Sunday 28 September 2008

Key words for positive knee-jerk purchasing decisions for the middle classes

The Sunday Times to day gave a little review to a new beer:

"Stinger Organic Ale. £1.89-£1.99, 500ml. Developed with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and brewed with organic nettles. Fresh, soft, delicious (selected Budgens, Threshers, badgerdirect.com)"

Bloody Nora! Organic nettles! For Christ's sake you dopes, they grow in hedges, they're weeds, they're always going to be organic. And they're free! (OK, I know it should probably be "organic beer with nettles")


A conversation overheard at Borough Market yesterday:

"Ooh, look Cressida, a new stall - 'Lenny's Hand-Caught, Free-To-Roam, Locally-Sourced Rodents'. The new-season Sewer Rats are in stock ... so much more, you know ... ambrosial ... than the river rats we had round at Yolande and Giles's last week. Mmm, and only £267 per kg. They'll be wonderful after the biodynamic Kobe cockroach muse bouches."

"Oh yes Sebastian; and that foraged spatchcock badger she picked up outside the village was rather, erm ... proletarian ... don't you think? Let's not forget the Organic Nettle Beer. One wouldn't want to buy intensively-reared, factory-farmed, battery, chemically-sprayed, air-freighted, genetically-modified nettle beer, would one, even if it is Fair TradeMind you, Giles will never tell the difference."

"Oh, don't be too beastly about Giles, darling, he's having such a demanding time shafting those gauche banks that ordinary people put their piffling money in."

"Mmm, I never really understood why they bother with mortgages; don't they realise it's much cheaper to simply buy a house?"

etc. ad nauseum.

[b.t.w. the final line about mortgages is was genuinely and sincerely uttered by a real person, the rest is made up]



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is stunning isn't it. Well except that at least one supermarkets will try to sell you organic salt.

Face-melting stupidity surrounds us all.

Jeff Pickthall said...

...and as for the ruthless brewers stuffing our beer full of dihydrogen monoxide. Something should be done!

Boak said...

Owch! I have to say, as someone who buys free-range meat and fairtrade whatever where possible, this could apply to me at times.

But i like to think I have enough knowledge about food to recognise that "organic nettles" is just a marketing ploy for suckers.

I'm with the Beer Nut on organic beer. The beers are often pretty bland, I think because they're aimed at people who buy organic everything, rather than aimed at people who might genuinely enjoy the flavour of beer.