I despair of the snowflake generation.

In the days before Ring Pulls, invented by Ermal Cleon Fraze in 1962, since you ask, opening a can was always a bit of a challenge. I fondly remember lugging party sevens to friends’ homes – great tins full of crap beer – and then setting about opening them with chisels and hammers, drenching myself and anyone else foolish enough to be within the vicinity. It was ever thus – after all, it took mankind nearly half a century after the invention of the tin can to come up with an opener. (https://windowthroughtime.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/canned-history/)

For those of us keen to recreate the glorious days before ring pulls, one of the last bastions of joy has been the Fray Bentos pie. But, alas, I read this week, its manufacturers are bowing to consumer pressure to make the tin fortress that guards assiduously its haul of gristly meat bathed in succulent gravy easier to open. I always thought that was the purpose of the pie – you cooked it and then threw it away, unopened and uneaten. It was a powerful political statement during the Falklands War!

Anyway, social media has been full of moans about the pie tin and there have even been videos posted of people using the traditional method of hammers, screwdrivers and chisels to open them. Modern lightweight can openers don’t seem to touch them.

The pie manufacturers, Baxters Food Group, have had to resort to advising customers “to use a robust can opener.” They even, helpfully, recommend an opener, retailing at £8.50, four times the cost of the pie.

But for some this still won’t cut it and the Fray Bentos tin is now being redesigned in a bid to “improve openability”.

So the end is nigh for an Icon of life as it used to be.

Sad. Of course, the snowflakers could just buy something else.