As countless tubs of awful, oily chocolates mount up in supermarkets across the country in preparation for Christmas, McVitie’s announced that the Club and Penguin bars can no longer be legally termed ‘chocolate’, as they are nothing more than chocolate-flavoured.

The upsetting news comes about as the company had to find an alternative to cocoa, as cocoa-producing countries like the Ivory Coast and Ghana suffer the effects of climate change among other hits to production. The cost of cocoa has increased from about $3 per kilo in 2014, to $8 in 2025. That’s a price increase to soften your cough.

The company are in some small way to be commended for at least biting the bullet. Certain unnamed and infamous chocolate bars are close to inedible now by the standards of old, resembling a mouth full of butter and oil rather than chocolate. The price of a plastic tub of so-called ‘chocolate’ is absurdly low too, and generates more wrapping than joy. The same with selection boxes: as an experiment, unwrap everything and lay them out on a table, factoring in how much bright gold, red, yellow and green needs to go in the bin versus how much of what you bought is actually edible.

Ironically, this culture of consumerism with an unlimited abundance of plastic, petrol products, and pollution is what has contributed to his man-made climate change which, in turn, leaves us with a crap Penguin and a disappointing Club. Purists will gloat about 78% dark chocolate and tell you a nibble is just the same as a Crunchie (it isn’t), or that a handful of almonds will give you the same kick (they won’t). Soon we’ll be thinking of all those Bounties forlorn and left at the bottom of the box, fighting over the scraps of cocoa before we truly have to enter the age of fake food.

Diamonds for the rough

Experts in France and elsewhere are falling over themselves to paint the Louvre thieves as ‘professionals’, ‘experts’, ‘veterans’, and most of all, organised. It’s inconceivable, so they say, that anyone amateur entered the Louvre, did a smash-and-grab in about seven minutes, and took off with the  diamonds, sapphires, and pearls, along with the gold and silver. The thieves used a ladder, a tool to cut the glass, and threatened the security guards before running away on motorcycles. How very French. Ocean’s 11 had led us mortals to believe that something more academic would be needed, but apparently, that was just Americans overcomplicating matters.

It’s hard not to be gleeful to hear about a jewel heist when your jewellery comes from Penneys (maybe Keanes if it’s a special occasion). Someone might at least get some craic out of these rocks now that they’re out of the museum.

However, the history and present-day reality of diamond extraction is brutal and vile; to admire diamonds is to admit that they come dirtied, almost inevitably, with blood, conflict, child labour, and worse. More than that, they are utterly pointless, except on the end of a drill. They’re nothing but a symbol of ostentatious wealth. That said, most of humanity is built to want these pretty things, and we’re certainly bred to fight for, kill for, and steal them. The ideals of égalité, fraternité, and liberté have never been anything other than illusions for the masses, and most of us will never have a diamond for a best friend.

The argument can be made that the jewels have been stolen from the French people, as the theft of the Ardagh chalice could be said to be a robbery of the Irish. Still, it’s nice to think that somewhere out there, a lucky French girl is out walking by the Seine in a Le Dunnes Stores coat, with a sapphire necklace under her poloneck.