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 |
Diggle |
Dear comrade Nicey,
Tea Club Fundamentalists (south west branch) would like to offer solidarity with brother Fussell's report on the dark cuppa enigma.
Intensive research by our tea of crack researchers have concluded the problem lies with the actual glaze of the cup itself which results in the unsavoury resulting brew. Regular high gloss glaze combined with the dark colouring of said receptacle appears to create a minute but perceptible
drain on the space time continuum which manifests itself as a low yield satisfaction grade cuppa.
Further evidence supporting this has been provided by Mrs Diggle who recently purchased some dark, but matt finish mugs which provide decent sustenance - if additional supervision and handling is maintained during the brewing process. It has also been noted that extra brewing time as well as milk helps this anomaly more palatable.
Yours,
Diggle
Tea Club Fundamentalists (south west branch) |
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John Z
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
Nicey,
Just in case this has slipped your biscuit intelligence network I will outline the shocking story of the Tim Tam scandal. As you were no doubt told at the Australian High Commission, Tim Tams have been an Australian Icon since at least the 70's - well that's how long I can remember them anyway.
Arnott's had been an Australian company since its creation many moons ago but has been purchased by some American company fairly recently (I can't tell you the exact date as I spent the last decade in London and I'm too lazy to look it up on the Internet). Upon the change in ownership, it was widely rumoured that the quality of Tim Tams had been reduced, less chocolate (opening the market for 'double dipped' which according to one of my sources is merely returning to the standard of yesteryear) and a change in the packaging to reduce the number of biscuits in a packet. To be fair, this may be down to the 'Wagon Wheels Shrinkage' effect mentioned in your site.
The rumblings of disappointment appeared as an opportunity to one Dick Smith, baron of electrical components, round-the-world solo helicopter pilot and the person responsible for establishing the Australian Geographic magazine, purveyor of cute marsupial photos and science-lite to school children. In effect, Australia's answer to Richard Branson.
Mr Smith has established a brand of food products that maintain Australian ownership and manufacture, an admirable if embarrassingly jingoistic enterprise (lots of Australian flags on the products and 'Aussie' mentioned a bit too much). To tap in to the groundswell of discontent about the Tim Tam scandal (rumoured) he released a biscuit going by the name of Tem Tins. Arnott's, being owned by a good American company, sued for the obvious play on the Tim Tam name and after a widely reported but basically boring court case Dick has won. By the way, in the opinion of many including myself, Tem Tins are a poor substitute for even the reportedly inferior modern variety of Tim Tams.
So it appears that Tim Tams may have been released in the UK as Arnott's is panicked about the seditious feeling in the homeland of the biscuit. Of course, ex-pat Australians such as myself (when I lived in the UK) performed guerrilla marketing for Arnott's - so the job has been already started, in a way.
I realise that NiceCupOfTeaAndaSitDown by temperament tends to avoid controversy but sometimes the issues are just too big to ignore.
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Nicey replies: Yes we had our supply of Tem-p-tins turn up a couple of weeks ago, from Simon Smith our trusty biscuit man in the Antipodes. Clearly they aren't as good as the biscuit they are so clearly imitating, I don't think I even finished the pack which are languishing in Biscuit Enthusiast Mandy's fridge.
Thanks for balanced that round up of the episode. As for Tim Tams appearing in the UK that is all to do with Tescos seeking them out, to add some world class and to 'our' eyes, exotic biscuits to their range. |
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Maggie Pope |
This is what I call a nice and sensible site for nice and sensible people. How else can you describe a cup of tea other than 'nice'?
Our family have taken this national past-time almost to professional level, both in the quantity of tea that we drink (we have to disagree with you there, Tetley's is best (though it may be due to the water)), to the importance in daily life. Running out of tea bags is more serious than a lack of any other item in the kitchen. We wake up with it, it gets us through the day, we lunch with it and drink it straight after dinner and last thing at night. We pack hundreds of tea bags when we go abroad 'just in case' and it usually is.
We have now taken to packing bicuits as well. Europeans usually provide yummy cakes with their coffee, but are hard pressed to cup up with a decent bikkie. And sometimes only a nice cup of tea and a biscuit will do.
Maggie Pope. Taunton
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Nicey replies: Maggie,
You sound like a nice normal family.
If we ran out tea bags where I used to work the Managing Director used to personally intervene, as work effectively ground to halt as people staggered around in shock and disbelief. |
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Michel Petit
Lu Mikado Review |
You LIKE Mikados ? How perverted can your tastebuds get ! Is is because they're (perhaps) not on sale in your country that you find them so good ? Personnally, I wouldn't be seen dead with a box of those in my carrier bag : I've tried them, believe me, and I think that's a Good Thing , because I don't have to experience that horrid taste of milk powder any more.
Now give me Scottish shortbread, hot cross buns, DIGESTIVE BISCUITS ! - any time !
A French Connoissur,
Michel Petit
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Nicey replies: Well I like them sure, but I wouldn't rate them over a Digestive.
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CLASSICALGARDENS |
Dear Nicey,
Just thought I drop you a line about the origin of the breakfast biscuit. My Father told me about my Grandfather, Ernest James Turnbull, who was born in Reading 1858/1859. He was a Master Baker ( yes, spelt correctly ). He worked for Huntley and Palmers, and invented the recipe for the breakfast biscuit.
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Nicey replies: I just answered an email to another lady about your Grandad's invention. Its amazing how these things still touch and affect people in a nostalgic way. Hoorah for your Grandad and his much missed breakfast biscuits. |
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