Mark Olver - Bristol comedian

There is something not quite right about the new Starburst Choozer. Now, being a chocolate man, i don't feel 100% qualified in adding my opinion to the already raging debate (read all at snackspot.org) but as a consumer i feel it is important that i do my duty.

I have been a fan for a while, partly because of the rarity of them. Not every shop will stock this new beast from the Starburst family, so when you find a selection nestling in a corner with the fruit pastilles/gums, a genuine little shock of delight goes through my body.

I am like that when i see a Drifter. And a Star Bar. And a Twirl. And a Fuse, but i have not seen one of those for a while. And Monster Munch, but you find them everywhere so that shock might be there because i really like Monster Munch.

I am a complete sucker to confectionery marketing. If something is new and being advertised and shoved in your face on counter tops, i feel obliged to buy.

And conversely, if something has fallen off the PR bandwagon, with very little support from head-office, simply because it is not popular and cool enough any more, i feel that i am doing that snack a favour by liberating it from its sugary purgatory, and who knows, being the "local celebrity" that i am, maybe someone on the street will see me eating my packet of Munchies and think "Well, if it's good enough for Mark Olver, then it is damn well good enough for me.

The Starburst Choozer is currently in the cool gang. A multi-million pound advertising campaign, and alot of money spent developing POS for local shops and supermarkets (Point of Sale, i have done my research)

If this much money has been spent, why is the only place i can find them one shop in Bristol? I am sure they are scattered all over the country, but when i scan the collections of shops nationwide my eyes rarely rest on the Starburst Choozer. But in Bristol, in one store in Bristol, they are always there, next to the till, creating a barrier between me and the bloke serving. A useful barrier i must add because while that bloke walks with a limp, it seems like a limp caused, not by falling out of a tree whilst saving a little cat, but by chasing that cat up there in the first place, possibly with his penis out.

The reason there is something not quite right about the Choozer is the initial bite. There is something of the cough sweet about it.

I do not like a cough sweet.

The selling point of the Choozer is that it has all the fruity love of the rest of the Starburst range, but concealed under a fairly hard shell. The advert describes it as the "chews that ooze"  , and it really does. When your teeth bite through the outer layer of shell, the healthy filling inside can actually gush out. Now, i have had several packs, and have noticed that varying temperature conditions do effect the rate and consistency of the "ooze" but in optimum conditions (which i suggest are : being kept in your pocket of your jeans, front not back so not to crush them, and left for a few hours to get a little hot, but not too hot to start melting the outside of the chew, just enough to squidge the filling) there is an actual gush of flavour onto the tongue.

This seems to be the way that cough sweets work. Now, as i said, i do not like a cough sweet, but anecdotal reports suggest to me that when nibbling on a cough sweet, the medicinal stuff is placed within the shell and after a bit of chewing or sucking or biting, the magic potion is released and does it's lovely work.

What this has led me to discover, and if anything, The Review of Life is about my journey to self-discovery, is that my distaste for the cough sweet is based on the flavour of the sweets themselves and not the sensation of having said sweet gushing into your mouth.

The flavour of the Choozer is incredible. There are three combinations in a packet, raspberry and orange, pineapple and orange, or orange and mango, and for my money the raspberry and orange is the pick of the draw, as those flavours combine well, but also contradict, in equal measure.

So, in summary, because at the moment it is not very summery, the Starburst Choozer is well worth experiencing, and worth your 30p or 45p or however much they cost (i have not researched that bit) Feel free to contact me if you have difficulty chasing them down and i will point you in the direction of the shop in Bristol staffed by Gimpy the Cat Chaser.

 

July 13th 2007

Website launched.

So, you buy the domain names markolver.com and markolver.co.uk and then let them rest in the cyber universe for a few years while you think of what to do next.

You then decide to get the lovely Oliver to design and build a website so you are at least making use of those domain names.

And then when that site is finished and looking lovely, you then have to think what you are going to do with it.

So, i have the contact pages, so you can get hold of me and give me work; and the bit where i talk about how amazing i am; and list my credits so my career looks more impressive than it really is; and put photos up so clubs can start using better pictures or me; and a guestbook so people who do/don't know me can abuse/say nice things from the comfort of their own pants; oh, and a gigs list so you can comer and see me gig and work; and then....

Then i am left with this big NEWS bit, that seems to take up alot of the site, and frankly my life does not justify having all that space at this particular stage of my development, so i have to think of something to bung in it.

I am NOT doing a blog. There are very good blogs out there (Richard Herring's is both brilliant and funny) and there are very good blogs about people having sex with people, but i don't really want to do a "normal" blog, so i have decided to do something else.

Mr Herring started his blog as a way of helping his writing improve, and if a writing excercise is good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Instead of doing a blog though, i am going to do what i have title "The Review of Life".

I see alot of things, films, tv programmes, food as i am shoving it in my face, and listen to alot of things, music, radio, the pages of books turning as i read them, and the sound of chocolate and cake calling my name.

Everyday, and feel free to write on my guestbook and tell me off if i am being too lazy and miss a day or three, i will review something. I am leaving the criteria fairly vague, and i cant promise that this bit of the website won't just comprise 365 different reviews of chocolate bars by this time next year, but at least i am giving it a go.

So there you go, that's the site, and that's the Review of Life. See you later for a review of something. I do not know what it is yet but i can hear a Drifter calling my name.