A Sticky End

The search is over. No more will I be seen on my hands and knees rummaging at the back of shelves in Sainsburys. No more will supermarket assistants quicken their steps to the rest room when they see me approaching with my notebook in my hand. It's all Tate & Lyle's fault, deciding to taunt me with seven different designs of a gold can to celebrate their anniversary. Why couldn't I just be content with one or two? Why did I have to collect big tins as well as small? Oh no, I was seen everywhere from Tesco's in Devizes to Asda in Wisbech, reaching into dim recesses to turn cans round to see if there was a small tin with 'Fantastic in Flapjacks' on it, or a big tin with 'Happy Birthday Lyle's'. But one tin avoided my obsessive searches. Nowhere (and I do mean nowhere) could I find 'Pour it on Porridge' in the big 907g can. It became the Holy Grail, the tin that I became convinced would be found in a shaft of sunlight on a pedestal of rock at the back of a cave in Borneo. In desperation I started a dialogue with bewildered customer care girls at Tate & Lyle's, more used to dealing with housewives whose treacle tarts hadn't turned-out treacly enough. Eventually my badgering resulted in a very kind note from 'technical'. Apparently they could only fit six separate designs for the big can on one printing sheet. So a large 'Pour it on Porridge' doesn't exist. (I bet they made just one though. I would have.) I pass all this on in case it helps some other poor deluded soul who is still out there getting his hands sticky in Somerfields in Salford or Waitrose in Warminster. Right. Anyone got a recipe for an acre of flapjack?

Mustard & Gravy

I am beginning to think that I need to be treated, or counselled, over my O.B.E. Not the gong in its velvet box that Her Majesty is doubtless buffing-up as I write, but Old Brand Excess. This morning the post lady knocked on the door and handed me my latest e-bay purchase. Although wrapped in an old bin bag held together with parcel tape, it was unmistakably jug shaped. 'Guess what this is then?' I said, holding it up. 'Looks like a jug to me' she replied, 'But then I don't suppose it's that simple'. How right she was. I had bid for, and obviously won because who else would want it, a big green metal oil pourer with 'Agricastrol Tractor Oil' on it. It's rusty, and the logo's virtually worn off on one side. I think it's beautiful, but as I'm too embarrassed to show it here I demonstrate the point I'm struggling to make by showing you my Sunday lunch table. There's the Hook Norton jug, full of gravy, and my Colman's Mustard jar with the lid broken when I sent it flying across the kitchen when I burnt my hand on the Le Creuset griddle. There I go again. Couldn't just say 'frying pan'. Anyway, there we are. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a big bunch of yellow flowers to stick in the Castrol jug, so that to the casual observer there appears to be at least some vestige of reason to it all.