Nuts In July

I should flipping well think so. I’d be bloody livid if I opened my bag of Tesco Peanuts, Raisins and Chocolate-Covered Raisins, only to discover that I had, in fact, bought a bag of Tesco Raisins and Chocolate-Covered Raisins.

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Have A Break, Have A Crack Pipe

I popped to the supermarket today – part of my continuing attempts to ‘keep it real.’ My doctor suggests such activities are therapeutic, but I reckon he just wants somebody to do his shopping for him. He tells me I’m bi-polar, as if that’s a problem. Frankly, I don’t see why that should be the case. Can’t I like the Arctic AND the Antarctic?

I digress. While I was in Sainsbury’s I saw bars of chocolate packaged like pharmaceutical products. I think that’s splendid. There are many people out there who identify themselves as ‘chocoholics.’ usually women of a certain type, and this tremendous jape would, I imagine, be right up their street.

But I wonder what it would be like if chocoholism were treated as a genuine and debilitating addiction. Would chocolate be banned, and if so, what would happen then? And here I am, wondering…

My name is Muriel Pugh, and I’m a chocolate addict. It’s been six years, four months and nine days since my last bar.

I suppose my story is the same as so many other people caught in this trap. I mean, when you’re a kid, you think, “There’s no way I’ll ever do Buttons.”

But then you become a teenager and you go to a party and it gets to 1am and they start handing out the Smarties like, well, Smarties. They seem harmless. But that’s how they pull you in.

Before too long I’d graduated to KitKats. I’d make up a Bournvita, but that wasn’t enough. It was too slow, so I’d snort it up through a Flake.

I had to get help. I went to my doctor and he put me on Caramacs, but it wasn’t the same. I started turning tricks just so I could get a couple of chunks of Dairy Milk.

I knew I was at rock bottom when I found myself eating chocolate Santas off the Christmas tree…

Still, that pharmaceutical chocolate packaging is a cracking wheeze. I mean, I know some people might think that blurring the distinction between sweets and drugs might be a bad thing vis-a-vis the kiddies, but I think they’re just stick-in-the-muds.

I think it’s such a good joke, I’d sacrifice maybe four or five children for it. Maybe if they got into double figures they’d have to have a rethink.

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