Look, here’s the proof:

You have no idea how difficult it is to take a photo in a supermarket without looking as if you are up to no good

A few aisles over from where the above photograph was taken, I stumbled upon these jars of wonderment:

In my basket are two jars of a new undiscovered flavour of Marmite – Marmite XO; a Marmite made from a much stronger recipe. Wow! It’s a yeast-overload! Vegemite, Marmite Cereal Bars and Marmite XO all sold in the same store!

I can report that Marmite XO is very nice! It isn’t amazingly super-strong when compared to the standard recipe but it does have a certain zing to it. At £3.99 per jar I’m not exactly consuming it like a yeast-obsessed loony, but it is making my breakfast-time toast a pleasant wake-up call.

Note to ASDA – if I do not see any new Marmite products on your shelves by the end of the week, I may have to go elsewhere for my weekly shop!

Please stock Marmite Cereal bars.

My nearest Waitrose is in Marlborough and I can no longer justify the 26 mile round trip just to stock up on Marmitey goodness.

Yours Sincerley,

Nige.

or…

Dear Waitrose,

Please open a branch of your store in Wootton Bassett…

Look! It turned this:

Untoasted toast

Into this:

Toast

Job done!

It seemed that everyone and anyone had a Tefal Avanti Toaster.

I no longer have a Tefal Avanti toaster.

My toaster died on Friday morning. The plungery-lever mechanism thingy had failed, meaning that I had to manually hold the lever down whilst the bread was toasting. I felt saddened, it was the end of an era, my beloved toaster would have to be replaced. But with what? With another Tefal Avanti toaster of course!

The original Avnti toaster is no longer available. Luckily, the boffins at Tefal had created the Tefal Avanti 2 (The Return of The Toaster)*, a sleeker, shinier version of their already legendary toaster. Armed with my debit card and dreams of toasty goodness, I raced out to the Swindon branch of Comet only to find that they didn’t sell any Tefal Avanti 2 toasters. In fact they didn’t sell any Tefal toasters, as neither did Currys, Argos, or Robert Dyas. Dejected, discouraged and de-toastered, I returned home to check on-line to see if anyone could sell me a Tefal Avanti 2 toaster.

No one can. It’s been discontinued. Tefal no longer make toasters (apart from this abomination).

It’s been four days since I’ve had any toast. I need a toaster, NOW!

Today, during my lunch-break, I braved the howling winds and torrential rains to return to Currys and purchase myself a new toaster. After much deliberation of prices, inspection of crumb trays and guestimation of the size of a toaster’s bread slot (hint: when buying a toaster, always take a slice of bread with you – some toasters are bigger than others) I came away with a Krups FEM2 Toastexpert high-speed toaster. It wasn’t the cheapest toaster in the store, it wasn’t the most expensive, it wasn’t the biggest or the most special-featured (it can warm croissants though) but it is the nearest they had to my beloved Avanti.

I’ve no time to make any toast today so I cannot tell you how well the Krups FEM2 performs. Come back after breakfast time tomorrow to find out if the FEM2 is the new successor to the toast-throne.

*it is not called the Tefal Avanti 2: The Return of The Toaster

The Noodles of the Gods

Before I update the World of Me with a huge report from this year’s RAFTA Project, I would just like to add that Shin Cup Noodles are possibly one of the best noodle-in-a-cup-based foodstuffs in the world. Ever.

My latte cups have already earned me much derision; I have already been called a ponce and a poof and my sexuality has been questioned. To ensure that I am put in my place and never think of doing anything like this again, please feel free to insult me in the comments link below.