Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Ian Klein
Jacob's Orange Club Review |
I just thought you might like this Club biscuit anecdote.
I went to university at Westfield College, London. Sadly, its' now gone away with the re-org of London Uni, but that's another story. Anyway, I used to live in the college halls, and one of the conditions was that you had to buy meal tickets to use in the college refectory. The food was dreadful, with the result that at the end of each term one had a whole book of meal tickets (cannot remember the value - it was in 1978/79). All one could do was buy wine (Liebfraumilch) ... and Club biscuits - makes a great meal. In fact, in my first year I recall only ever buying Club biscuits by the box-load (you know, the ones with the box lid that folded back down to make a handy shop display). I coated the desk in my room with the silver wrappers - this being a particularly time consuming process as one had to peel off the waxy paper, then smooth out the wrapper, and then apply to the desk! If the silver foil broke, the wrapper was of course discarded! Oh, what times I had as a student! I stopped eating Club for the same reasons as you, but I can still hear the slogan ringing in my ears "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club". Also, I'm not sure about your dates, because I think the wrapper changed in my third year (1980) - surely that was the end of the chocolate biscuit legend.
I am now quite partial to Tesco's finest range of biscuits - the choc ones and the almond ones. |
Nicey replies: Your quite right of course the exact construction of the inner paper and foil liner did change, I had forgotten that. |
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Biscuit Man |
Alan Smith is probably reminiscing about 'Thruppenny', a foil-wrapped biscuit exactly as described from our old friends Burton's. The name came, unsurprisingly, from the price that it was sold at, and it was a staple product of many a school tuck-shop. The snag was that with a name like 'Thruppenny', it was very difficult to ever take a price increase without destroying one of the brand characteristics, ie its name. So it was discontinued. It re-emerged in the early 1980's with a new name 'Bingo!', but never caught on and was discontinued again. The name 'Bingo!' was re-used on an aerated chocolate countline that can still be found lurking on the lesser-shopped reaches of the chocolate biscuit fixture.
Looking forward to seeing you on TV tomorrow!
Biscuit Man! |
Nicey replies: Once again Biscuit Man comes up with the goods. And yes watch out for me on Richard and Judy tomorrow 5/6/2003. |
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Alan Smith |
Nicey,
My wife and I both remember from our childhood's a fully chocolate covered wheatmeal digestive biscuit that came individually wrapped in blue and silver foil (red and silver for the plain chocolate version). I used to be able to buy one during break-time at primary school.
Does anyone else remember these, if so can you remember what they were called and who made them?
Most importantly of all, can you still buy them?
Alan Smith
PS. We're not talking Viscounts here. |
Nicey replies: Yes that definitely stirs my memory, but not enough to remember what they were.
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David Storey
Wagon Wheel Review |
Oh dear the sad decline of the Club. What a shame somebody had to spoil it. Just reading the emails about solid KitKats reminded me of when I was about 7, and I tucked into Take-a-Break at school. To my utter amazement, it was solid chocolate. At the age of 7, this was an amazing find and all my friends were able to behold this incredible phenomenon. I took it home and showed it to my mum, who sent it off to the manufacturer (Jacobs?). Why she bothered I don't know, but imagine my surprise and delight when a few days later she received not 1 not 2 but 3 multi-packs of Take-a-Breaks in the post, free from the manufacturer.
Ah, those were the days!
As you seem to be a veritable expert on these matters, have Wagon Wheels got smaller or did I just get bigger? I remember them being huge.
Keep it up this site is great.
Cheers,
Dave, Somerset.
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Nicey replies: Splendid,
I can see how that would have been a formative moment in your life. As for Wagon Wheels we had the definitive answer on that a few weeks ago from regular guru 'Biscuit Man'. They did actually get ever-ever so slightly smaller in the 80's when their production site was changed, but thats it. All the rest is down to you getting bigger. |
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Susan Grossey |
Dear Nicecupofteaandasitdown.com
A couple of years ago, M&S brought out a range of biscuits called "extra chocolatey" this and that. In our house we became quite addicted to the e-c ginger variety - which of course was the signal for M&S to discontinue them (which they do with anything we grow to love - chicken and grapes in white wine, come back!). Recently M&S did reintroduce a couple of e-c varieties, but not the ginger ones. Do you have a mole on the inside in M&S who can give us the low-down on whether to hope beyond hope?
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Nicey replies: Well lots of M&S biccies are made by the good people at Foxs' Biscuits, and from the description these sound like the sort of thing they could have done. They keep an eye on our site so who knows. |
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