BREAKFAST just got a whole lot more complicated.

As if distinguishing salt from sugar when I'm sprinkling it on my cereal wasn't hard enough, now Kellogg has introduced impossible packaging which they're marketing as "A better way to wake up to the world".

Wake up the world more like when I can't work it out and am screaming in frustration.

An origami-style step-by-step guide takes you through the process of opening the box and "locking in the foil freshness".

We carried out a boy verses girl experiment first thing in the morning to see who triumphed.

Slowly and methodically I followed the instructions to the letter and, after goodness knows how long, my foil freshness was well and truly locked in. I'm not a morning person and would surely have been half an hour late for work had I tackled this project at home.

Reporter Darren Slade, on the other hand, speedily put his box together, almost ignoring the instructions but learning from his mistakes - and his was built in half the time.

According to a survey published today, older people are being driven to "wrap rage" by impenetrable food and drink packaging.

Bleach bottle tops, jars, shrink-wrapped cheese and ring-pull cans present the biggest difficulties in opening for the over 50s, the poll found.

And, as someone who frequently has to use my teeth to get past the packaging or rip at things with scissors, I sympathise.

Valery McConnell, editor of Yours Magazine, which conducted the reader poll of 2,000 people, said: "It seems daft that packaging which is designed to protect the product ends up damaging the customer instead.

"Hard to open packaging isn't just a dangerous nuisance, it discriminates against the weak and is a real barrier to consumer choice."

On the bright side, at least the cornflakes won't go stale after a week - and the new box does look rather fancy.

A woman's work?

THE pressure was on, as a supposedly well-educated adult I wondered how I could possibly struggle - but I did, writes Jenna Weekes.

I read and reread the instructions, and wondered how on earth I would manage this if I'd just dragged myself out of bed.

The diagram is pretty basic but the words alongside confused me.

On the side of the box it says cornflakes help improve your concentration, physical energy and heart health.

To re-seal the box I'd need to eat a few bowls of cornflakes for maximum awareness and awakeness and to stop my blood pressure shooting through the roof when the frustration of not being able to close the flippin' box reaches a maximum.

Or a man's job?

WHEN it comes to opening packaging, I have enough trouble with "Slide finger under tab and break seal", writes Darren Slade.

So when I read the four-stage instructions detailing how to re-seal a new pack of Kellogg's Cornflakes, it was akin to comprehending Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Once you see a packet successfully re-sealed, it's not that hard to follow. But it's the sort of thing that's hard to explain in text.

I got there, but whether I'd be able to do it bleary-eyed at 6am is another matter - and it would be hard work for someone whose fingers don't move as well as they used to.

If I really want what Kellogg calls the "locked in foil freshness", I might just put a clothes peg over the top.