If it's a swiz, it's my kind of swiz

One of my great pleasures and peeves come from the weekend newspapers. I tend to skip over newspapers during the weekdays, instead saving myself for binge spread over Saturday and Sunday, when I'll set aside some time to curl up and wade through the voluminous mass of paper which comprise the weekend editions. That's the pleasure part. The peeve is the ludicrous number of inserts which cunningly lie in wait, hidden between the pages until they have a chance to escape and maliciously litter wherever you happen to be. Only slightly less numerous than the leaves on the trees, there seems to exist a never ending stream of the dratted things. My first task when sitting down to read is to inevitably discard the weighty mass of useless bumph (actually, that's not true - the first thing to go is the sports section. I do have an image to maintain after all).

This last weekend, however, I'm ashamed to admit that one of the pamphlets I was about to rid myself of caught my eye. True to my usual form, it's for a chocolate tasting club. The leaflet itself is a glossy affair, with rather respectable production values. It certainly serves it's most important purpose by making the chocolates on offer look quite divine. As with the more familiar book clubs, the mechanic is a straightforward ploy to eek as much money out of you over as long a period as possible, whilst providing you with a product or service to make the drain on your accounts seem worthwhile. In this case a shiny new box of carefully selected chocolates will be delivered to your doorstep once a month. On the one hand, it's expensive for what's on offer - 400g of chocolate for £15.95 (inc. p & p), working out at 61p per chocolate. But on the hand, it's chocolate and... actually, no and - it's chocolate. Perhaps it's just the fact that I haven't eaten any today, but it all looks rather tempting, and it seems like a fun way to discover new and exciting chocolates each month.

Alas, however much I may desire chocolate (which right now is quite a bit), I despise the newspaper inserts more, and thus I cannot possible condone ordering anything from a company that chooses such methods to advertise.

Principles suck.