I was chatting to Satan the other day, lamenting 2016, but the little red tinker wouldn’t stop laughing. He has had a “brilliant” year, apparently. In no particular order, he loved the Nazis getting a second wind (it was his idea to rebrand them ‘alt-right’ as the original branding is “a bit tarnished”) but he also loved it when R2-D2 died, when Hillary cried, and it was his idea for TV not to show Elf this Christmas.
Anyway, I popped up to Heaven afterwards and it’s much more fun in the clouds: a complete lack of fire and eternal suffering lightens things up. And the good news is that all our deceased loved ones were saying what a sensational year it has been for food and drink. Talking points aplenty!
The biggest of all? Brexit, obviously. Less cat among pigeons, more tiger among parrots, what a noise it’s making. And it hasn’t even happened yet, which just made #Marmitegate all the more extraordinary. The Twitter-based scoop by freelance journalist Harry Wallop kicked off a social media storm and you have to wonder what will happen when Brexit really kicks in. May I be the first to confess to feeling uncertain about the outcome.
But Brexit didn’t just spew up Marmitegate. It also made everything more expensive. It offered up the prospect of awkward contract renegotiations and a crisis in seasonal labour. And it paraded a splendid cast of characters, including Nigel Farage, who is a massive fan of Ferrero Rocher.
I love seeing Farage cackle away as much as anyone, and sincerely hope the next time he hops in the elevator up Trump Tower he deploys his abundant charm to secure a lucrative deal between UK food and drink and the US. Plenty in the fmcg industry voted for Brexit and can be reassured they are in safe hands.
Of course there were other controversies too, like Sainsbury’s questionable deal for Argos, Tesco inventing lots of farms, and the sugar tax. But face it, we will all miss the potent combo of serotonin and adrenaline that 2016 delivered. It was like watching a horror movie on a rollercoaster while being jabbed with a cattle prod. 2016 was special. But cheer yourself with the news that all sorts of other interesting stuff took place in 2016, and some of it didn’t threaten apocalypse.
There was plenty of light-hearted silliness, like Waitrose banning chavs, the ASA banning that #cansong Heinz ad over fears children might lose their fingers doing it, or Toblerone thinking no one would point and laugh at its new bar.
And there were heroes. Nigel Farage, obviously. And Richard Pennycook, who unselfishly went against the CEO grain and requested a pay cut. And there was chicken king Ranjit Singh, though his claim to have saved Christmas after buying Bernard Matthews might be pushing it a bit. But, after 2016, we need all the help we can get to feel festive. Merry Christmas, everyone! We’ve earned it. And a new year awaits…
- Read more of our roundup here: Review of the Year 2016
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