SAUCE FOR THE (57 YEAR OLD) GANDER...

For H J Heinz, 57 represents the essence of VARIETY…

For B D Sibley, 57 represents the result of CONTINUITY…

Fifty-seven YEARS....

20,805 days of inhabiting this body, operating its limbs, circulating its blood and tussling with its unpredictable psyche…

It is, of course, a cliché to say that 50 only feels like last week, 40 like some time last year and 21 no more than a decade ago, at most; because that’s how it goes - and, unfortunately, goes ON going as the needle begins to nudge towards the speed-limit…

Meanwhile, there is the Heinz recipe to offer inspiration: ‘variety’ being the widely acknowledged “spice of life”!


So, if you’ll kindly pass the ketchup, please... I’ll give it a damn good shake -- AFTER making very sure that the top is SECURELY TIGHTENED (I once had a unfortunate mishap in Miami airport, resulting in an eight-hour flight to Heathrow looking like a extra from ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’) -- and try adding a much-needed dollop of sauce to my daily life!

Historically speaking, by the way, there never were ‘57 Varieties’. By the time Mr H chose his mystic number in 1896 he was already producing more than 60 products! The truth is: one of the all-time famous advertising campaigns was selected simply because the numbers 5 and 7 had a “special significance” for Heinz and his wife.

Nowadays, it is sometimes claimed, Heinz sells 5,700 varieties worldwide - a convenient figure that should probably be taken with that other important spice of life --- a pinch of salt!

Never mind, I like Henry John Heinz, many of his myriad products and his down-home philosophy of life. This is the man who said: "To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success."

Would that we might all get a chance to prove that true…

[Images (and a useful ‘source’ for the history of the ‘sauce’ and those 57 varieties): Heinz]