Tinkerbell

About a year ago, me and my little sister came up with an idea for a children's book about fairies. It was brilliant. We had fire fairies that lived inside light bulbs, and snowdrop fairies that encouraged clouds to burst into fluffy balls of white. We even had mini fairies that were born inside the eyes of tiny babies giving them that twinkle they always seem to have - well that one actually sounds a bit creapy, but anyway, long story short we started illustrating it. My little sister would sit for hours drawing potential fairies, and I would come up with story lines and new types of fairies and where they lived.

Slowly but surely we came up with a bunch of story lines and a plethora of fairies, with the tooth fairy being a centralized character among the others. Little did we know, someone, somewhere inside the Disney empire was doing exactly the same thing, and before we knew it Disney Fairies was born. Now don't get me wrong, people have the same ideas all the time, and Disney kind of have a monopoly on Fairies after Tinkerbell became their mascot. However there are a tonne of similarities between their story and ours.

It's strange, I much preferred Tinkerbell back when she was a bit of a bitch. Trying to keep Wendy and Peter Pan apart, commandeering the thimble she gave him, not to mention trying to get the lost boys to shoot her to death. Then she seemed sassy and strong willed, now she just seems a bit of a moron. I literally watched her on the screen at the Disney Store in Covent Garden try and get out of a bottle for five minutes, and she wasn't even caught fully inside of it. She also fell off a branch, and got stuck in a spider web. I don't remember these being difficulties for her when she was fighting pirates and mermaids in neverland.

Fairies are such a cool part of childhood, they have wings and live in flowers and dance in the moonlight. A little bit of me still wonders if I was offered the chance to live in a massive flower if I'd say yes....what am I talking, about of course I would live in a massive flower if the chance arose. Who wouldn't? A bee maybe...no one likes to bring their work home with them.

Anyway, fairies are mythical and magical and all that, but I must turn my attention to something more reality based. My mum sent me another article she found in the Times. It is some woman complaining about Cadbury's being bought out by Kraft, I like it because she has taken the issue very seriously, she even brings up Nestle's choice to move production of Smarties from York to Germany claiming 'Smarties never tasted the same'. Ironically Nestle's biggest country of production is Canada, who knew right? I'm going to keep an eye out for a smarties factory I don't think I've ever seen one.  Anyway, I never fail to find people getting worked up about ridiculousness funny, and this article is a great example. The fact it came out the same day the UK prime minister announced an election date just helps to demonstrate one really shouldn't sweat the small stuff.

And that's chocolate news, I've been Meryl Goodnight.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article7086092.ece