Nostalgia wins again, hands down

The sweets aren’t all that great. In fact, they’re kind of bad. I suspected that they might be even when I bought them. But they were so attractively packaged, each of them in the plastic box sitting in its own private, differently coloured, brilliant wrapping, that my consumer resistance never had a chance. And it wasn’t only the powerful magpie lure of the bright colours. No, more than that, there was the fuzzy childhood memory of the magic of standing in front of a tantalising assortment of brilliant sweets, and the exquisitely pleasant agony of having to make a choice.

If there was any hesitation before I bought that box of sweets, it was infinitesimally brief. That irrepressible child wanted them and had to have them, and I knew there was no point in trying to resist. Now the box sits in my ant-proof fridge, and I look at it approvingly every time I open the door to its coolness. But I’ve eaten only two of those sweets so far…