M&S are being a bit pathetic, if you ask me.

From the BBC:

Marks & Spencer has begun legal action against Aldi, arguing the supermarket's Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake infringes its Colin the Caterpillar trademark. M&S argues that their similarity leads consumers to believe they are of the same standard and "rides on the coat-tails" of M&S's reputation.

It lodged an intellectual property claim with the High Court this week. M&S wants Aldi to remove the product from sale and agree not to sell anything similar in the future. The retailer has three trademarks relating to Colin, which it believes means Colin has acquired and retains an enhanced distinctive character and reputation.

The product was launched around 30 years ago. Colin's appearance has been substantially unchanged since around 2004, except for adaptations for events such as Halloween and Christmas, and related products such as Connie the Caterpillar.

A spokesman said: "Because we know the M&S brand is special to our customers and they expect only the very best from us, love and care goes into every M&S product on our shelves.

Hahahalal

Spotted by MBK in The Telegraph:

Aldi apologises after black pudding is incorrectly labelled as halal-certified

ALDI Passions

Dearieme left a comment recently to say that ALDI's Passions were better than Tyrrell's, which is not actually saying much, as Tyrrell's came a distant fourth in the Fun Online Poll, so honour bound, I drove to my nearest ALDI this morning (which unfortunately is half an hour's drive away) to buy some.

We had people round for lunch today and I road tested their entry level flavour ('sea salt with crushed black pepper'). The five adults and three children present agreed they were very tasty indeed. If you ask me they are a lot better than Kettle's as well, but I don't really go for these 'hand cooked' crisps so maybe I'm not the best person to judge.

In the next few hours and days we will also sample the other two flavours available, 'sea salt and cider vinegar' and 'mature cheddar and onion'. I note to my horror that they only charged me for two packets of hand cooked crisps but I'm not going back now. ALDI's Cava was excellent as well, a snip at £3.99 a bottle.