Having a sore throat with this spootiness going on, I have beside me on the desk (actually beside the keyboard, not beside me, as the keyboard is on the desk too and I'm in front of the desk) a box of Butter-Menthol throat lozenges. Just a moment ago as I was taking one from the packet to put in my mouth and soothe my scratchy sore throat, a little voice in my head (my voice actually) said quite clearly "Allen's Butter Menthol". hmmm, butter menthol must be made by allen's, I thought, for that to come into my head like that. I looked on the box for the little oval Allen's logo, which I could see quite clearly on the box in my head.. it must be there... but no.. on the back is the Nestlé logo, but no Allen's to be seen. Perhaps I imagined that Allen's made butter menthol, I thought. Then, certain that I had previously seen the Allen's logo on butter menthol packets, I realised that Nestlé must have bought out Allen's. So I checked the Dick Smith Company Ownership page and sure enough, Nestlé now own Allen's.

It seems to me that Nestlé have been on a company buying spree in recent years, as their logo is becoming an increasingly common sight on products previously sporting the logos of other companies.
What is next? Will we eventually witness the merger of Nestlé, Cadbury Schweppes and Coca Cola, ending up with one big super-company - the Big Brother of groceries - with complete market control resulting in exorbitantly overpriced foodstuffs with no competition to keep prices down?

Perhaps the "little people" down here in not-earning-$100k/yr-thank-you-very-much land will learn the art of self-sufficiency due to simply not having the funds to pop down to the shops for the daily essentials. We would end up with backyard grain mills and the Joe Bloggs dairy farm.. resulting in small business starting up and... oh my goodness, I've come full circle and allayed my own fears.. look at that.

I think I need some more aspro.