Thursday, 10 February 2022

Cnut Songs #10: The Great Rennie Monopoly


It's getting harder and harder to buy Bisodol these days. And I blame Rennie. 

Without doing any research, because I'm ranting (and who's got time for research when they're ranting?) it seems clear to me that Rennie are monopolising the supermarket indigestion shelves and forcing Bisodol onto the black market of Superdrug and Amazon. Because they're about the only two places that still stock them. And don't even start me on Milk of Magnesium... if you want a bottle of that these days, you have to go see Jimmy Corkhill.

(Out-of-date-by-twenty-years topical references, as ever: my forte.)

There's a wider issue here: "why is it that all the products I like and buy regularly are suddenly going out of stock everywhere only to be replaced by other brands or varieties I don't like as much?" Ocean Spray used to do a very nice Cranberry and Blueberry juice. They stopped it. So I moved onto the still enjoyable but clearly inferior Cranberry and Raspberry. Only that's gone now. So I'm just left with boring old Cranberry on its own. Or Cranberry Light, which is full of saccharine, and therefore leaves a chemical aftertaste that no amount of tongue scrubbing will dislodge. Keep away from me with your Light drinks, thank you. 

And you've no idea what hoops I have to jump through to get Camomile & Spearmint tea these days. Not Camomile & Peppermint. Urgh. Not Camomile & Honey. Yuck. Camomile & Spearmint! Once as prevalent as hedgehogs, now ghetto-ised to Holland & Barratt... if you're lucky.

See, if I've got indigestion, I don't want Rennie! No matter how much they try to make it the only chalky, chewable antacid sweet on the counter. I just don't like the taste, the objectionable squariness of them, and I certainly don't find them half as effective as Bisodol.   

Also, Half Man Half Biscuit never named an album after Rennie, did they?

Here's my favourite track from 90 Bisodol (Crimond)... featuring the Duke of Westminster and his good lady wife, making a right nuisance of themselves.

And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.

(He was the manager, and he'd just told me they didn't stock Bisodol any more.)



6 comments:

  1. I was going to say, at least Twinings do a camomile and spearmint tea, not that they'd be much cheaper than Holland and Barrett. Except a quick check reveals that Twinings have stopped selling this ... which is exactly your point.

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    1. Yes, Twinings used to be my regular fix. No more though.

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  2. It's about 50 years since I crunched a Rennies tablet but I still remember the terrible chalky taste. You have my sympathy.

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    1. Still... clearly the market leader. You'd almost think the British public had no taste.

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  3. Gaviscon, swigged from the bottle - none of this measuring out malarkey.
    HMHB didn't have an album entitled "A Pint Of Gaviscon My Good Man"

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  4. Lypsyl - the old recipe. Can't get it anymore and it was the only thing that worked for me here up here in the frozen north.

    So many toiletry/hair product items as no more either and impossible to find an exact replacement. Must have been full of things harmful to the oceans but when trying to deal with winter skin and hair not my first thought.

    You have my sympathy.

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