It’s nice to receive and it’s even nicer to give, but what subliminal messages are carried by the most innocuous of gifts?
Frank Adams investigates and discovers the extent to which his
Life Is Like A Box Of Swedish Chocolates
The King and Queen of Sweden
His Royal Highness Carl XVI Gustaf is one of the few famous people who closely resembles his Madame Tussaud’s waxwork. They are genuinely hard to tell apart, but if you know what to look for the waxwork is slightly less stiff. This is the perfect box of chocolates to give to an American who wants a regal taste of Europe.
Princess Victoria
Everyone in Sweden loves Victoria, the heir to the throne, so everyone should love her chocolates (unless, of course, you are a diabetic). This is the biggest box of chocs on the market so perfect for binge eaters, although it seems a little bit cruel to use someone famous for having had an eating disorder to sell chocolates. Then again, maybe it’s all part of the therapy.
Geisha
Give this box to a woman and you are essentially making the statement that you have weighed up the moral and financial benefits of visiting a high class brothel and that a box of chocolates worked out cheaper
Fortuna
The look and name of Fortuna is redolent of a giant box of Eastern European cigarettes, peddled from the inside of a holdall outside a T-Bana station. The first time I was given a box of Fortuna I spent five minutes looking for matches and an ashtray big enough. Giving your loved one a pack of Fortuna is a bad idea, especially if they have just given up smoking and are worried about putting on weight.
Liqueur Fills
This is what comes of having strict controls on alcohol. Liqueur Fills is the perfect present for an alcoholic auntie or for teenagers who don’t want to drink on an empty stomach. An attempt at a ‘classy’ touch by writing in English doesn’t really work. Instead, ‘Liqueur Fills’ seems like some kind of government health warning albeit an erroneous one - for my money, it’s the chocolate that fills.
Aladdin
The name conjures up images of the mystic East and high adventure involving magic carpets, genies and the like. And what do you get in this magical journey to old Baghdad? Pralines in white and dark chocolate. Very exotic. According to the Marabou website, Aladdin was created in 1939 as a respite for the Swedish people during the Second World War. A box of chocolates hardly equates to Churchillian resolve, which goes some way to explaining Sweden’s ‘neutrality’.
Marianne
Chocolate filled and covered in mint - no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the image of Marianne Faithfull and the Rolling Stones out of my head.
Frank Adams has recently been awarded his doctorate in psychoconsumerology from the Correspondence University of Erinsborough, Australia
