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 |
| Ben Smith |
Sirs,
We've read with considerable interest your pages devoted to the consumption of tea and biscuits. You may be interested to know that biscuits play an important role in the creation of cutting-edge visual effects and computer animations, such as those created at Stormfront Digital Pictures.
Although we dispense with tea, preferring a stronger industrial substitute (coffee), our organisation would quite literally grind to a halt without the frequent consumption of biscuits. Pictured above is the Stormfront biscuit tin, or rather jar: being of a ribbed six sided glass construction which allows it to rest in any one of three positions for efficient biscuit removal. It is presently filled with narrow-gauge dark chocolate digestives manufactured by Nisa, which are very nice. |
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My Aunty Edna
Custard Cream Review |
And who introduced Nicey to the wonders of the biscuit tin? As a small boy on his frequent visits to me at Clements Hall he would come into the kitchen, make straight for the biscuit tin and begin to gorge - Custard Creams were a particular favourite.
Once, in an effort to preserve the Custard Creams for longer than a few moments of a Nicey-Attack, I hid them at the bottom of the tin. To be confronted with the spectacle of Nicey scrabbling frantically in the tin - stopping for a moment and looking at me crossly whilst saying `Haven`t you got any DECENT biscuits!`.
Your Godmother x
PS: Love the Website - may I join in the next marrow-smashing? |
| Nicey replies: Hello Aunty Nedda,
Lovely to hear from you. Glad you like our site. Yes, I've often said that my first biscuit encounters were of the Custard Cream variety, and in fact the Custard cream review mentions this.
Of course you can come to the next Marrow smashing, all of this years crop were consigned to Castle Nice's composting facility on Sunday, but there will another lot along next year. Of course the marrows from the year before were used as ammunition by Prawnzilla in his tussle with Citrus Sheep. |
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| Jon French |
Hello,
Your site is a wonderful source of information and amusement. One subject
that I can't find any mention of is the storage of biscuits. I am
particularly partial to McVities Chocolate Hobnobs and Chocolate Caramels,
but I find both of these to be far nicer when eaten directly from the fridge.
They are also less crumbly, and you can usually snap one in half with no
fuss or bother (unlike when they are at rom temperature).
Fridge-based storage also has the effect that the cold chocolate creates a
delicious melting sensation in the mouth.
What do you think?
Keep up the good work - and thanks for all the information. The biscuit
reviews are invaluable.
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| Nicey replies: Jon,
Well, I think the taste is not so good if chocolate is chilled, but the texture change is certainly of interest. I imagine a chilled chocolate caramel would put up a bit of a fight. Of course I would advocate biscuit tins as the way forward on storage. |
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| Richard Harrison |
Dear Nicey,
Take heed from these wise words!
"Resolve to be a master of change rather than a victim of change."
(Brian Tracy)
Many biscuit loving people would love to be in your position, you have a gift. What other man could hold and captivate the ear of a biscuit lover? No politician or monarch, or even religious leader could claim to be first and foremost a biscuit ambassador. You have demonstrated and communicated to the everyday person your bond with the biscuit and yet, on this occasion I feel that your grief and heartache, at the demise of the biscuit related receptacle has clouded, nay overcome your judgement.
As Jesse Jackson, a long time biscuit lover once said:
"Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change."
No-one has ever said that having a nicecupofteaandasitdown would be easy? Modern life is geared towards change and progress, both bitter enemies to the barrel lover, I can tell you! Like it or not we are faced with a problem. At the current rate of decline the biscuit barrel has become the most endangered of household items. It has overtaken even the most anachronistic of everyday items, such as the tea strainer (often found in period dramas and daytime programmes such as Bargain hunt (see local listings for details)), to become the number one article of decline.
Environmental factors are partly to blame, the kitchen environment is changing. The tasteful brown barrel, which used to go so well with the brown tiles (with the leaf relief on them) is an abhorrence in the chrome and Ikea 21st Century kitchens. Brown tiles have made way for funky MDF Designs pioneered by such angels of destruction as Linda Barker. As a result many barrels are barren, empty vessels consigned to the back of some silver painted cupboard, along with the lemon juicer and the salad spinner .These factors have caused barrels to decline ten fold in the latter part of the 1980's (*W.H.O. report 1994) . If the exponential decrease of the barrels continues, the last barrel to exist will be melted down (to provide metal reserves for the mass production of the newly re-discovered and highly fashionable tea strainer) on the 27 April 2013.
This does not have to be.
Resolve to be a master of change. Set the production lines! Produce a new biscuit tin of startling and revolutionary design, that still fulfils the vital function of a traditional biscuit vesicle. Use your design skills and your position to woo the general public to again embrace and covet the biscuit tin. It can be done. You are the one to do it. Soon everyone will want a bite of the biscuit and new tins will appear everywhere. Linda (slag to fashion) Barker will be obliged to extol the virtues of "this realllly funky biscuit tin thingy" and it would all be because of you.
Yours,
Richard Harrison
P.S. My current tin is showing signs of age. Dents have started accumulating and the crumbs are fossilising at an alarming rate. I believe it to be Roman as it shows a map of Londinium, the Latin word for London (as I'm sure you know) so time is of the essence. Help me nicey, you're my only hope!
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| Edward Ward |
Hello there,
Firstly I would like to express my continuing delight at viewing this excellent and sensible website, and the hearty and well-informed opinions of those who have sent contributions. I hope mine does not seem trite or improper in some way.
I have personal experience of a departure from what could be called "the norm" of biscuit tin usage. I was unaware of the curious nature of my parent's method of biscuit storage as I was but a child and knew no different, but have become keenly aware of the eccentricity of their actions as I went through a happy biscuit eating childhood into a more philosophical tea drinking maturity.
I should start by saying that when viewed from the exterior all seemed as normal. A stalwart tin was employed depicting scenes from the coronation of George VI, as far as I can tell the tin was contamporaneous with this event (is this a record for biscuit tin age?) and whilst showing signs of rust on the outside is still nice and shiny on the inside, which brings us neatly to the point of my rambling discourse:
The biscuits were stored in the tin still in their packets.
I didn't realise that this was odd until I saw my friends mum casually tumble a whole packet of custard creams into their biscuit tin (or "barrel" as they laughably referred to it). "How strange" I thought. Then I noticed that EVERYONE seemed to have the biscuits loose in the tin, which shocked me. Looking back on it though there is I think a certain logic to their actions. The tin keeps the biscuits in their opened packets fresh, whilst the packets prevent flavour osmosis occurring. Biscuits in tip top condition at all times.
This was thrown into a mockery when my father took to buying "Broken Biscuits" which were a mixture of imperfect biscuits in a bag, 1kg for a quid, in which all the biscuits tasted of the strongest flavoured biscuits anway.
Is all this because my father went to art school?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Edward |
| Nicey replies: Unless your Dad is in a well known rock band, or somehow still at Art School, then he totally missed the point of Art school. |
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