I regret to say that yesterday we overlooked an important anniversary here at Hooting Yard. I refer not to the birthdays of Gilbert White (1720) or Tristan Corbière (1845), nor to the shuffling from this mortal coil of Machine Gun Kelly (1954). Nor am I even drawing to your attention the incident at Chappaquiddick (1969), though you may very well expect me to.

No, what we ought to have celebrated yesterday with flags and bunting and possibly a primitive blood sacrifice was the tenth anniversary of the first ever batch of smokers’ poptarts going on sale. This toothsome “breakfast solution” is rightly celebrated by smokers and poptart lovers throughout the world, or what passes for the world when seen through a fug of dense Madagascan cigarette smoke.

To commemorate what social historians are already calling “the smokers’ poptart decade”, the manufacturers are issuing celebratory packets of brand new Wafer-Thin Organic Potato-Trifle-Flavour Rectangular Ready-Toasted Smokers’ Poptarts, including a free gift with every purchase of a poptart-shaped ashtray made of unbaked clay from the spooky quarry on Blodgett Island.

Legally inescapable health warnings on the packaging have been artfully subverted, thanks to top mezzotintist Rex Tint, whose design incorporates mezzotints showing noteworthy historical figures simultaneously smoking and stuffing smokers’ poptarts down their gullets.