I was in England, and I remember saying to someone, “Topics. You never get those any more.” I went into how I used to love Topics, a chocolate bar full of hazelnuts, and how you never see them, and then into how most regular american chocolate just isn’t as tasty as British chocolate bars (seriously taste the difference between a British and American KitKat), and how much I miss the sheer variety of British sweets, and Topics are one of those things I used to love as a kid but cannot find in England now (like Pacers, remember those?). I realized I was sounding like a one-man Facebook group, “remember this thing from the 70s, don’t get those no more, remember this other thing from the 80s, don’t get those no more, the kids all eat iPhones and talk in txtspk, everyone’s obese now, not like in my day when we ate Lion bars all day and nobody went on about health and safety” and so on. And then they said, “no, you can still get Topics, they sell them in the Pound Shop.” My face was like, WHAAAAA? It was like a cartoon when the eyes poop out and the tongue rolls out and around the corner. But I think I saved myself by going, oh yeah, I know, I was being, er, ironic. I totally wasn’t. I had no idea Topics still existed. I went straight to the Pound Shop, and found a four-pack of Topics. I handed over my quid, and was the proud owner of what I had thought was an extinct species, namely Topic bars. I was not alone in this assumption. Just a few days later I was listening to a football podcast and one person said to another person, “Topic bars, do they still make those?” And the other person said, “no, I don’t think so.” WELL THEY BLOODY WELL DO! I wanted to tell the world. “TOPICS – ALIVE AND WELL IN THE POUND SHOP IN BARNSTAPLE.” But would the world believe me? Would it be like those people who reckon Elvis Presley is alive and works in their local chip shop? Would I be considered as a Topic Bar Conspiracy Nut? “The government man is coming to take away your Topic bars! They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our Topics!” This Topic was a bit small though, a bit on the scrawny side. Which I was ok with, because it’s smaller I can eat four times as many.