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Not many people know this about me, but I am a big fan of the Solero lolly - exotic only, I'm not sick. But even though I eat one Solero a day, except during No-Solero February, it is by no means the only iced treat that I am prepared to eat.
And whilst I have touted the Solero as an unlikely diet food, (at just 99 calories a pop, a pleasant treat, but just unpleasant enough that one is enough) there are better diet iced lolly treats out there. I haven't revealed them before in the hope that I could blackmail Ian Solero into finally giving me the money I deserve for the years of free advertising I've given him (a little tip for people hoping to make money from advertising stuff - don't do it for free, wait until they have paid you). I should have known that the creator of the Red Berry Solero could not be trusted to be a decent or caring human being and Ian Solero has not even sent me a single free Solero, so fuck him.
If you really want to enjoy a sweet iced treat that has minimal calorific value, then you should be eating the Fruit Pastille lolly. It's only 60 calories, it's as cold as ice and delicious and once again, just unpleasant enough that having consumed one you don't want any more. I will never give up my Solero, however badly treated and ghosted I am by its creator (it's like I enjoy being humiliated), but I will occasionally have a little Fruit Pastille on a hot day.
The Solero is still better than the Fruit Pastille lolly, but I think that Ian Fruit and Ian Pastille could turn that around if only they would go back to the drawing board with their creation. I probably don't need to tell you, of all people, how the FP (as aficionados call it) breaks down). There's a purple bit on top of an orange section on top of a green section. Beneath that is a red section and you're left with a fairly hefty yellow lolly at the end. Each section is slightly bigger than the last as it's not a solid chunk of each flavour, but the layer is sprayed or dipped on to the previous one. They've never changed the order of the colours and I don't know if they've even tried it another way, but I would beg the FP people to consider rebuilding this lolly from the ground up. Or at least the stick up.
When I used to eat actual Fruit Pastilles (i had to give those things up as they are too addictive) I had a very strict order of eating. Obviously you want to make the experience as pleasant as possible, so you want to leave the experience with the nicest taste in your mouth. So I would start by eating the abominable green pastille (is there any sweet where the green one isn't the worst one? Why do they even put these in? Presumably they are cheaper to make and are basically ballast), then the pretty much equally awful yellow ones (occasionally I'd mix yellow and green in the hope it might make something that tasted nice, but two negatives actually make an even bigger negative). Then like any sensible human being I would eat the red ones, which are bearable. Usually red is a good bet, but with pastilles there was something slightly off about it. It's fair to say that even though I was a fruit pastille fan I didn't really like 60% of the contents of a pack (maybe slightly more than that as I seem to remember the purple pastilles were not as numerous as the lime and lemon ballast).
Having got through the unpleasant start course I could now move on to my second favourite pastille. And I am going to shock you here, because if you know me at all you'll know that in any other pack of sweets orange is my favourite colour (and it was subsequently my favourite colour as a child and I had orange walls in my teenage bedroom - who knows why I was a virgin until three months before my 20th birthday?). But when it comes to pastilles, as great as the orange is, it comes second to the purple. Purple is the best.
So why oh why, Ian Pastille and Ian Fruit, when you came to make the Fruit Pastille lolly did you decide to make the lolly in almost exactly the opposite order to the correct one. Whilst the yellow is admittedly better as a lolly than it is as a pastille, I don't think it deserves to be maybe 40% of the treat. You have put the best colour first, meaning not only am I not left with the best taste at the end, but also the best bit is the smallest. Then to add insult to injury you put orange next - very slightly more lolly than purple, but not enough. Then out of some perverse desire to confuse you go for green. It's good that there's not much of it, but it would be better if there was much less. And then to end with nothingy red and a big chunk of fucking yellow. What were you thinking?
Sure the yellow is refreshing and cleanses the palate. But I don't need my palate cleansed. This is a pudding or a snack. I'm not having one before I move on to my main course. I want to end the lolly with a great big delicious purple lolly.
Why did you choose this ridiculous order? if you want to look a bit like a rainbow then it should be red, orange, yellow, green, purple (which I would accept providing that purple is the big bit - ok, nice, horrible, horrible, nice is quite a good way to get through this.
But you are not bound by the rainbow (there aren't enough colours for a start) or the random order you seem to have selected. You have the power to make the perfect order and change it to (as eaten) green, yellow, red, orange, purple.
Horrible, horrible but refreshing, ok, nice,brilliant.
If you feel you can't break from tradition totally why not do some special edition boxes like the Rainbow or the Herring (my order - can't see anyone being put off eating a Herring lolly) just so we can see how other orders might work. Or just do random boxes. You don't know what order you're going to get until you unwrap the lolly. Imagine your delight when you chance across the Herring lolly!
This could all be part of a huge marketing campaign that really gets people talking about Fruit Pastille lollies and maybe even make them forget about the Solero.
And then you could pay me loads of money for giving you this idea.... damn. Always ask for the money up front.
Maybe the people behind the Fruit Pastille lolly have more integrity and decency than Ian Solero. I doubt it though. You don't get to the top of the ice lolly tree with kindness or being fair.
I don't care about money, I just care about creating good lollies and if I sell less lolly ideas in my lifetime than Van Gogh sold paintings, it's enough for me to know that in a hundred years time people will still be talking about my lolly genius and Dr Who will do an episode where an actor playing me is brought into the future to see people really enjoying Fruit Pastille lollies in the right order.
I have a dream...
And live RHLSTP news. I am doing two live RHLSTPs at the Bill Murray in Angel on 30th June. At 8pm I will be talking to Barry Ferns.
Tickets here.
Use it or lose it London!
