The Archive

A right Penn state

When I have an idle moment, I like to peruse the pages of The Guardian's Comment Is Free section (aka CIF).

For those of you not familiar with it, essentially it is a section of the website where a columnist or writer of some kind writes and article, and then everyone is free to chip in and say their bit 'below the line' as it were.

Now, people being people and this being the Internet, this usually results in three groups of people arguing amongst themselves.

The first is people with some opinion on the matter, seeking to resolve whether their view is sound through the medium of civil debate. There are usually about three of these.

The second is people who think the author is absolutely self-evidently right and want to celebrate their point/share their outrage (generally the latter) as loudly as possible. There are a lot of these.

The third group is people who think it's patently obvious the author is an absolute moron, totally wrong in every respect and with significant doubts as to their parentage into the bargain. There are even more of these.

The first group of people then talk amongst themselves whilst the latter two abuse one another, pitching insults from their deeply entrenched think-holes to little or no effect on either side.

Whatever the topic, whatever the point being made, it seems the people of CIF would always fall into these groups and start warring.

Northern Ireland – vicious infighting.

Gordon Brown vs Tony Blair – vicious infighting.

Kittens are cute – vicious infighting.

Until today.

Today a topic arose that achieved what I had previously thought impossible, uniting the warring tribes of CIF into a single, harmonious consensus.

And that topic? Apparently Hershey is bringing the Hershey's Kiss to the UK.

Now having lived in America for a bit, I am quite aware there are many fine, admirable and downright brilliant things to be found there.

The Hershey's Kiss, however, is not one of them. I think they are simply foul.

The writer of today's piece agrees with me too, using phrases including "flavour notes of regurgitated milk", " the taste of ming" and "Conical filth-bombs."

And the commenters, for once, were as one in their agreement. Admittedly I have only read the first 50 comments, but every single one is not just slightly against this chocolate, but really quite passionate.

So well done Hershey's for you have, in ways nobody could foreseen, brought together a nation.

Take note, Middle East peace negotiators.

And here's what they said…

"They're sh*t."

"The first and only time I ate them, I thought someone was playing a joke shop trick on me."

"It tastes like vomit."

"Hershey's chocolate tastes like earwax."

"I agree, these are disgusting!"

"they are terrible."

"Have they fixed the sick taste?"

"Absolute filth."

"They're absolutely rancid"

"It's a lot of hard work to wrestle that tiny chocolate turd from the foil wrapper, too."

"Seriously, how can anyone like these?"

"They're pure nasty."

"How this sh*t passes for chocolate, I have no idea."

"Hershey chocolate does not taste like vomit. It's more diarrhea-like."

"I have to say they are one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted."

"Recently my young daughter found a chocolate coin that had fallen down the back of the sofa last Christmas and as she took a bite, she remarked that it tasted as vile as a Hershey's kiss."

"Always found Hershey bars and kisses to be rather nice. Mind you, I like chewing my own earwax after I've rubbed it in my bum crack."

People of The Guardian, I salute you.

posted by Peter The Great @ 6:30 PM