Your Views

Keep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions.

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Your e-Mails

Yoonna Cho Ponghak Butter Review	Dear Nicey, No, I'm not from North Korea, so you can put down that grenade. Reading your article from last October, I was wondering why a biscuit from North Korea would look like a Sumerian tablet when I realized the picture must be upside down; if you rotate the picture you have on your site the letters "????" are legible. "??" is the North Korean way of pronouncing butter (something like ba* da) while "??" is the all-encompassing term for a snack/munchie/treat, so the design on top of the biscuit is actually "butter biscuit" in Korean, surrounded by weird circles and dots. I don't think I'd like to try one, though. Regards, Yoonna
	Nicey replies: Thanks Yoonna, Yes I thought I only had a 50:50 chance of having it the right way up. Thank you again for deciphering it for us. Note: There were lots of lovely Korean character things in Yoonnas message but I can't figure out how to get them on to NCOTAASD
Ben Harding Iced Gems Review	Hi nicey & wifey We been greatly interested in the "die hard with a biscuit" scenario, and it has been much discussed. We suspect that whilst being useless as a weapon, garibaldi slabs would make good substitutes for Kevlar, when used in body armour vests... However, on the offensive, we favour firstly scattering a few packs of iced gems on the floor... Mr Willis invariably fights barefooted, we believe, and the tiny spikes pressing into his feet would undoubtably slow him up. We favour the McVities ginger nut for the coup de gras as it is just the hardest on the block. Meanwhile my colleague is just about to bring down a nice cuppa, and I am hoping that I don't get the black mug. (Stay away from the dark side, my son) Keep up the good work
Dr Greg James Bourbon Review	Dear Nicey, I note that you have included an interesting diagram on your website which shows a simplistic taxonomy of biscuits. I have been interested in the classification of biscuits ever since a throwaway (in her eyes) comment by the wife that a bourbon "is basically just a chocolate custard cream". Obviously this madness made me splutter out my tea. However I had no scientific proof to argue my case. My wife had clearly thought "same sandwich morphology ergo same essential biscuit". Since this horrendous episode I have been labouring to produce a rigorous and logical biscuit taxonomy. I have based my classification on three variables (or dimensions): 1. substance, including flavour if it is an essential component of the substance (i.e. a bourbon is made of "chocolate biscuit", whereas a chocolate digestive is "plain digestive" with the chocolate coating classified as an extra [see 3]); 2. morphology (e.g. disc, rectangular, sandwich); 3. extras (e.g. raisins, chocolate coating, jam filling). However this "3-dimension" approach, whilst giving a framework for the accurate description of most biscuits, is slightly long winded and lacks a natural "feel" for the inherent differences between, say, the aforementioned bourbon and custard cream. Does anyone else have a decent and reliable classification for biscuits? How does this fare when differentiating biscuits from cakes and chocolate bars? I tend to use the simple "if packed and/or purchasable as individual items it is unlikely to be a true biscuit" rule of thumb. Any comments? Dr Greg James
	Nicey replies: Dr Greg, There is of course a much bigger Venn diagram in our book. However, the custard cream and bourbon both find themselves in the sandwich biscuit section. The answer to your particular issue is that of course a bourbon isn't a chocolate custard cream or else it would look like one which it doesn't (your second morphology point), also Bourbons should have some little sugar crystals in the upper surface which counts as extras. A much more compelling argument can be made for the Penguin being a chocolate covered bourbon, although it isn't. The fact that recently in the last two weeks we've seen biscuit classification taught as an exercise to undergraduates at Bristol University shows that this isn't a trivial matter. As a Dr you should also know that this is the kind of comment made by wives to husbands designed to elicit a response. Wifey will frequently taunt me with her views on Jaffa Cakes, such as the time we were This Morning with Fern and Philip.
Jim Fussell	Nicey, After approximately 15 years of PG Tips drinking, last week my preferred choice of brew changed. I am now on Twinings Everyday Tea and can heartily recommend it. It's weird, I know it's only tea but it feels the same as dumping a girlfriend. Sorry PG Tips, it's not you, it's me........ Jim.
	Nicey replies: It's strange for us too because we know you both so well. Hopefully there won't be any awkward scenes when you are both invited to the same parties. I think Wifey will probably take your ex-tea out on the lash and may not speak to your new tea for at least six months. Perhaps you should consider making a clean break of it and getting a new mug, after all how will your new tea feel being in the same mug that you had all those lovely cups of PG Tips in?
Kate Devlin Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review	Dear Nicey and Wifey, Two things. Well, three actually. 1. The book is amazing. 2. I am using it for genuine educational purposes in a University setting. Is this a first? I teach Introduction to Archaeology to 83 first year undergraduate students and in Monday's lecture we will be exploring typology and taxonomies, seriation and the suchlike, and I have decided to make this a hands-on practical involving biscuit sorting. The whole point is to beautifully illustrate the subjectivity of classification, with the added bonus of eating the demonstration materials. Anyway, your book has been properly cited and I'll try and sneak it onto the reading list. 3. As a child of Norn Iron (indeed, of Portaferry, where I read you had visited during the summer) I was unaware that kimberley-mikados-and-coconut-creams were a) separate biscuits and b) unavailable in the rest of the UK, so your book has educated me hugely, and now I've got that annoying jingle stuck in my head on a permanent basis. Thanks for that. Oh, and I tried buying them in Tesco's in Ards shopping centre when I was last home, but their biscuit selection was crap and they had none. Keep up the good work, All the best, Kate
	Nicey replies: Well it's probably a first in that sense. A chap at Bath University is translating it into Chinese for his MA, I asked if they could get somebody to translate it back when he was done as I'd like to see how it turned out.
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