Monster Munch

An escapee from a garish multi-pack, the scourge of proper sizing and consumer understanding. We get what we deserve.

Once upon a time crisps were unsalted and you added your own salt from a silly blue bag. Then flavours came, colours and shapes. It was the ending of an age. By the time that Monster Munch was launched I was an adult. I had responsibilities, a mortgage, kids, intermittent career prospects. I was respectable. I was never a child in the heady, colourful, salty and sticky world of early Monster Munch. I couldn't eat a bag in public without looking like some pathetic man-child in crisis and of course in those days Monster Munch actually came in monster sized bags. There was no hiding place. This was the age of snacks and sweets before the great "shrink to fit the budget" strategy was launched on unsuspecting punters. Whilst this has wreaked havoc in dry snack land, for some reason (wet) drinks have only got bigger and more expensive and more dangerous, apart from the actual cocaine once found in Coca-Cola.

There is some odd logic at work here but we're all too stupid and desperate to comply as we allow it to grow by our voiceless, munching participation and lack of protest. So "in praise of Monster Munch" should really be some confessional singer songwriter ditty; funny and wry and witty and with a clever ending, if only somebody would write it. I wont. BBC TV variety shows of the 60s spewed this kind of jaunty material out every Saturday night, I'm not sure what replaced them. Oh yes, dancing celebs and talent shows. Enough.