I always knew it, but I couldn't make myself look, until now. The stupid stupidheads at Coca Stupid Cola Corporstupidation cancelled Vanilla and Diet Vanilla Coke in the UK from early this year. They are to be replaced with (cue gagging sounds) black cherry vanilla. Yon wid gar ye bauk.
There had been shortages before, but I tended to hoard in such quantity - and seek out minor newsagents with sufficiently slow stock through-flow - that I was immune to the worst effects thereof.
But now it is all gone. All gone. Consumers and dentists alike weep openly in the streets. Tell it not in Largs. Publish it not on the streets of Glasgow. Those Irn-Bru-swilling heathens have their victory.
Of course, to us decadent bourgeousie there is a solution: vanilla essence can be added to diet coke (at horrific expense) to make something approaching the real thing, although the temptation to overdose is everpresent. Similarly, a splash of the Good Captain - of Morgan's Spiced Rum - will do much the same job. But these are not the same.
Oh, and all these fly-by-night grey-importers like Edinburgh's Margiotta's - apparently now run by the Russian Mafia - who insist on stocking continental Cola Light instead of Diet Coke are missing a major point. Coca Cola Corporation, despite their arrant stupidity over the vanilla question, are well aware that the US and American markets like a different taste from the sickly continental version. I am driven to Diet Pepsi.
That said, Diet Pepsi still sell vanilla versions of their drinks in the US. I am looking at doing a little grey-market importing myself.