Washing powder giants get themselves in a lather

The share prices of Unilever and Proctor & Gamble went into freefall this morning as the companies announced that their list of ways in which to reinvent the washing powder wheel contained just two remaining options.

Having run a comfortable duopoly for the last 40 years, the news that both companies had been unable to come up with a different way of making people pay more for the same thing left institutional investors panicking.

"This is a nightmare," one investor told us. "I thought they'd have at least another twenty different ways of coating clothes in a washing machine with cleaning powder. Their share price has rested almost entirely on bringing out a new one every five months, charging more for it, and then phasing out the previous format. But when you look at it, they have pretty much covered everything."

To make matters worse, the original writer of the format list, one Arthur Matthews, died aged 93 last year on a Caribbean island while seeing to one of his 134 girlfriends, former Miss Jamaica Tanya Fukyfuky.

Mr Matthews was reportedly paid £32 billion in 1986 to produce a list of feasible alternatives to simple washing powder after Unilever and Procter & Gamble discovered that soap can only be improved to a certain point before it just becomes really good soap.

It is thanks to Mr Matthews that the plastic ball for liquid washing powder was introduced (number eight on the list). That was carefully introduced after the fabric-bottomed ball's deficiencies had become well known. He was also responsible for super-concentrated powder, the two-coloured washing block and its derivatives, eco-friendly washing powder and direct-application washing liquid.

But with the companies introducing item number 16 — the "capsule" consisting of washing liquid contained in a plastic container that dissolves in water ("no scoop, no ball, no mess") — they were forced to admit that only two different formats remain before they are forced to go back to common-or-garden powder that you pour into a slot on the top of the machine.

"We've tried everything," the CEO of Unilever told us. "But after six months of research, creative think-tanks, primal scream therapy and £850 million all we came up with was labelling powder 'Original' and going through the list a second time hoping no one would notice. It was time to come clean, so to speak."

But while the City and big bosses were decrying the loss of another great British industry built on the stupidity of the common man, the common man or rather single mother was delighted by the news. "That means I can afford to buy an extra 80 fags a week," one slapper told us when it was revealed the cost of a box of washing powder would fall from £4.50 to just 32p from January next year. "I might even get me hair done on that."