Sandwichgate marks takeover of choice
Posted 1 year ago at 10:29 am. 0 comments
RnB croonster Ne-Yo ”hit me up” on my “celly” in the early hours of this morning (poor lad can never figure out the timezones) to ask my advice on which flat-screen TV he should purchase for his “crib”. After an hilarious mix-up involving baby cots that went on for at least an hour, we eventually got down to the fact that he was looking for something suitably “bling” in the $2,500 to $3,500 bracket, preferably 48-inches or larger. Of course you don’t have to be a hit-record selling artiste to have trouble deciding on a new tech-toy; I’ve no doubt that many potential buyers have found themselves unpleasantly moist-palmed at the thought of differentiating between dozens of products that ostensibly seem the same.
Choice, then, is crippling us. Once upon a time there were only two choices facing us: plague or no-plague, and only the masochistic or confused went for the former. Now, if you wander into your local plague emporium, you’re faced with bubonic, Ebola-based or any number of genetically-modified derivatives for 100% of the fresh plague taste you love but with only half the calories. A telemarketer tried to sell me a pox very low on the glycemic index last week, and wouldn’t get off the phone until I’d listened to his entire spiel about how own-brand supermarket diseases have been shown to be bulked with inverted sugar syrup.
In fact it seems that the big chain foodstores can do no right at the moment. Only this past Friday did the British media frot themselves into a frenzy of gnashed cellophane at the news that some ready-made sandwiches contain as much salt as eight bags of crisps (that’s chips for my American friends, and кексы for any Russians reading). Jim Winship, director of the British Sandwich Association, balefully retorted that “meat is salty” while saving his tears to pour over a prawn-mayo baguette he was making for some small children.
Frankly, it’s another opportunity for the general public (about whom I generalise) to divorce themselves from all major areas of responsibility. “These sandwiches have lots of salt in them, you brutes!” they cry, their cowed spines quaking at the thought of having to manage their own diet, “why are the government doing nothing to protect me - and my children, for the love of all that’s holy! - from this sandwich menace?!”
Ironically sandwichgate comes as researchers find us crippled with choice, the profligacy of options driving us deep into depression and making us feel inadequate. Professor Mark Lepper of Stanford University performed studies with jam of all things and found that consumers offered a mere six fruity choices ended up buying more and feeling happier than those offered 24. “I feel as though I’ve been punched in the face after I’ve been round somewhere like [British supermarket] Morrisons” wailed Joy Miller, 39, leaving us to ponder how the poor woman might feel if she were actually punched in the face (as though she’d been asked to choose between a selection of terrestrial television channels for a Saturday night viewing binge, perhaps).
Where does that leave the vomiting, goose-pimpled man or female-impersonator in the street, then? In a world where anything from homemade horseradish sauce to scrotoplasty is on the menu, we run the risk of leaving our streets strewn with people become jellied lumps of indecisive gristle caked with salt. There’s no easy answer (I mean, just look at the Nazis), but there certainly is a knee-jerk one: starting this week, look out for the Dante’s Handcart “You Ought” feature, telling you exactly what you need to buy, bake or bone. With rational thought as fashionable as nosegays, I’ve no doubt “You Ought” will be our biggest success yet.
Print This Post