Al Rawabi milk's gotta lotta bottle

It’s the biggest supermarket controversy since Sainsbury’s threatened to do away with the cardboard cereal box. Small children run away screaming when they see it in Spinneys. And grown adults - some of whom are surgeons, hardened criminals and war heroes - weep openly at the sight of it. Well, at the very least, it’s caused a few mumbled remarks and one or two raised eyebrows over the top of 7Days at breakfast. Of course, it’s Al Rawabi’s all-new design 2 litre plastic milk bottle. 

To say that it’s unconventional is like suggesting Gary Glitter might make a poor Godparent. It stands out from anything on the milk shelves like some kind of cubist sculpture, the sort of thing Picasso might have had knocking around his fridge. Such is its post-modern strangeness, it wouldn't look at all out of place on a roundabout in Fujairah.

This is where it all goes abstract - the hole. Jimi Hendrix probably would have had no problem with this, but anyone with small or slightly weak hands and stubby fingers - the elderly, children, the hung over and Jeremy Beadle - would have problems gripping this for a glug of milk. It's about as ergonomic and user-friendly as an ashtray on a motorcycle. It almost guarantees you get more milk splashed on your kitchen tiles and work surface than you do in your mug of tea, which could lead to tears. As a design concept it's a little, well, semi-skimmed - but, somehow, it has charm.

It took me a while before I realised what it reminded me of. Yes, it's a performing seal. Look how it balances this tennis ball, just like a water-park pinniped. Clever Al Rawabi milk bottle, have a sardine.

Then it struck me, anything the Al Rawabi performing seal can do, the Al Rawabi acrobatic bottlenose dolphin can blow out of the water. What a cheeky little fellow. Intelligent too, you know. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that we'll discover more about the Al Rawabi 2 litre plastic milk bottle in due course, as it reveals its mysteries to the milk-slurping (and work-surface wiping) public of the UAE.