Titania's PR nonsense prediction comes true as K hits the meat

Did I mention hybrid products in my crystal ball of PR nonsense this January? I hope so, because already we’ve been blessed with the cruffin. Karoline (with a K) seizes on the potential of this publicity generator and insists we come up with some hybrids to pitch to our own bakery client. Persephone suggests ‘custard tart’ and we can’t decide whether she’s being subversive or stupid. Profiterumble sounds a bit closer to the mark, but only a bit, and by the time we get to eclairbiscuit everyone’s patience has run out.

Karoline stomps off back to her office to put the finishing touches to her speculative pitch for the British asparagus season launch in late April, only to emerge two minutes later, cursing and waving the Daily Mail (not an unusual combination). This time it’s the news that M&S is launching its British asparagus next week, ie “six weeks too early”, that has caught her eye and rendered the last week’s worth of brainstorming redundant. Alas consumers will now be denied the pleasures of her ‘fat stems are more juicy’ campaign, her social media buttery chin photo competition, and the launch of the British asparagus stiffometer, which tells you how fresh your stalk is.

Disheartened, K retires to lunch (11.30am), disappearing faster than the Schweppes range in Tesco, and vowing to “eat the whole of one of my 7,000 animals a year”. This is what the Vegetarian Calculator has figured we consume, but in a lifetime not a year. Believing vegetarians to be communists, she has taken this as a personal challenge, insisting we can all join her campaign and “manage at least one rabbit a day”. We contain our sniggers until she’s gone.