Jaffa Cake flavour alert - lemon sans lime!

Cathy spotted these in Asda. I don't normally go supermarket own brand with Jaffa Cakes, but the chance to try a pure lemon flavour instead of lemon and lime intrigued me enough to buy them.

The constituent parts of these are good. The chocolate coating is thick enough to coat the jelly without cracking and has a darkish flavour. The cake could be softer, but isn't dry. There is a generous portion of jelly and it has a firm consistency.

Flavour-wise, these are a winner. They are less acidic than the lemon and lime ones produced by McVities. The lemon flavour is strong meaning they taste like lemon drizzle cake or a lemon square. 

A ringing endorsement from me then, for this unusual flavour Jaffa Cake.

Bookshelf juxtapositions - pre-Christmas 2021 edition

I like seeing books positioned on shelves next to each other that invite commentary. In the run up to Christmas my local Asda has suddenly got a load of books on the shelves. Someone put these two titles side by side. I wonder if they chuckled as they did it.

I think it's the expression on Daisy May Cooper's face that makes this. Like she is really fed up with Alison!

Fairy Hearts for sale - gendered marketing meets meat

I spotted this shopping in Asda Cardiff Bay, and am quite proud that is has since been added to the Sociological Images pointlessly gendered products pinterest board, after I tweeted the pics.

But more to the point, isn't there something deeply disturbing in encouraging little girls to eat fairy hearts? What images does that conjure up? Fairies being farmed intensively in large barns full of glittering cages, fattened up and cruelly murdered so that little human 'princesses' can gorge themselves?

It reminds me of the horrible scene in Stardust where the witches are going to murder Yvaine so they can eat her heart and have their youth restored. Is that what Asda think they are doing by selling these?

In a way, of course, that is what they will achieve. The 'princessing' of little girls is one of the most powerful programmes for infantilising and disempowering women in our culture. Making little girls eat fairy hearts is part of a much wider scheme to dress them all in pink, and limit their dreams to wishing they were pretty enough to win the heart of a prince, instead, of, you know, getting out there and kicking ass.

Even before I was a vegetarian I would never have touched processed meat garbage products like this. But sadly many parents will, and in reinforcing the cultural conditioning of princessiness, this disgusting looking meat isn't the only crap they are forcing down their daughters' throats.

Nothing says Christmas more than festive packaging

It's November 2nd. Already the stores are full of Christmas stuff. Argos is already playing Jingle Bells.

But I'm not sure why we need Christmassy packaging on these...

Asda staff humour makes Hallowe'en less horrible

Personally I don't know why you would want to fill your house with creepy-looking fake crows for any reason, let alone Hallowe'en, but I do admire the Asda employee who labelled these guys.

(I think they meant Sheryl Crow not Cheryl Crow, but stil 10/10 for effort!)

An hour of my life I won't get back

I hate being late for things and today I managed the mother of all late arrivals, showing up late to my own house with invited guests standing shivering on the doorstep.

How did this all come about? Blame Asda. That's right. It's all their fault.

We were in Asda buying some pizzas to feed our guests, when we noticed a chap buying two Nintendo Wii consoles. It looked a bit odd, so I asked the girl on the computers and DVD desk how much the Wiis were. She said they were the amazingly low price of £99.97.

Cath and I conferred for all of a minute before deciding this was such a bargain we really had to get one. The only problem was they only had two left and they were both reserved for other customers. But the girl said if either of the other customers hadn't turned up in an hour she'd sell one to us.

There are only so many ways to kill an hour in Asda. I read a couple of magazines. Cath looked at the clothes. I found a copy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes in a special edition tin, and Cath said she'd give it to me for Christmas, to help me nearer my goal of owning every Tim Burton film on DVD. But still it was a drag until the hour was up.

The reservers hadn't turned up and I excitedly thought I was getting a baragin Wii. But then when they rang through the Wii, it came up at £179.97. I queried the price and the stupid shopgirl told me the price she'd originally said had been for a Nintendo DS, not a Wii.

I was tamping.

Not only had we waited a bloody age for a bargain that never was, we then had to queue up to buy all the other crap in our trolley and that made us late to get home to our waiting guests. And I hate being late, as I said. So imagine how much I hated being late for a get-together at my own house!