In which I am patronised by a soup

Good morning! Today I am mostly: annoyed by soup.

Now, when I buy soup (and I am aware that it would be cheaper and more fulfilling to make my own: this too is an annoyance, but not the main one) I only really need to know two things about it: what's in it, and how long it takes to heat it up in the microwave. Soups have been providing this information since time immemorial (or perhaps since the invention of the domestic microwave oven in 1967), and I'm not exactly sure when they got bored of providing it in the traditional manner. But they have.

Thus to today's soup, a Tuscan Chicken and Orzo from Glorious Soups. I'm not sure who you think the market is for a Tuscan Chicken and Orzo soup, but I suspect it is someone quite middle class and pretentious who likes to think they are eating a sophisticated soup tailored for their sophisticated palate. Me, in other words. I therefore am the target audience for the following:

I've been carefully checked for bones, but you might still find a few small ones

and

I contain celery and gluten. I've been known to hang around near nuts, peanuts and sesame seeds and I may contain them as well

and

Freezing me? best do it right now and eat me within a month

and most egregious of all

Ouch! My pot can get a bit wobbly when it's hot, so stand me on a plate when you're reheating and stirring, and mind your fingers when you pick me up

(although actually I am put off my soup even more by

Made in the UK with three spoonfuls of love and a pinch of gusto

but it doesn't count because it's not in the sodding first person. And how many calories in a spoonful of love, eh? Tell me that.)

I am 34 years old. I left nursery school 30 years ago and that was the last time anyone saw fit to speak to me in this stupid, affected, patronising voice. And on that occasion it was a human being, not a fucking soup.

A message to the people of Glorious soups: I want to EAT the soup, not make friends with it. And in any case, when I'm hanging out with my friends (or "chilling", as in Let's chill. Keep me in the fridge) they very rarely exhort me to take off my lid and stand me on a plate in the microwave and make sure I'm nice and hot before serving. Because that would be WRONG. And a bit kinky.

[UPDATE: The soup was delicious. I don't know if that makes it more annoying or less.]

All of which reminds me of that brilliant scene in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by the late, great, and apparently prophetic, Douglas Adams, when Arthur Dent meets the cow that is soon going to be his dinner:

A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips.

"Good evening," it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, "I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?" It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them.

Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox.

"Something off the shoulder perhaps?" suggested the animal, "Braised in a white wine sauce?"

"Er, your shoulder?" said Arthur in a horrified whisper.

"But naturally my shoulder, sir," mooed the animal contentedly, "nobody else's is mine to offer."

Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's shoulder appreciatively.

"Or the rump is very good," murmured the animal. "I've been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there." It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again.

"Or a casserole of me perhaps?" it added.

"You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?" whispered Trillian to Ford.

"Me?" said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, "I don't mean anything."

"That's absolutely horrible," exclaimed Arthur, "the most revolting thing I've ever heard."

"What's the problem Earthman?" said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to the animal's enormous rump.

"I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing here inviting me to," said Arthur, "it's heartless."

"Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten," said Zaphod.

"That's not the point," Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. "Alright," he said, "maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just ... er ..."

The Universe raged about him in its death throes.

"I think I'll just have a green salad," he muttered.

"May I urge you to consider my liver?" asked the animal, "it must be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months."

"A green salad," said Arthur emphatically.

"A green salad?" said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur.

"Are you going to tell me," said Arthur, "that I shouldn't have green salad?"

"Well," said the animal, "I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am."

It managed a very slight bow.

"Glass of water please," said Arthur.

"Look," said Zaphod, "we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the issues. Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years."

The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle.

"A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good," it said, "I'll just nip off and shoot myself."

He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur.

"Don't worry, sir," he said, "I'll be very humane."