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

Lois Digestive Review	Dear all, Further to recent correspondence regarding the whole "biscuits as weapons" thing I would like to introduce the idea of "biscuits as eductional tools". As part of our training we are required to have a basic understanding of materials and mechanics. For the most part it is very basic ( i.e non-existant ) so we have regular teaching sesions which attempt to address this. A few years ago a nice lady who is a world reknowned expert in material science came to teach us for an afternoon. She clearly realised that she was trying to educate morons and had tailored her talk accordingly. She was using examples of everyday items to illustrate various points and it seemed quite easy when she explained it. Well, we all seemed to be grasping it so she moved on to the concepts of brittleness and surface hardness. She demonstrated ductility by bending a plastic ruler which we could all understand and then she passed round a packet of McVities digestive biscuits (which instantly increased her popularity) and invited us to break them in half thereby demonstrating that they do not bend much before breaking because they are brittle. Then she asked us to run our fingernail down the surface and observe the resulting scratch. Thus the concept of surface hardness and the production of asperities by 3rd body wear was easily explained to 20 or so trainee orthopaedic surgeons who are well known for being thick. Naturally I felt you would wish to know of this example of biscuits contributing to the greater good of man and increasing the sum of human knowledge. It occurs to me now that it would be useful to conduct a trial of various biscuits to compare surface properties starting with the addition of chocolate to the digestive........ And if you are going to have an icon for "biscuits as weapons" do you think we could have one for "biscuits as educational tools"? I am deeply grateful for the top tip on the mint chocolate digestives, by the way. I think they would be the starting point for any educational research I would try. Lois
Tim Walters	Hello Nicey I much enjoy your website, devoted as it is to... well the best things in life. I've just voted in your current biscuit poll (but not currant biscuit poll obviously). I think it's a grand idea to show pictures of what you've just voted for, and the poll leaders. This, however, leads on to my problem. My favourite biscuits are from the hobnob family. I find that local supermarkets tend not to stock the dark chocolate hobnobs, so for reasons of (local) exclusivity they are the worthy recipient of my "best" vote. (Honourable mention must go to the figrolls that some misguided fools have shown as "yuckiest"). I notice that the pictures used for dark chocolate hobnob and dark chocolate digestive appear to be ONE AND THE SAME. Obviously I realise that biscuit production methods might mean the topping is applied in identical faashion to both biscuits. In which case I will accept your categoric assurance that the pictures are genuine. Might I be so bold as to suggest that side views could be shown in addition, so that no such confusion ensues. I am pleased to see pink wafers getting the scorn they deserve. Quite how coloured cardboard comes to be sold as a comestible is beyond me. A dishonourable mention to Kimberleys. Not sure why they aren't a clear second place. Keep up the good work Tim Walters
	Nicey replies: Tim, You have of course spotted my guilty secret, namely that I didn't have a dark chocolate Hobnob picture so switched in a Dark Digestive. It's also plainly time that I sorted out the votes and told everybody what has been happening. I shall get to it right away. I can say however in advance that the Top 10s are as follows: Favourite Dark Chocolate Digestive Milk Chocolate Digestive Milk Chocolate Hobnob Jaffa Cake Gingernut Dark Chocolate Hobnob Chocolate Caramel Digestive Hobnob Custard cream Regular Digestive Milk Chocolate Digestive Dark Chocolate Digestive Gingernut Rich Tea Jaffa Cake Hobnob Custard cream Choc chip cookie Bourbon Yucky Pink Wafers Fig Roll Wagonwheel Rich Tea Lemon Puff Iced Gems Gingernut Jaffa cake Garibaldi Nice Well done to the Gingernut and Jaffa cake for appearing in all three top 10s. Also we would like to add that the Jaffa cake is of course still a small cake despite its inclusion in the poll. Mind you maybe the VAT man will use this very poll as evidence next time they thrash out the eternal debate.
