The product-package jokers who brought us Avocado’s Number Guacamole have created British muffins. Actually, that isn’t even a joke, just a cute name for English muffins offered at Trader Joe’s, of course. I bought a package the other day and confirmed that they’re exactly the same as what we North Americans call English muffins.

I wonder what ideas they rejected. UK muffins? Albion muffins? Anglia muffins? Or, pushing things back a little, (Anglo-)Saxon muffins? Considering that the ultimate owners of Trader Joe’s are shadowy German billionaires, maybe Perfidious Albion muffins.

Anyway, the name isn’t the really odd thing. The package also features images of Disraeli and Gladstone. It doesn’t claim any connection between the famed prime ministers and the product; they’re just there for decoration. I would have gone with Palmerston and Peel, just to be alliterative.

Maybe they figured that Disraeli and Gladstone were better known than any other 19th-century PMs, but are they really? How many American muffin buyers are going to recognize them? What gives, Trader Joe’s packaging whizzes?