strikes.
This was all generally OK with me. I mean, not OK OK, but like a ‘I’m gonna roll with the punches like everyone else and hope to make it through my second recession’ OK.
But today’s news headline cut me deep. Instead of Barry Manilow or somesuch from Heart 70s, I timed the start of my car journey with the news. In the few minutes the reader was waffling on about bank rate increases and general terribleness, the absolute most ridiculous headline hit me right in the sweet tooth. Mars Wrigley is said to be looking to remove Bounty from its Celebrations selection tubs because, apparently, around 40% of the 2,000 or whatever people they asked have beef with Bounty. 58% of those same people believed seeing only Bounty left in the tub would cause family arguments!
Firstly, who are these people who have arguments with their families about chocolate bars? Is it the same collection of people who find the time to complain to the Ofcom about things like interrupting Mrs Brown’s Boys’ broadcast with breaking news?
Secondly, 40%, you are wrong! Bounty is the king of the Celebrations tub. If anything, surely the weak link is the Milky Way- the removal of which I would wholeheartedly support. It tastes of nothing. It’s up there with the Fried Eggs in a Starmix.
I know I’m in the minority here. Not only because of the results of said survey but also because not that long ago, I had a pretty heated office debate about this very subject. An hour or so into it, the general consensus of the 5 or so people in the room was that Bounty is evil and should never be touched, and Milky Way’s seniority is second only to a Galaxy. The people didn’t co-sign on my ‘it’s healthy-ish’ argument and took particular offence to my love for a dark chocolate Bounty. Worse still, some argued the milk bottles are best-in-class of all pick ‘n’ mix sweets. I can-fucking-not with this line of thinking.
Finally, I am most interested in whether Mars Wrigley will replace Bounty and put an equal number of the other chocolate options in its stead, or was this ‘survey’ only done to justify a product cut, lower their costs and charge us the same amount of money for less chocolate? I feel like Bounty is taking one for the Celebrations team in the cost-of-everything crisis.
I’d take my outrage to the streets, but I’m too tired and don’t actually ever buy Celebrations.
CREATIVE NOTES 