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 |
Andrew Hackney |
Dear Nicey, Wifey, /et al/
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Lizzie Arnott in her opinion of York's defining smell. The smell of melting chocolate floating from the Nestle KitKat factory is surely one of the best smells ever. I and a friend (another Arnott - no relation) always try to find an excuse to pass the factory whenever we're in York, just on the off chance they're melting chocolate that day. This can be quite difficult to explain to other occupants of the car as you're driving towards the factory and your destination is actually in the opposite direction. Even more bizarre is the need to roll all the car windows down and stick your head out of the window. There is a set of traffic lights near the factory and to be stuck at a red light on a day of chocolate production is just sheer heaven...
As for bad smells, I think the smell from the 'Birds Eye' fish finger plant in Hull (Kingston upon Hull) takes some beating. On the days when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, the whole city centre seems to suffer under a noxious miasma of what smells like fish-meal.
Also I'm glad to see your nose icon is getting some good usage recently.
Nasally yours,
Andrew Hackney |
Nicey replies: Thank you for that message that gently drags us back in the world tea time and for the support for nose icon which really appreciates it.
We should also spare a thought for Captain Birds Eye who's had a lot of issues of late. It must of been very traumatic loosing thirty years going all Timothy Dalton style with an electric pelican and flying submarine, then to suddenly age again by about thirty years. He wants to get back to that island where all the kids swing around on ropes, live in tree houses and feast on vast platters of fish fingers and peas. |
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Helen Rees |
Hi Nicey,
Hope you are well. Here in Swansea we miss the smell of smoky bacon or roast chicken from the Walker’s crisp factory which sadly closed last year. A fine building it is too. I remember in my youth visiting Haverhill in Suffolk and there was a factory nearby called something like International Flavours and Fragrances. The whole town would smell of whatever they were boiling up that day – I was only there for a few days but I recall variously smelling chocolate, strawberries and roses. All a bit surreal. It must be close to you, maybe you could pop over and check if it’s still there. Or maybe I dreamt it. Mind you, the smell of my childhood is Scotch tape from the 3Ms factory in Gorseinon. Ok it’s not food but I only have to smell a post-it note to be away...sorry I’m rambling now
Regards,
Helen Rees
P.S. Of course I forgot to mention that greatest of Walkers products , the pickled onion monster munch which I think was the last thing they made in Swansea. Now that was a lovely smell. |
Nicey replies: Hello Helen,
Yes Haverhill isn't far from us and has a strange looking factory on its ring road, but I didn't notice any strange smells. I of course want to head over there right away and camp on the road side now.
To reach you at Swansea via the M4 one has to run the gauntlet of Port Talbot which has its own aroma (Hydrogen Sulphide I assume), probably due to the steel works. |
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Trina Fitzalan-Howard |
Hi Nicey and crew
There’s a patch of the A52 on the inner ring road of Nottingham which whiffs of warm pizza and raw tobacco on the way out of town. In ancient days the pizza smell was roasted chicken but they seem to have shut up shop.
Trina |
Nicey replies: Hi Trina,
Note that for smells on roads to count they need to be strong enough that you can detect them with the windows up in the car and travelling in excess of 40mph. |
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Ally Beal |
Dear Mr. Biscuit and his confectionary associates.
I think the 'burnt cake' smell of york that Lizzy Arnott mentioned was probably Jorvik (you can smell that bugger for miles) , or possibly just vikings in general. They didn't have Febreze, you see, hence the lingering odour. Nor, i'm sure, were they accostomed to baking cakes and all that, so therefore they probably would have burnt them. I'm lucky that the town in which i live has a factory baking hot cross buns and like produce, so not only is there a wonderful aroma, but i also get a heads up on when all the easter madness is about to hit ( i'm sure i smelt it in December)
Yours and Thor's
Ally Beal |
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Lizzy Arnott |
Dear Nicey and Wifey,
Unfortunately I've only had bad experiences of cities that smell. The in-laws live in a village just outside Peterborough which has a mushroom factory, and always has that musty smell that I'd usually associate with damp boxes in a loft. But worse than that is York. The hospital, where I occasionally go for work, is close to a chocolate factory (nestle? can't remember) and there's a lot of sugar refining that goes on around there.
You'd think that would be a good thing but it's not, it's terrible! To me it just smells of burnt cake, which makes me sad every time I smell it.
Lots of (perfectly cooked) cakey love,
Lizzy Arnott |
Nicey replies: That'll be the KitKat factory in York. Very evocative and primeval things smells. Sorry that the chocolate factory in York makes you glum. |
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