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 |
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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Chris Rayment |
Dear Nicey, in a previous life I worked at the HP factory in Aston, Birmingham which sadly met its end this week, the Ansell’s Brewery was a few yards away, so there was often the heady aroma of beer and brown sauce in the air, I worked in the development kitchen and we worked on all manner of interesting things such as vinegar, baked beans, Worcestershire sauce, Pot Noodles and cooking sauces as well as brown sauce and ketchup.
Part of our job was to check out ‘rejected’ stock, and believe me you don’t know the meaning of belly ache until you’ve had to sample one pot from each of 38 pallets of Chicken Curry Pot Noodle rejected by Holland on suspicion of being rancid (they were).
One day I had a mishap with half a gallon of boiling brown sauce, I scalded my wrist, but by judicious application of cold water was not scarred, however, my skirt was not so lucky and it ended up covered in the stuff, not surprisingly I got a whole carriage to myself on the train home that day, but I stank so much my mum wouldn’t let me into the house, so I had to get undressed in the garden (it was November) and only then did she notice the HUGE bandage around my left arm.
Ahh happy days!
Chris Rayment |
Nicey replies: That's all very thrilling reading, tales of baked bean development, rancid pot noodles and brown sauce accidents. Perhaps you could have your own scent made like Sarah Jessica Parker, based on Brown Sauce of course. It would no doubt be alluring to those who like meat pies and chips. Actually the younger members of staff think that not only has Sarah Jessica Parker annoyingly got my initials, but by calling her perfume 'Lovely' she is encroaching upon my parlance too. |
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Laurel James
 Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
G’day Mr Nicey and his wifey,
I just read the thing about Tim Tams in the land of the yanks, and I thought I ought to let you know also that around valentine’s day Arnott’s also released 3 new types of Tim Tams under the rather seductive name of Tim Tams Love Potions. The promise is of ‘pure chocolate biscuit heaven’ and so I bought some for my beloved for v-day. They were much cheaper than a box of chocs (they were on special for $1.99 and now they’ve gone up to $2.71) and to be honest he preferred them anyway. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the dismay when you run out of biscuits and try and dunk your favourite choccie in your tea instead. Anyway the new Love Potions range includes 3 nice flavours, Double Chocolate and Raspberry, Chocolate Mud, and Sticky Vanilla Toffee. There are pretty swirly hearts on the packaging and you get just enough in a pack to make you sick if you eat them all in one go. Perfection. The advert on the telly reckons it’s love at first bite and my one true love agreed.
I suppose they are only available at the moment here in Oz, should I send you a packet do you think?
Love from Laurel
P.S I actually work about 2 minutes away from the Arnotts factory and whenever I go outside you can smell the sugar in the air! I think it is a marketing ploy to make everyone in the vicinity really fat on biscuits. |
Nicey replies: I think its nice when places like large parts of a City smell of biscuits and the like. When I used to live in Norwich twenty or more years ago the Rowntree Mackintosh factory (subsequently Nestle), used to make the entire city centre smell of chocolate. I don't know if the could help it or not or whether they just did it as a public service. Mind you Cardiff city centre smells a bit odd from time to time due to Brains Brewery making Brains SA Bitter (I've been told SA stands for Strong Ale, Skull Attack or Sick Afterwards). |
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Greg Shailes
 Cadbury's Fingers Review |
Now I'm not a violent person, I'm only joining this topic in the hope of generating a 'biscuits as weapons' icon...
At our office we used to get a weekly 'Broken Biscuit Assortment' from our friendly milkperson. For a period of a few weeks, this weekly box of treats was turned hideously wrong as it contained broken 'Barbie biscuits'. These little abominations were akin to custard creams, however the biscuit had a distincly cardboard consistency and the cream within was a vile pink colour and very very strongly flavoured of that awful saccharine-sweet "strawberry" chemical taste. In fact they were so strongly flavoured that the presence of just a single Barbie biscuit polluted the entire box, making all the other biscuits within taste like those awful scented erasers all the girls had at school in the 80s.
What's my point? Well, provided one had suitable breathing apparatus, the Barbie biscuit would work extremely well as a Weapon Of Mass Disgustion. In the hypothetical Die Hard 4 biscuit battle scene, I'm sure a few well planted Barbie biscuits would soon have Mr Willis rendered unconcious allowing one to deliver the killer blow with a well aimed Ginger Nut or maybe a sharpened Cadbury's Finger would do the trick.
Greg. |
Nicey replies: Greg,
You're probably right as I'm having to scratch around for icons on this one. |
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