THING: CHOCOLATES
When Forrest Gump said ‘life is like a box of chocolates, you don’t know which ones you’re gonna get’ he was wrong on two counts. One: life is often like a pillowcase full of dog shit with Suella Braverman’s face printed on it. Two: You DO know which ones you’re going to get because there’s a card inside telling you what you’re going to get. And usually it will be something that sounds good but tastes weird and makes you feel sick. (Actually it IS like life!)
Boxes of chocolates were once supposedly the epitome of high class indulgence, to be enjoyed on a chaise longue with a Pekinese on your lap. Or if you were in a film and breaking up with someone, you would eat a whole box but only one bite of each, then throw them at the wall and scream.
But now, in this age of Lindors and Ferrero Rochers stacked a mile high in Asda, chocolates are everyday luxuries, so you really have to up your game and check into Hotel Chocolat if you want to impress. And is it worth it, when you could just have some chocolates that are all the same and that you actually like? Also, as we’re in a climate emergency, is it environmentally responsible to buy boxes of chocolates and then fill the world with unrecyclable moulded trays full of abandoned coffee creams? It’s a quandry. Let us investigate:
Thorntons
There’s something about Thorntons that makes me breathe a long and depressed sigh. It takes me back to the days of Tie Rack and Noel Edmonds’ House Party and all I can see is an Easter egg that tastes of muddy plastic with a very wobbly ‘Lucy’ written on it in white icing. But my son isn’t to know this, which is why I got one of these for Mother’s Day:
Apparently these are the ‘tastes of the nation’, which doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence does it? I must have missed the Thornton’s chocolate referendum but it seems that as well as sending back refugees, Britain loves a Triple Chocolate ganache-filled cylinder so sweet that all your teeth instantly fall out like broken piano keys. My child, however, has offered to eat them all for me, which is very generous of him.
VERDICT: Vote Leave
Roses
At this point I will come clean and say that I am one of those mutants that enjoys strawberry and orange cremes and Turkish Delight, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it. But even though the bar is quite low for me, I do feel that Cadbury’s Roses have gone right down the shitter in recent years. I’m particularly annoyed by the personality-free repackaging of these festive favourites, which are now in generic colour-coded bags. Bring back the twisty wrappers, and while you’re at it, put the mini bars of Bournville and Dairy Milk back – AND the Turkish Delight.
VERDICT: No thank you very much thank you very very very much
Milk Tray
Once it was delivered by an enigmatic masked intruder, but now, a box of Milk Tray is about as mysterious as a tin of marrowfat peas. It’s a raffle prize, or a thank you to a colleague who helped you convert a PDF to a Word doc. If you receive a box of Milk Tray, just know that it was picked up from the Co-op approximately 6 minutes ago, along with a card with a chimp on it.
VERDICT: It’s the last minute thought that counts
Prestat
Prestat chocs are very posh, so much so that they are by Royal Appointment, and some of them are even in the shape of crowns. The crown one is my favourite, and I like to peruse the information card with a smug, regal smile on my face, while farting into velvet cushions. However, it is an unspoken rule that the posher the chocolates, the more likely there’ll be one with a bit of pot pourri on the top that’s flavoured with violet and rosewater (AND IT GOES STRAIGHT IN THE BIN).
VERDICT: Fancy That of London
Hotel Chocolat
Hotel Chocolat really thinks it’s a five-star with a spa and a butler service, but I would say it was more like a three-star Mercure built in around 1998 with a swirly brown carpet and a restaurant called ‘The Conservatory’.
I feel very ungrateful for all the times people have bought me expensive boxes of Hotel Chocolat (sorry Mum) but do you know what I mean? The chocolates promise much in the way of patisserie-style, velvet-textured indulgence, but they’re a bit sickly and they fancy themselves way too much. Look at them, showing off.
(I do like the Eton Mess one, though!!!?)
VERDICT: I’m writing you out of my will you ungrateful little swine
THING: GOOP
Gwyneth is in the news again with revelations that she doesn’t eat anything (SHOCK HORROR) has IV drips of nutrients commonly found in food and has regular sessions of rectal ozone therapy (which I like to call ‘sticking my arse out of the car window’).
Yes, she is dangerously advocating disordered eating and passing it off as wellness. Yes, she is a sad product of her environment and the only thing she needs to detox is her brain. And yes, she has conned, I mean, ‘influenced’ millions of women into listening to fake doctors and buying bollocks health products.
But I can’t help it - I LOVE Goop. It’s so fucking stupid. Here are some of my current fave items.
‘Awright love, I was thinking tonight we could initiate a new foreplay tradition. No?? Ok, let’s watch The Chase instead then.’
VERDICT: Absolute fanny
This lovely medallion symbolises the uplifting nature of true love AND will make you look like you’re on Bullseye, chucking an arrow at red to get a state of the art Alba hi-fi with built-in CD player.
VERDICT: Not super, smashing or great
For just $55 for a monthly subscription, you can buy Goop Glow, which looks suspiciously like Berocca.
Except wait, it isn’t, because look, it does all these things!
Oh no, wait, hang on…
It doesn’t.
VERDICT: Orange you glad you’re not gullible
And finally, you can get these. Can’t think why they’re in the sale?
VERDICT: Pants
Lucy Sweet, you are the best thing on the internet. (Which doesn’t actually sound like the massive compliment it is intended as...)
A colleague once pointed out that the new Roses packaging resembles condom wrappers, and that is an image I cannot unsee.