I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit

I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit first appeared on our supermarket shelves only three years ago, but already an almost staple part of the 'cool' young British person's diet.

Although, ironically, I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit was not first intended to be marketed as a foodstuff at all. It was originally intended as a form of fake cat vomit for sale in joke, toy and novelty shops. However it met with limited success, mainly because it did actually resemble authentic cat vomit, unlike the other wares normally sold as joke or fake vomit, faeces, body parts and so on that - in reality - fool no-one other than the gullible humourless punter who seemingly believes that such articles are in some way amusing.

Consequently, the fake cat vomit's seemingly authenticity was its downfall in the joke/novelty market as any putative purchasers of the item tended to shy away from any premises that would leave seemingly fresh cat vomit on prominent display in their shop windows. In fact, several joke and novelty item shops gave up attempting to sell the fake cat vomit after repeated visits from their local Environmental Health inspectors.

Spineboard Recalcitrant - the inventor of I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit - somewhat despondently continued to search for other joke and novelty-style shops that would be attracted, rather than repelled, by the life-like veracity of his product, and, therefore, would be prepared to stock it. But he met with very limited success. However, one day, Recalcitrant happened to notice, while doing his weekly food shop at his local supermarket, such products as peanut butter, sandwich spread, chocolate spread, crab paste and other such products intended for use as sandwich fillers. Struck by the resemblance of some of these items to his own fake cat vomit, Recalcitrant came up with the idea that would revolutionise the sandwich-filler industry and drag it into the 21^st Century.

Recalcitrant was initially concerned, though, that the fact that his fake cat vomit not only looked like real cat vomit, it also smelt and tasted (yes, in the interests of veracity, he did - indeed - check) like it too. This caused Recalcitrant to research various ways of making it smell and taste better, but every iteration on the basic formula he experimented with to make it more palatable removed that very strong resemblance to cat vomit that Spineboard Recalcitrant instinctively knew made other similar sandwich fillers such a success.

Just as he was tempted to give up in despair of ever realising his dream Recalcitrant was approached by Desultory Weaselcheese, head of the famous Marketing Consultants Weaselcheese, Nosedrops and Fetidbreath. Weaselcheese convinced Recalcitrant that in the world of convenience foods, and such items as sandwich fillers in particular, smell and taste are of little or no real consequence. Especially, as Weaselcheese point out, the young demographic that advertising targets is mainly made up of people who believe that being cool - while, at the same time, slightly daring - in front of their mates is far more important than any sign of good taste.

"All you need," Weaselcheese said to Recalcitrant "is an attractive jar and a cheap but memorable ad - ideally featuring some vaguely familiar celebrity who would willingly sells tins of their granny, served in Hannibal Lector's favourite sauce if it meant getting their face or voice back on the telly, even for just thirty seconds or so, and a sizeable fee."

It was at that moment that I Can't Believe It's Not Cat Vomit was born. The rest, as they say, is history.