Great On Hot Toast

Added on 12 October 2009

Our local supermarket is the one where Simon Pegg had his big shoot-out in Hot Fuzz. It’s like living on the set of the movie.

Yesterday I was in the shop; I’d walked in through the door that Simon Pegg had crashed in through, and in almost as dramatic a turn of events as Pegg has in Hot Fuzz, I’d gone in to buy marmalade.

Marmalade. Here’s a list of things you can do with marmalde.

1. Spread it on toast.

2. There is no number 2.

That’s the full list. There’s nothing else. You don’t buy marmalade to make soup. You don’t buy it to drive to work. You don’t buy it to clean the toilet. You spread it on toast.

The catchphrase on the jar of Robertson’s Golden Shred was as follows:

Great on Hot Toast.

No way! Marmalade? Great on toast? You’re kidding?

Is that the best they could come up with? Great on hot toast. That’s like saying PG Tips are great in hot water. Flour is great in cakes.

Or are they suggesting that there are people out there who are just too stupid to know what to do with marmalade? That they pick up the jar and say, What in the name of God is this? Do you put it on chicken?

Maybe they’ve been getting complaints from customers: Dear Mr Robertson, I bought a jar of Golden Shred marmalade and presumed that it was to be used as underwear. However it just made my testicles sticky. Or, I put your so-called 'marmalade' in my bolognaise sauce, and it was rubbish. I want my money back. Or, I’ve been using your marmalade to clean my kitchen surfaces, and now I have ants in my kitchen and a giant rat ate my baby.

So they telegraph it for their idiotic public: Great On Hot Toast. All over Britain, people are nodding their heads sagely, and saying, Ah, so that’s what it’s for. Toast. Now that makes sense.

Coming to a supermarket near you:

Cornflakes, Great In A Bowl

Bananas, Great To Peel And Eat

Andrex, Great For Wiping Your Butt