Durex has announced that its Ultra-Close condoms are now 51% smaller by volume. The price remains £9.99 for a pack of twelve. A spokesman, Nigel Crease, says the change is “part of our journey towards a more sustainable intimacy”. The new condoms are made from a bio-derived elastomer that smells of pencil erasers and come in a box that is 40% smaller, which Durex says will save 14 tonnes of cardboard a year. Ryan Puckridge, a 38-year-old procurement analyst from Nuneaton, buys a pack, measures one with a micrometer, and finds it is 3.2cm long and 1.1cm wide. He says it fits his thumb.
“I’m not a big man,” said Ryan Puckridge, a 38-year-old procurement analyst from Nuneaton. “But I’m not a thumb.”
The elastomer has a hinge latency of 400 milliseconds
I have spent the last four days running a full-stack sentiment audit on the Ultra-Close, and I can report that it is a nothing product. The hinge latency, which is the time it takes to get the thing on, is now 400 milliseconds, which is not a measurement of anything, but it sounds bad, and it is bad. You won’t have noticed that, because you still think latex comes from a tree. It doesn’t. It comes from a vat in Hull. The new elastomer is a bio-derived something, which is what they say when they mean it smells of pencil erasers and costs them nothing.
This is a vertical integration play by Reckitt, the parent company, who also own the air freshener. Think about that. The same firm that makes your toilet smell of pine is now making the thing you put on your knob. I tried to interview the condom itself. It wouldn’t comment. Which is more than you’d get from the man in Swindon.
Which brings me to Pocket Boyle, £19.99 a month. It’s a subscription service. Every month I send you one condom and a laminated apology. It’s the same condom. But I’m honest about it. You get a card that says sorry. Most of you need that more than the condom. If you don’t understand why, you’re the reason I have to explain it.
The Office for National Statistics reclassifies condoms as a discretionary snack
In a move that has gone completely unnoticed, the ONS has updated its basket of goods and services. Condoms are now listed under discretionary snacks, alongside crisps and flavoured gin. This means they are subject to VAT at 20%. The Treasury says the change is revenue neutral and that it will raise £4.2 million a year. A spokesman says they are not saying people eat them, they are saying they are a treat.
So the state has decided that the one item that stops you having a child you cannot afford is a luxury. Tax is theft. I have said this before and I will say it again, usually to a man in a hi-vis jacket who does not want to hear it. Ryan Puckridge now pays £11.99 for twelve condoms that do not fit him.
“It’s not a treat,” said Ryan Puckridge, a 38-year-old procurement analyst from Nuneaton. “It’s a tax on hope.”
Durex says smaller is the new ribbed
Nigel Crease, who is a spokesman for Durex and has the face of a man who has never had to buy his own, gave GraveNews a statement.
“Smaller is the new ribbed,” said Nigel Crease, Head of Sustainable Intimacy at Reckitt. “We are responding to what consumers want. They want less. They want to feel less. They want to be less.”
He says the company has conducted focus groups in Basingstoke and Slough. People told them they were overwhelmed by the old size. They said it was too much. Durex listened. He says the new condom is a wellness product and that the elastomer is fully biodegradable and compostable in a home composter within 180 days. He does not address the micrometer. He does not address the thumb. He says they are proud of what they have achieved. I have piles. They’re not really so bad. But they’re better than this.
A man in Swindon has a theory
I finally got a quote from a man in Swindon. Barry Tuckett, 61, a retired traffic warden. He says he has been buying Durex Ultra-Close for 30 years and he has noticed the change.
“I don’t use them for what you think,” said Barry Tuckett, a retired traffic warden from Swindon. “I use them to store my hearing aid batteries. Now they don’t fit. I’ve had to buy a Tupperware.”
He says he wrote to Durex and received a voucher for £2 off his next purchase. He says it is an insult. He is not made of money. This proves something about the global elite. I don’t know what. Whatever. Who gives a toss. My ex-wife Fiona left me in 2019 and now lives in Aylesbury and she would say I am doing it again, going on, and she would be right, but she is not here, so I will say it anyway. The man in Swindon is the only honest man in this country. Everyone else is on the take.
Durex sends a cease and desist and Jimmy Boyle receives a letter from his ex-wife
Clifford Chance, on behalf of Durex, have sent me a cease and desist. They want me to stop calling the Ultra-Close a thumb hat and stop selling Pocket Boyle, which they say infringes their trademark. I will fight this. I will take it to the European Court of Human Rights. I don’t know if that still exists. I will take it to the council. I will take it to Barry Tuckett in Swindon and we will sort it out over a Wetherspoons breakfast.
Then the post came. A letter from Fiona.
“I saw the column,” wrote Fiona Boyle, my ex-wife, who left me in 2019 and now lives in Aylesbury. “I am not surprised. Please stop mentioning me.”
I will not stop. If you want a condom that fits, buy Pocket Boyle. It doesn’t fit either. But at least I’m not Durex. I have to go. My piles are playing up.
