Spamalot

Via the San Francisco Chronicle comes news of the 'Spam Valley' phenomenon reaching Stateside:

"Sales of Spam - that much maligned meat - are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets . . .

"Spam's maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong sales of Spam in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14 percent. According to sales information coming from Hormel, provided by the Nielsen Co., Spam sales were up 10.6 percent in the 12-week period ending May 3, compared with last year. In the last 24 weeks, sales were up nearly 9 percent."

Where did I first hear about 'Spam Valley' again? That's right; I read about it in Gordon Legge's 1989 novel, 'The Shoe'?

"They lived in what Kelly called 'Spam Valley'; where people were so tied to their mortgages they never went out, had holidays or ate decent meals."

It took a while but Grangemouth's finally went global.