John Le Baptiste reviews the Fizzy Pops of yesteryear

In this post, I have decided to branch out a little bit. Instead of reviewing films I haven’t seen, I’m going to review some wines. Except I’m a teetotaller. So, instead of reviewing wines I’m going to review some old-fashioned fizzy pops. Before I do that though, I should probably go back to when it all started. You know: the beginning…

The international language of carbonated delight needs no translation.

 

Last year, when the dark was closing in, the fatty dollops were making my life a misery. Whenever it rained they would come pouring in through the catflap and slap about on the floor, leaving a sticky residue that gummed together the strands of shagpile something cruel. It was getting hard to relax. So I moved house.

Since moving, I have found my new neighbourhood to be a bonny one. The trees dance in the febrezed bourgeois breeze and the neighbours all have dogs called things like ‘Mr Jenkinson’ and ‘Brightsnout’. No-one challenges me to a knife-fight, even in jest, as such things are frowned upon here. It is a good spot to call home.

A day or two after moving in I discovered an intriguing shop on the corner of my street. It is a paradoxical place. Let me explain how. The proprietors are a religious couple. I know this because the husband has a special hat. Yet the top shelf of the newspaper section contains the most comprehensive selection of pornography magazines I have ever seen – an achievement not to be neighed at in this age of saucy jpegs and filthy peekvids. The magazines are arranged alphabetically, from ‘Accentuated Clefts’ to ‘Zipper Mishaps’. Besides vagina-themed periodicals, the shop also sells biro pens, ‘With Deepest Sympathy’ cards, baked beans, sponges, novelty make-up and some other stuff in the back-room that I have thus far been too frightened to look directly at.

But the most exciting items in the whole shop are undoubtedly its numerous retro fizzy pops. They are arrayed boldly and garishly in the refrigerator like an insane blind robot’s idea of what a rainbow might look like.  Since that first day when I discovered the shop, I have sampled every one of those pungent, sugary brews. Some of them are delicious. Some of them are disgusting, like Expendables 2. Here is a short yet instructive guide to retro-fizzy pops.

Tizer: This tipple, as I have had cause to remark elsewhere, tastes like lemonade mixed with the blood of Barry Chuckle. It is a cheerful savant of a drink. I would probably have a glass of this with a Scotch Egg and some alphabet letters.

Dandelion and Burdock: D&B is, in essence, a hipster’s version of Vimto. When quaffing this jazzy potation, try saying something ironic. It will improve your experience of the drink tenfold. D&B is probably my favourite retro fizzy pop. But then I would say that, because I am cooler than Coolio, the former rap star who now works in a coathanger factory.

Ginger Beer: A mouthful of this formula hits the gullet like a bracing, coruscating thump in the giblets. It is Banjo Chutney’s favourite fizzy pop, and he usually brings me a tin of it when he comes round to my house to help me kill the fatty dollops. He was first inspired to try Ginger Beer when he learned that it was the Famous Five’s potable of choice. That, incidentally, is also why he ended up becoming a professional catcher of smugglers.

Apologies, Fizzy-Pop fans. My Limeade review will have to wait. I have started passing luminous green fluid. I’ll post a sequel when I get out of hospital.

Tags: Anne, Barry Chuckle, Coolio, Dick, Fatty Dollops, Fizzy Pop, George, Julian, Liver Disease, Newsagents, Soft Drinks, The Famous Five, Timothy, Wine Tasting