The UK’s leading supermarket chains have jumped to Aldi’s defence in the viral caterpillar cake war over this past weekend.
In case you missed it, which would be a pretty impressive feat at this point, it was announced last Thursday that Marks & Spencer had decided to launch legal action against Aldi over its iconic Colin the Caterpillar cake, claiming that the budget supermarket’s own larvae dessert – Cuthbert the Caterpillar – is too similar, infringes its trademark and should be removed from shelves.
A spokesperson for M&S said: “Because we know the M&S brand is special to our customers and they expect only the very best from us, love and care goes into every M&S product on our shelves.
“We want to protect Colin and our reputation for freshness, quality, innovation and value”.
As you would expect, Aldi then decided to bring out the big guns on social media in response, by launching a #FreeCuthbert hashtag and marketing campaign on Friday.
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It spoke out in defence of its own caterpillar cake in a series of amusing tweets that mercilessly mocked its rival, before the British public typically chipped in to take matters into their own hands and turn it into the full-blown cake war it’s now become.
And now a number of other major supermarkets have waded in too.
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This is not just any court case, this is… #FreeCuthbert
We all know that several major supermarkets also have their own versions of a caterpillar cake – including Sainsbury’s’ Wiggles the Caterpillar, Tesco’s Curly the Caterpillar, and Asda’s Clyde the Caterpillar – but despite this, M&S has stated that Aldi’s Cuthbert is too similar to Colin, and that the dessert “rides on the coat-tails” of the retailer’s reputation.
Determined not to be out on the battlefield alone, Aldi then decided to recruit the support of its fellow caterpillar cake competitions.
“Cecil, Wiggles, Curly, Clyde. We got you. #FreeCuthbert” Aldi said on Twitter.
Even though Aldi made sure to tag its rivals in the tweet, Waitrose was the only one of them to directly respond to being dragged into the argument by admitting that “Cecil is watching from the sidelines”.
The supermarkets seemingly left out of the conversation had a lot more to say though.
Morrison’s responded to Aldi’s tweet saying: “When you find out your friends have a group chat without you #whataboutMorris”, with Coop then echoing the same sentiment in response to Morrison’s adding: “We feel your pain, it’s the 2nd time we’ve been left off the invite list.
“We call for co-operation for all caterpillars. #FreeCuthbert“.
Iceland – which had successfully managed to stay out of the firing line up until it decided to join in and take Aldi’s side on the matter – also took to Twitter to say: “Just wait till they see our ‘Colleen the Butterfly’ cake #FreeCuthbert“.
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And the Irish arm of fellow budget supermarket chain Lidl also posted a hilarious snapshot of their “legal team’s search history”.
Just wait till they see our 'Colleen the Butterfly' cake 🦋 👀 #FreeCuthbert
When will all this mayhem be resolved then? Honestly, we have no idea.
It’s said that if M&S’s intellectual property claim to the High Court ends up being successful, that Aldi will need remove Cuthbert from supermarket shelves right across the UK and refrain from selling any similar products in the future.
For now though, at least we have the endless raft of memes and supermarket responses to entertain us.
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Musical comedian Morgan Jay is coming to Manchester on his biggest ever UK tour
Danny Jones
Viral music-driven comedian Morgan Jay is returning to Manchester and the UK for his biggest ever transatlantic tour.
The crowd work specialist and social media star is coming back to our fair city once again early next year, having not long ago performed for a maiden Manc crowd.
That’s right: the bloke best known for performing silly improv songs on a ukulele for the majority of the set, not to mention being a little bit cheeky with his audience throughout, is coming to the AO Arena.
Entitled La Dolce Vita, this new tour – set to be the follow-up to his ongoing ‘Goofy Guy’ show – will be just his second performance here in 0161.
Have already got his current tour underway across North America, with more gigs coming up across Asia and Oceania later this year.
As for his next European leg, it kicks off early next year, and do you want to guess where he’s coming first? Yep, straight to us.
