It pains me greatly to write this post. But write it I must, if only for the greater good and perhaps the salvation of humankind.

Ever since I first found my calling - thanks in no small part to the eager devouring (and re-devouring) of the Childhood Manual to Chocolate Addiction, otherwise known as Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - I have devoted my life to the divine crusade of discovering everything there is to know about the Lip-smackingly Luscious Kingdom of Cacao.

Key highlights of my extensive research campaign to date include:

- Visiting Cadbury's World in Bournville (where I was eventually dragged away from the presence of the one-seater Creme Egg car - which can apparently reach speeds of up to 60mph on the motorway, and which I was certain had my name on it somewhere - with considerable reluctance and a dismaying lack of ceremony by my parents).

- Watching with the trained eye of a critc (of chocolate) both films, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' and reaching the sad conclusion that Johnny Depp, while undeniably cute talented in the role, was unable to better the Oompa Loompas' doompa-dee-doo having the perfect puzzle for you in the original adaptation.

- Regularly mugging a friend of mine who used to work at the Mars factory in Berkshire and - shock horror - didn't like chocolate (hideous, incomprehensible concept).

- Visiting Switzerland. Mmmmm.

- Watching Chocolat. Well done Johnny, redemption gained.

- Undertaking various scientific research projects, including the infamous "How To Consume a Kilo Bar of Dairy Milk in World Record Time", "I WILL Eat 16 Creme Eggs On Easter Morning" and, of course, "How To Reach the Perfect Temperature for Consumption of Chocolate Eclairs Thanks to Storage Down the Bra".

Anyway.

Now a fully registered chocoholic (yes, there is an official body, known more familiarly as the Hotel Chocolat Tasting Membership Club), I pride myself on having tried and gobbled tasted a diverse array of variations of the glorious form.

Key manufacturers include:

Galaxy, Milka, Ferrero Rocher, Lindt, Green and Blacks, Mars, Thorntons, Cote d'Or, Hotel Chocolat, Chocolat Poulain, the Divine Chocolate Company, Suchard, Nestle (so shoot me), Traidcraft (better?), Peyrano, Toblerone and, of course, Cadburys.

But now, now my proudly advancing foray into the ever-increasingly-joyous international world of confectionery has reached an abrupt halt as, thanks to a work colleague's return from a recent trip to America, I have just had my inaugural taste of a Hershey's Kiss.

And it was...

A.
Bom.
In.
Able.

Jesus. Do people actually like eating these septic brown dollops of putridity?

Do they enjoy the way the sensation changes from feeling as though you are eating a particularly unpleasant form of cooking chocolate to feeling as though your taste buds and nasal passages are being seared with a relentlessly foul and malevolent secretion; a Wrongness of the worst order, such that Lucifer himself would gasp at the devasting nature and paralysing power of its Evil?

And do they rejoice in the fact that this repulsive excrement of the devil's swine then lingers as if it has not merely coated your mouth, but has actually managed to infuse its very character with the insides of your cheeks, becoming one with your DNA with every pulse of your horrified heart as it courses through your veins, infesting every fibre of your being with its poisonous, baleful, wretched villainy?

I'm sorry. I can't talk any more.

*positions mouth under running faucet and prepares to camp out overnight in said position*