pez

greetings

it was (fairly) recently that a very good friend elected to present me with some gifts. these items were, ostensibly, somewhat belated birthday celebratory ones, look you see. whereas i would not wish to bore you all with a presentation of such in full (although you are here by choice), there's one item which prompted some thoughts to write. 

not for the first time and not for the last i have thoughts of what was once scarce and is now in what feels like abundance. this, at the least, is from the perspective of my youth, which can be subject to memory distortion. such is true for all of us, it's just the way that whole mind/brain thing functions. 

so yes, then, a Pez dispenser and some extra (apparently fizzy) Pez things to put in it. not sure, actually, what one should call an individual Pez? maybe something like pellet, or block, or bit of "candy", since it is so all of this resides within the realms of the Americans. as to why a Peppa Pig one (Pez dispenser) this is likely a misunderstanding by my friend of the interest in the subject. the most recent "special" stamps off of Royal Mail feature characters from this show, so it is possible that my use of them was interpreted as an interest. not sure if i have ever even seen an episode of it. 

my memories of this stuff (Pez) flow to the 80s (but of course) and family holidays. i think it was in Malta that we children first encountered these magical looking things. certainly it was not so that they were freely available in England at the time. not our corner of it, at the least. from what i remember all of us, being my sister, brother and i, wished for more and more of the dispensers to be bought for us by Mum & Dad, who to be fair did indulge this wish to an extent. no, not sure what happened to the ones that we got then, yes, likely they are "collectors items" now. 

other memories would be of being not all that impressed (or taken) with the taste of the sweets. or if you like candy, since it is American. entirely plausible that these things were my first experience of such from there. if it was, an early marker for how that "candy" stuff which sounded so interesting and exotic was in fact bland rubbish. still, a very lovely gift indeed. the novelty of the sweets (or what you will) popping out of a head was the appeal then and remains now. 

as for our modern world, this century which i do not understand, these two elements now carry quite different meanings. in a positive, Pez is known more or less exclusively now for being the crux of a rather fine episode of Seinfeld called, oddly enough, The Pez Dispenser. rather different for all things in the realm (or expanded universe) of Peppa Pig. on a global stage this brand is best known for being banned in Australia (g'day) for daring to suggest spiders are "harmless" if not friendly. those of us in the UK, however, now have an indelible link to fallen PM Boris Johnson, for it was around the time he decided to use a press conference for some important matter or other to instead say how brilliant he found Peppa Pig World (whatever that actually is) was. oh. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!