We’re almost certain he’ll be bringing that tiny little guitar and a healthy dose of autotune along with him, but you never quite know what you’re going to get…
Can you believe he grabbed her neck like that in public? not going to lie I kind of liked it. The Nashville show went crazy people were horny and having a good time. Tour dates below. 6/5 – Atlanta, GA 6/6 – Hollywood, FL 6/12 – Milwaukee, WI 6/14 – Prior Lake, MN 6/19 – Cherokee, NC 6/20 – Charleston, SC 7/2 – Ledyard, CT 9/12 – Los Angeles 9/17 – Los Angeles 9/25 – Maui 9/26 – Oahu October 3 – Tokyo October 5 – Taipei October 8 – Hong Kong October 11 – Abu Dhabi October 14 – Manila, PH October 17 – Sydney October 21- Auckland, NZ October 25 – Melbourne, AU October 29 – Brisbane, AU November 1- Adelaide, AU November 6 – Perth, AU November 11 – Jakarta, ID November 13 – Singapore, SG November 18 – Kuala Lumpur, MY November 21- Bangkok, TH November 27 – Mumbai, IN November 29 – Bengaluru, IN
You can see his full list of upcoming dates over here down below.
Morgan Jay UK tour dates – 2027
Thu 25 Feb – Manchester, AO Arena Sat 27 Feb – London, OVO Arena Wembley Sat 27 Mar – Glasgow, SEC Armadillo Thu 1 Apr – Birmingham, Utilita Arena Birmingham Sat 3 Apr – Cardiff, Utilita Arena Cardiff
As you can see, there’s only a handful of dates across Great Britain and Ireland, so we’ll consider it an honour not only to be on the schedule but to be first on the call sheet.
Tickets will be available for pre-sale starting on Wednesday, 27 May at 10am; meanwhile, general admission goes live this coming Friday, 29 May, also at 10am BST. You can get ready to grab yours HERE.
If you’ve not come across him before and you’re wondering whether his stuff is your cup of tea, you can watch his special shot in LA, among others, for free on YouTube.
Featured Images — Press shots (supplied via Live Nation)
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Bernardo Silva shares hilarious X-rated clash with John Stones before they were teammates
Danny Jones
This long weekend not only saw Man City manager and sporting legend Pep Guardiola bid goodbye to the club after a decade, but so did John Stones and Bernardo Silva, and the latter shared a hilarious story about an encounter before their bromance in blue.
Can’t lie, this one nearly made us spit out our tea when we first watched it…
Following the trio’s respective final games, this late May bank holiday Monday saw yet another City parade pass through Manchester, and as the party continued over at the Etihad Campus and Co-op Live for the afterparty, the boys got up on stage to say some parting words.
In Silva’s case, he chose to share, rather fittingly, some very choice words indeed, as he talked about his time playing against Stones when he was still in France.
From ‘little soft c**t’ to brothers lifting trebles together… football heritage.
Safe to say no one was expecting that particular expletive to come out of his mouth – we reckon not even most of the squad themselves.
During the Yorkshireman‘s first season at Manchester City, he came up against the creative midfielder in the Champions League when he was still playing at Ligue 1 side AS Monaco.
As you can see in the clip above, while it wasn’t the friendliest of exchanges back then, they soon buried the hatchet and chalked it off as nothing more than football.
Both fierce competitors in their own right, they look to be plenty soft with each other off the pitch ever since they became teammates.
So much so, in fact, that the duo ended up being the face of a pop-up Man City pub earlier this month, recreating the famous photo of the Gallagher brothers wearing the 1993/94 kits.
Credit: Manchester City FC (publicity pictures)
It’s plain to see in the clip how much love there is between the two, all these years later, and the story itself got a rapturous reaction from their peers and the crowd alike.
Silva has plenty of fans across Europe, both as a player and purely as a character; you only have to look at how Jack Grealish often reiterates his love for the Portuguese playmaker as a person and Premier League character, or even how pundits aligned with rival clubs like Gary Neville waxes lyrical about him.
And then we come to Pep himself.
Guardiola was rightfully given a fantastic guard of honour at the stadium itself on Sunday, with his speech making for an emotional moment for all those in the stands and watching at home, and City supporters at the parade made sure to give him a proper send-off.
Emily Sergeant -
19th April 2021 
