from snowy summits are mountained limbs of venomous frogspawn
here is to the life pudendal
blessedly unaffected by format rigidity.
going home, i see the most expensive chocolate bar
i’ve ever seen, heard of or read about
and in a fog of lousy vibes await an operative positive.

i was in the pub with my friend i.h. the other day and conversation turned to inflation and high prices. mars bars in particular. i remembered distinctly (meaning, probably, inaccurately) that a mars bar was 27p when i was in my youth. a particular memory – i was at the swimming baths while my brother was taking a lesson. and reading the adrian mole diaries. and i’m sure i read him spending his pocket money on a mars bar in 1982. and it was 15p. so i reckon i read that book in 1995.

1982 15p
1995 27p

that’s an increase of 80%

so 13 years later, in 2008, you would expect it to be another 80% higher? rounding up that’s 50p. and i’m pretty sure that’s what it did cost in 2008.

so in 2021, how much was a mars bar? the model says 90p. I would bet you 90p you could find a mars bar for sale for 90p in 2021.

a mars bar today costs… £1.05.

so based on no underlying data other than my own memory of the price of mars bars, i was able to determine that the price of confectionary will increase by 80% every 13 years.

or, more snappily, we can extrapolate from our data that the price of confectionary doubles every 15 years. and i call this benn’s law.

(and we can take the calming news that the inflation we have suffered recently is relatively normal)

and yes, i know this ignore the fact that mars bars have also shrunk. the real rate of inflation is higher.