Anita Mahler Iced Gems Review	Dear Nicey -- I am thoroughly enjoying your book! Yes, I am writing you from the USA; and no, the book was not a gift, I bought it on my own. I am somewhat one of those foodies (however, I only enjoy 'food' books if they're well written). FYI -- I discovered your book thru a catalog I get called A Common Reader. I am nearly finished with the book and have just gotten thru with the 'Icing' chapter. I have indulged in some biscuits, mostly the Marie/Maria type. But after just reading about Iced Gems, I realized I also ate these as a child here in the States (Los Angeles), but I called them Belly Button Cookies. I am of Chinese descent & oddly enough there are always a fair number of British-type cookies & crackers that are sold in the Chinese market (I don't know if this has to do with the British occupation of Hong Kong for so many years). My non-English speaking paternal grandmother often bought us 'cookies' while we took her on her weekly shopping expeditions to the market in Chinatown. I was actually looking for these Belly Button Cookies recently in a Chinese market due more for nostalgia than anything else. However, I was unable to find them. I had no idea the cookies were originally from England. However, my best friend's husband has been traveling often to London lately & I haven't been able to think of anything for him to bring back for me. Guess I now know what to ask for. To make his search easier, will he be able to find the Iced Gems at a Safeway? Or would he be better off at a Sainsbury? Or do you have a better suggestion? (I've been to London twice (& the first time I was sent on a mad hunt for a particular type of mustard for a friend that I found in a Safeway of all places)). Thanks much for your time! Keep up the great website & I hope there's another book from you soon! Best regards, Anita Mahler
	Nicey replies: Hi Anita, Glad to hear that we have put you in touch with the icing of your youth. Your friends husband will have no problem tracking down a sack of Iced Gems for you all the big supermarkets have them. They are available in fruit flavours or lately chocolate so probably best if he gets the fruity ones.
Andrew Henderson Morning Coffee Review	I was undersatndably worried by the impending extinction of Morning Coffee biccies whern I read it on your site. Imagine my joy and relief at discovering a whole herd of them in Morrisons@leeds (dodgy) photographic evidence attached.
	Nicey replies: Indeed reason 749 to shop at Morrisons. Nice surveillance work too. I too often want to photograph the biscuit aisle as a useful historic record, but for one reason or another am prevented from doing so.
Mrs Sarah Viscount Mint Viscount Review	Dear Nicey, Wifey, and the-younger-members-of-staff, I just wanted to share the news of an upcoming joyful event in my life. To most people it would be considered a modest - even insignificant - event, but I knew that if anyone was to understand, it would be you and the readers of your truly wonderful website. You see, about two months ago, a friend of mine quibbled and scoffed when I said that I wasn't that pushed or bothered about chocolate, and could happily go ages without eating any. So for no reason (except perhaps to indulge his cruel streak) he insisted that I put my money where my mouth was, as it were, and give up chocolate until Halloween. I had to forego all chocolate for the two months until that date, and give him a weekly update on my progress by text message. I know, I know, more fool me for agreeing to it; but agree I did. And so, I hear you ask, how was my progress? Well I wasn't lying - I don't have the chocolate fixation of many women. And as a Good Oirish Catholic Colleen, I'm practiced at giving up various things, having done so during many a Lent in my youth. So I was happy to pass the rows and rows of chocolate-bars in every shop, I cheerfully selected non-chocolate flavours of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream at the cinema, and I chirpily opted to just say no when another friend brought a box of Cadbury's Heroes to my house. However, as I know you've noted before (with regard to Toffypops) even small and humble shops and garages in Ireland are usually quite well stocked with relatively luxurious biscuits. And so it was, that every time I went into my local garage to pay for my petrol, I was greeted with the chocolate foe I had forgotten about: the sublime, dulcet, celestially supreme, minty Viscount. I held firm, and stoically resisted all the way. But they have called to me, Siren-like, for so long, that it is with true joy that I note today's date: it is November the 1st. Halloween is over, so on my way home from work today, I am going to that garage, I am walking in purposefully, and I am claiming a packet as my own. I knew you'd understand. Sarah (Mrs Sarah Viscount as of this evening)
	Nicey replies: Very Good Mrs Viscount, Now what do you think your friend can go with out till Christmas?
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