Trivia fact: The sleeping lion on the Golden Syrup tin is a depiction of a dead beast. The reason for this – how the Victorians thought it was a good idea is anyone’s guess – is that there is a story in the Old Testament about some bees improbably building a hive in a dead lion.

Having used this as a promotional logo, Tate & Lyle decided to leave it there for 150 years or so before changing it. Captain Scott even took to the Antarctic and a fat lot of good that did him.

But hold on a moment, the text on the tin reads: ‘From the strong came forth sweetness’ and the Bible story is about bees. Correct me if I’m wrong, but bees don’t make syrup – they are advertising honey on their own syrup tin.

Here in London we have probably the world’s largest depiction of a dead lion (I’m open to correction here), so when I saw in a newspaper that Tate and Lyle were changing their syrup tin logo, I thought of the giant lion on the factory wall in Silvertown, East London.

But apparently, I can now breathe easy, the new logo is just for the squeezy bottle, not the tin. Probably the trouble of taking down that giant lion by the Thames was too much.

As a footnote:
Judges 14:14
So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” Now for three days they could not explain the riddle.

So even in the Bible, it is described as a riddle.

Featured image: Tate & Lyle factory by Thomas Nugent (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)