Chocolate fads

Back in the day when I was in my first permanent job, the chocolate du jour was The Mountain Bar. It wasn't that we weren't already familiar with the Toblerone, which had been around a lot longer, was the same shape and frankly better quality. It was that The Mountain Bar came from M&S. The day M&S opened food stores near offices in Central London was like a Velvet Revolution. My team (yes, I was a precocious 23 year old, within months of starting my first job I had A Team, which then went horribly wrong because I was really badly managed and my team started to bully me so I left...but that's another story) would collect orders and go in twos and threes up to Islington Market, ignoring all the fabulous stalls with their locally grown fruit and handmade coconut ice, head straight into M&S, and buy Mountain Bars. Oh the excitement. Once the initial heady feeling wore off we moved on to cheese puffs and from there to Chocolate Twirls. When I look back over my career I have vivid pictures of each of them and they all feature a particular type of chocolate. A phase selling airport advertising is dominated by Yorkie bars. Why, I have no idea, except maybe that it was a place that reeked of testosterone and Yorkies are not, after all, if we sign up to the advertising, for girls. And during my time in public service, it's chocolates for sharing. Maxi packs of Minstrels, M&Ms and Maltesers. Especially Maltesers. Cheap and such great value if you buy the huge box at the back of the top shelf. Occasionally you read articles in newspapers about pernicious people who bring chocolate into work, who the writers of these articles label as "saboteurs". They introduce this unhealthy stuff into your life so it's their fault you are stuffing your face with it. As if you wouldn't find somethign else to stuff your face with if there weren't Maltesers around. In any case, if you sign up to Maltesers theology then they are the healthiest chocolate choice there is so what's the problem? This morning I had finished my laborious physiotherapy session in my gym, was in the changing room getting dressed after my shower, and the sauna door opened. Out of it emerged a strikingly beautiful woman with Latin looking features, who was totally bare except for a pink thong, which was soaked with her sweat, as was the rest of her. She made her way languidly to a bench, stood by it, and proceeded to stretch, so we could all get an unstinting view of her curves and assets. Women around me murmured jealously or looked away as they stuffed their imperfect bodies back into their office suits. I wondered whether the gym company was paying her to emerge from the sauna whenever the changing room was busy, so we could get a glimpse of what we too could look like one day in the not too distant future if we Put In The Effort. If they were, then it was an own goal. Why on earth bother, I said to the woman next to me. I haven't a hope in hell of looking like that. Darling, replied the woman, neither does she. You think she got that body with exercise? She had her last meal at the Golden Jubilee. I agree with her. On my way out, I buy a megabox of Maltesers for my team. This is, after all, the Real World.