Paper Monitor
12:23 UK time, Thursday, 13 January 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's reassuring how the papers rally round when a staple of British life is under threat. Especially if it's some young, foreign upstarts that are to blame, in this case peanut butter and Nutella.
Yesterday's news that marmalade sales are in decline has got many of the papers waxing lyrical about this British breakfast basic. Writing in the Times, Sarah Vine declares she's shaken to her "very core" by the news. Mmmmmmmm. She calls it an "irreplaceable part of our culinary culture" and asks:
"Can you imagine Bertie Wooster spreading Nutella on his toast? Jeeves would have resigned on the spot."
Nor can we imagine Education Secretary Michael Gove doing it or he might be divorced on the spot, seeing as he is married to Ms Vine.
The Daily Mail goes all out with a full-page campaign cry from Charles Campion, demanding we "". See what he's done? Seems he is equally shocked to his core by the news, asking: "Have we all gone mad?" He wants us all to come out fighting:
"If our kitchen cupboards are starting to provide safe haven for foreign imports such as peanut butter and chocolate spread, perhaps it is time for marmalade lovers to rally."
The Sun drafts in celebrity food writer Alex James to come to the defence of the spread. He very helpfully suggests - in a bacon sandwich, anyone, or with your cheese on toast? But then he pulls out the big guns:
"Marmalade is so ingrained in our culture. It's something you grow up with and take for granted. Then, when you holiday in France, it's not there. They don't even have a word for it."
The fools. Now go out and buy some marmalade and laugh at what they're missing. You owe it to your country.
The 
