Let it be said here and now, I hate Cadbury’s chocolate. Call me unpatriotic if you like, but it’s vile and this is a great shame for me, as Cadbury’s seem to have a monopoly on those machines that you will find on more or less every platform of the London Underground.

Please, please, if anyone from Mars or Rowntree’s is reading this, can’t you make a concerted effort and try to steal this contract off Cadbury’s? The only time I eat Cadbury’s chocolate is on the tube and it’s only if I’m absolutely starving and nothing else is available. I have often thought of trying to set traps for the pigeons that populate the Underground, but buying a Cadbury’s Whole Nut bar seems to ever so slightly have the edge on the pigeon option.

When you tackle one of these chocolate machines, take care as they are not always brilliant at dispensing chocolate. However I twice got a bargain from these machines, once put in the money and not only got the chocolate I wanted but my money back as well. On another occasion a friend and I were sitting near the machine when a man was refilling it, for some reason we must have been looking starving or remarkably attractive and he gave us a bar of chocolate each and a packet of chewing gum!