My £50-a-week chocolate habit

As I’ve got older my tastes have generally become less refined. During my youth I dutifully slogged through Kafka, Camus and Sartre, but my current bedtime reading is Sharpe’s Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell. With movies, I used to feel obliged to watch subtitled masterpieces like La Règle du jeu and Le Salaire de la Peur, but now I’m perfectly happy with the latest Marvel blockbuster. However, when it comes to food and wine, I’ve become more snobbish – insufferably so. My last meal on death row would be the twice-baked cheese soufflé from Le Gavroche washed down with a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru.

For some reason, this is particularly true of my taste in chocolate. I’ve always had a passion for sweets, which is why I can remember the day the UK introduced decimal currency in 1971. The reason it stands out is because the cost of a Mars Bar changed overnight from sixpence to two new pence, making it one of the few confectionary products to fall in price on Decimal Day. My pocket money at the time was two shillings a week, which became 10p, and the new bargain price meant I could afford five a week instead of just four. Oh joy! Today, the thought of eating just one Mars Bar fills me with disgust.

People often complain about sweet inflation (Mars Bars now average 74p), but my preferred confectioner is Fortnum & Mason where 16 truffles will set you back £20. Indeed, when I come back from one of my regular sorties to the upmarket grocer, I have to bribe my children to stay away from ‘Daddy’s choccies’, offering them a 100g bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk instead. They think this is the bargain of the century and refuse to believe me when I say I would rather eat broken glass than a square of the claggy brown fat they call ‘chocolate’.