Mind Your Language | 23 July 2005

A glory of British packaging was the Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup tin depicting a dead lion under what appeared to be a cloud of flies. If the tin was kept in a damp larder long enough, spots of rust would spread through the sticky deposit round its rim.

Next to the dead lion was the motto, ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’, which was only enlightening if the reader was aware that, in the book of Judges (XIV 14) it was the challenge in quite a difficult riddle game played by Samson, who had killed a lion with his bare hands, the body of which was then used by a passing swarm of bees. But how was anyone meant to know about the lion and bees? Samson justified himself by asking, ‘What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?’ The answer was not Golden Syrup.