A bad hair day for Tony Blair at the Chocolate Factory

Rivers of fudge are to be expected from corporate PR people, but the Cadbury factory at Bourneville has an unusually impressive one — an endless six-feet-wide flow of the soft, brown confection, about to be sliced into ribbons, then chopped into tiny rectangles, coated in chocolate and popped into Milk Tray boxes. Even more seductive is the assembly line for chocolate Creme Eggs — made in halves with the yolk in one half only, then neatly flipped together, sealed, wrapped and sent bobbing along the conveyors. But it was one of the robots in the packing section that earned a spontaneous round of applause from our tour party: simultaneously stacking tins of Roses on one pallet and boxes of Milk Tray on another, it paused as though momentarily confused before darting sideways to finish the job with a slightly camp shimmy of the hips.

Everyone should visit factories, to have an inkling of the organisation, logistics and science required to make something so familiar as a branded bar of chocolate.