The Office for National Statistics announced on Thursday that the average Londoner now spends £69 a week on pickled onions. The figure represents a 4,300 per cent increase since 2019, when the average Londoner spent roughly thirty-one pence a week on the things and mostly left them on the side of the plate.
“This is a significant shift in consumer behaviour,” said Dr Imogen Prattle, Chief Statistician for Edible Anomalies at the ONS.
Pillock. You’re a complete nob, by the way. You, reading this. I have run this paper since 1982 and I have watched the British high street die by inches, and now I am watching it be replaced by a jar of vinegar and a QR code. In my day a high street had a butcher, a baker and a man selling batteries from a suitcase. It had a sense of shame. It did not have pickled onions at sixty-nine quid a week. That is what happens when the young are left unsupervised and the lay-bys go quiet. You know what I mean. Headlights off. The old car park at Didcot. Nothing there now but a McDonald’s and a fox.
The viral trend of onioning takes hold
It started on the internet, as these things do, with a young woman filming herself eating pickled onions in a lay-by at night. The trend is called onioning. It has 2.4 million followers. It has a hashtag. It has, God help us, a culture.
“It’s about the brine, the vibe, the community,” said Chlamydia Squires, a 23-year-old content creator and self-styled Onion Queen of the Home Counties, who claims to have eaten 400 onions in a month.
Twat. Four hundred onions. I have eaten four hundred onions in my life and I have the breath to prove it, and I did not film any of it. We had one channel, one bread and a sense of shame in 1983 and we were happier for it. You could not buy a pickled onion on the internet then because there was no internet, and if you wanted a pickled onion you went to a pub and a man called Ron gave you one out of a jar with a fork. That was the system. It worked. Then the young got hold of it and now it is a vibe.
Waitrose introduces a £12 artisan jar
Waitrose has responded to the shortage of silverskin onions by rationing them to two jars per customer and launching an artisan jar at £12. The jar comes with a QR code that links to a video of a man in a hedge.
“We are proud to support this British tradition,” said Fiona Cack, Head of Heritage Preserves at Waitrose.
Gobshite. A man in a hedge. Twelve pounds to watch a man in a hedge. In my day the man in the hedge was called Keith and you did not need a QR code to find him, you just walked past the old car park at Didcot and there he was, headlights off, minding his own business. Now it is a tradition. Now it is heritage. Now it costs twelve quid and comes with a video. You’re a gobshite if you buy it. You know who you are.
The Bank of England holds an emergency meeting
The Monetary Policy Committee met on Wednesday to discuss pickled onion inflation. The Governor, Andrew Bailey, addressed the press afterwards.
“We are monitoring the situation closely,” said Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England.
Total wanker. Monitoring the situation. I have monitored the situation since 1982 and the situation is that the country has lost its way and its lay-bys. You want to know why onions cost sixty-nine quid a week? Because there is no dogging any more, that’s why. The old car park at Didcot is empty. The headlights are off. The young have nowhere to go and nothing to do, so they film themselves eating onions in a hedge and call it a community. And you, reading this on your telephone, are part of the problem. You and your telephone and your QR code. Nob.
A compliance officer spends £14,000 on pickled onions
And now the human cost. A 34-year-old compliance officer from Clapham has spent £14,000 on pickled onions in the past year and stores them in a climate-controlled cellar.
“They’re an investment,” said Tarquin Bexley-Rowe, a compliance officer at a firm he declined to name, standing beside a cellar he described as climate-controlled.
Pillock. Fourteen thousand pounds. I have run this paper since 1982 on less than that and I have never once described a jar of onions as an investment. He has a cellar for them. A cellar. In Clapham. I have seen men go to prison for less and I have seen men go to Didcot for more. You, reading this, will be next. You will buy the twelve-pound jar and you will scan the code and you will watch the man in the hedge and you will think you are part of something. You are not. You are a gobshite with a telephone.
I will be waiting in the car. Headlights off. The old car park at Didcot. Bring onions.
