But one piece of breaking news has not failed to escape my notice, thanks to the news source that is Facebook. Let’s face it, it’s now my only news source.

So what is this vital piece of news that has Kiwis on the edge of their seats, fingernails dug in, knuckles white with anticipation?

MARMITE IS COMING BACK!!!

Marmite NZ have announced that the yeasty spread will be back in business and back on shelves on the 20th of March. Not only this, but there’s all sorts of hoopla greeting its reintegration into society, including giveaways, factory tours, and a spot on Campbell Live. Hard-hitting journalism strikes once again.

Of course the reason for all the hullaballoo is that this staple of the NZ breakfast table has been out of action since March 2012, thanks to the Christchurch Earthquakes devastating its factory. I remember the increasingly panicked rumours flying around the interwebs of a Marmite shortage of apocalyptic proportions (dubbed the ‘Marmageddon’), and many a hushed whisper of ‘black gold’. No one could believe it since they’d heard nothing about this hot-button issue before, as the in-store stocks held out for a just over a year before the sad news went to presses.

As the waiting public gradually came to accept the rumours as truth, the great panic began. Even though the initial shortage was projected for only a few months, there was a greedy grabby period of stockpile buying, and stores sold out in days. Suddenly half-eaten, margarine-encrusted and crumb-flecked tubs were asking nearly a grand on Trademe, and the Prime Minister’s take on the matter was headline news.

Now. A year on. Two years on from the Earthquake. And Marmite is almost home again.

Yeah okay, some of you may not be very excited. And even I have a confession to make: I’m not a Marmite lover. Before you rattle your cages too hard, I’m not a Vegemite lover either. I’m one of the few fans of the lesser-known, slightly awkward, unpopular cousin, Promite.

However, I feel I understand the dilemma a lot better now that I’ve attempted to replace my preference with the UK’s version of Marmite. I don’t think anyone can rationally argue that any of the mites are, like, totally different. Let’s be honest, they are the same product with different nuances. But when I tried UK Marmite, I was appalled at the odd concoction that drizzled like honey, was the colour of maple syrup, and was saltier than even my sodium-lovin’ buds could stand.

So why is it so important to Kiwis to get their beloved breakfast spread back? I think there are probably some of us, home and abroad, who feel this small win as a triumph over the earthquakes that have taken so much. A stupid symbol perhaps, but a symbol nonetheless, as is any business or school or person that was broken and cracked and has dragged itself back out of the silt.

For those of us abroad, it’s also a slice of home when we are so far away. I personally came to London with a jar of Promite in my suitcase from a kind workmate, and that was the only item of its sort that I used luggage space on. I know plenty of Kiwis in London are already planning and bribing to get Marmite into the country, and if you can find a loaf of Vogel’s to put it on, all the better for a slice of heaven.

But what else do you miss from home? My mother asks me this all the time, and when I first got here, there weren’t any items I longed for, as I felt I had so many options here. The longer I’ve trawled the supermarkets here though, the more I realise there are certain things I do desire that I just can’t seem to find a replacement for.

I recently got a care package from one of my friends who had to go home for a wedding, with items she knew I’d been lusting after: Sugar-free V, choc-licorice logs, Whittaker’s. And soon, my mother is coming to visit – surely she won’t need all her 23kg allowance just for a trip? What do I ask her for?

Go on then, tell me: apart from Marmite (I’ll take it as read), what do you miss from home?

Related articles

• Marmite return date due in Feb (nzherald.co.nz)
• Love or loathe it, Marmite’s the taste of Christchurch (stuff.co.nz)
• The end of MARMAGEDDON is near (rubymartes.com)
• I already gave sh*t up for Lent (1in12million.wordpress.com)
• End to Marmite drought in sight (stuff.co.nz)
• Marmite back on shelves later this year (radionz.co.nz)
• Could the wait for Marmite be over? (nzherald.co.nz)
• Marmite back on shelves in March (stuff.co.nz)
• Marmite to return to shelves next month (radionz.co.nz)
• Ideas of the Year Showcase … Marmite Gold Christmas Lights (t4w.blogs.com)

Someone has even put a jar up on ebay for £2,000! Surely, no one is going to buy that?!!!

Fear not though, you lovely kiwis! If you need a marmite fix, here are a few suggestions to make the most of that marmite-y taste!

1. Quite simply, eat it all … .. or steal it off a young child. I heard they were hoarding it all – check it out!

2. clean you teeth… … or maybe not! A step too far?

3. If you can’t taste it, read all about it. alternative, set up your own web design agency. Kent (where I come from) could do with a great marmite website!

4. Find a replacement product. Just don’t kiss anyone who hates the stuff!

5. Set your own marmite world record (like this bloke) what a nutter…

So the marmite ran out, imagine if next time, or if it had been, tomato sauce, hell it could have been Weetbix! Without some of these key ingredients we wouldn’t have All Blacks, and without All Black’s they’d be no rugby and without rugby they’d probably be no fields and no sheep and no cattle and no dairy and all that stuff and NZ would wind up in the drink! Or well, more in the drink than it already is, what with being an island and all. Which got me to thinking, what else do we take for granted? What else couldn’t we live without?

Just finished watching a weird bit of reality TV about a double decker bus driver from London that goes and drives a bus in the Phillippines for a week instead. They’ve got no marmite over there, definitely no All Blacks and I didn’t spot any tomato sauce. It’s hard to spot WeetBix though, they may have been hiding it in the cracks in the walls of the self made shanty that the 18 people lived in that was about the size of a NZ garage, one of the pokey ones.

They don’t have much, in fact, what would bring their society to a halt was lack of garbage, it was literally the trickle down theory in action. The rich 2/3 of the population throw away all the food scraps and it trickles down to the other 1/3 who re-cook it up and then eat it at the garbage restaurant.

Now I was under some illusion growing up playing rugby and having 8 weetbix for breakfast every morning before my pie with T sauce for lunch, that poor people overseas in countries like the Phillippines or whatever or I don’t know Somalia or Indonesia or anywhere else that really bad garbage piles are considered wholesale distributors of food stuffs for back alley restaurants, and no not in the awesome save the landfill freegan way, these people don’t have parents pantries stocked with Sanitarium products and other All Black sponsored food stuffs…

ANYWAY I was under the impression that yeah they were poor but they didn’t really know anything else and didn’t feel really stink about it. Sorta like how I don’t feel really stink that I don’t have a super yacht or a house I own, but I was well wrong. This guy, this bus driver from Manilla, has worked his ass off driving his crazy makeshift bus 7 days a week for 12 hours a day for endless years, to try and get his kids out of the poverty trap and into education so that they might escape and leave the Phillipines or get one of the few jobs out there for the millions of people. His kids didn’t quite make it, so now he’s still waking up in a room full of his relatives whom he loves cause he’s a top bloke, gettin up in the morning with no weetbix, and sitting on the hard seat of his jeepney bus for the next 12 hours to try and get his grandchildren just enough money so that they can afford, or maybe just one of them can afford, to go to a school which will guarantee them a better life.

So whats it like living in a world without marmite? Or social welfare (the benefit)? Or free education? Or free healthcare? Just go ask that guy, he’s pretty cut up about it actually, breaks down and cries when he talks about how unfair the world is. And he’s right. We get to live in a socialist country, where we help our needy. Granted it’s a more and more neo-liberal socialist country where all those helping things are slowly being stripped away, but currently they’re still there. But just fucking watch out, cause one day when you wake up it might not be your marmite thats not availiable for your toast, you might have lost your whole country along with it.