Digital Trail

I have given up chocolate for Lent. The more astute of you will now be thinking “Should have given up clichés too”. I am not doing this for religious reasons, nor am I doing this for significant self-improvement either. Like New Year’s resolutions-I don’t subscribe to them-if something needs changing why wait for January to fail to do anything about it?

So I have given up chocolate. There is a caveat. Direct chocolate is a no. Indirect chocolate is OK, in moderation.

Direct chocolate is a chocolate bar; a hot chocolate, a piece of chocolate cake. All the interesting kinds of chocolate are off; the ones where chocolate constitutes the bulk ingredient or even the full or partial name of a product.

Indirect chocolate is the cocoa powder on my full fat milk cappuccino (like I said, this is not for the personal gain brought on by the loss of weight). Indirect chocolate is the decorative drizzle on a truly delicious cheesecake. Indirect chocolate cannot be helped. These are not for sinister food reasons, more for something to do to keep a modicum of health.

Further to earlier discussions on Twitter, direct chocolate is not a concept whereby friends who offer me chocolate are spurned (granted they would be bad friends indeed if they tried to pass on chocolate during this period) It is also not linked to the theory of passive smoking. Should I accidently ingest chocolate whilst in the company of a chocolatier there would be no ill will.

The aforementioned astute ones will now have sussed that I have given up chocolate merely to generate another blog post for the Chaff pile. Well done.