A day trip.

A little over a week ago I went to visit my good friend and fellow Sporkmeister (you bet I wrote that) Bob in little old London town. Bob will have you believe that he eats only biscuits and, having seen the inside of his fridge, I can confirm that this is frighteningly true. Why hasn't he died yet? Lord only knows. Anyhoo, while I was around, I made him stuff his big face like any normal person would, and I think he enjoyed it. The highlight of the weekend started off on a trip to Brick Lane and a visit to the endlessly awesome Beigel Bakery. If you've never been there, you're wasting your life. Exhibits A and B:

After all that excitement, it wasn't long before I needed a drink. And some lunch. I know that for some the bagel itself would've counted as lunch, but still. In the words of Gordon Gekko: Greed is Good. And I'm pretty sure he was talking about lunch when he said it too... Right? Anyway, after some shuffling around, we went to the mega-awesome Carpenter's Arms for a refreshing beverage, or five:

The Koestritzer was a new one on me, and I feel like I've made a friend for life. Vedett is always a winner, and it's nice to see things like the Anchor Steam Beer available, especially alongside so many other fine drinks. That Caribbean rum was pretty cheeky too. However, not wanting to let Gordon Gekko down (he wasn't there) we naturally had to have a bit of tuck, and this we did in style. Colchester Oysters, Escargot, and a very fine meat/cheese board were our weapons of choice, and we ate every last bullet. Right down to the, er, handle? I don't know.

Stonking. Even old Biscuity Bob was having a whale of a time. Just look at him:

Ooh, the excitement. This was more food than he'd eaten all month. For real. For his is the wild life. Anyhoo, having dined like greedy fat kings, we toddered on down the road, stopping for drinks hither and thither in our effort to reach a late night whiskey bar who, by the time we got there, wouldn't let us in. Ah London town. You sure are a wild one.

Diary of a morbidly obscene biscuit addict

4.

I have been going through a wildly experimental phase, pushing the boundaries of biscuit eating to the very limits of time and space. I have been on a supersonic journey and have returned with the following knowledge.

COOKIES ARE THE SAME AS BISCUITS IN THE CONTEXT OF KNIFE & SPORK

Ha! Controversy!

I tried to do a bit of research but stopped after one lazy Google search. Turns out it’s all down to the Americans making biscuits wrong right from the off. When they realised that their versions of biscuits weren’t actually all that nice they had to try again. But they couldn’t call them biscuits, they’d already screwed that up and so the cookie was born.

I am going to claim right, here right now, as a self appointed biscuit expert, that cookies are just big biscuits. Yeah Maryland, you’re not cookies, you’re just biscuits, or by my logic only small cookies, which are called biscuits. So says I. And I reckon I’m right. Right?

Enough of this high-brow biscuit existentialism! To the point!

I have recently got into the terrible habit of buying Sainsbury’s white chocolate & raspberry cookies. Casting my eye over biscuit shelves across the land I must conclude that these are possibly the most unhealthy biscuit items ever. Basically a wonderful combination of soft cookie dough, annihilated raspberries (to ensure no goodness remains) and great globs of white chocolate (the only kind of chocolate that doesn’t actually have any chocolate in it!).

Fig 1. These are they. Bloody gorgeous!

If you could describe any food stuff as being comfortable, it would be these cookies. They are so delightfully soft that I just want to get loads of them and make a cookie bed. I would sleep and nibble in equal quantities. I would be a slothful glutton and a fantastic genius to boot. I would start a church of cookie and biscuit disciples will worship at the altar of the little round baked consumables. I of course would never attend and maintain that wonderful air of mystery, and besides by that point I will need to be crane-lifted out of my cookie bed and you’ll see me on the next series of Britain’s Biggest Loser.

And on a side note, they come in packs of four. Which means you have to eat all four. Preferably one after the other in a violent and rather unpleasant scoffing action.

A brief note

As a schoolboy I'd always come home and ask my mum what was for dinner.

Her reply?

'Air Pie and Windy Pudding'

Diary of a morbidly obscene biscuit addict

3.

It is time for me to take a good hard look at myself. Why do I eat so many biscuits? Why is just the one or two never enough? Why are all the best biscuits the most unhealthy, artery clogging, weight scale shattering objects of brilliance?

THE CONFESSIONAL OF THE MORBIDLY OBSCENE BISCUIT ADDICT

So it comes to this. Only my third entry and the breakdown is already upon me. I even ate a chocolate bourbon the other day. I don’t even like chocolate bourbons! And listen to me! Are there any other types of bourbons than chocolate ones!? NO! I have clearly taken leave of my senses. I am having a biscuit crisis! CRISIS!

This stark realisation of my precarious position only became startlingly aware to me after I gratefully received one of those wonderful biscuit selection boxes, the ones that include the rare but delightful Happy Faces. Surely the most accurate embodiment of a consumable to express the joy of it’s delighted consumer. (That sentence just doesn’t look right, but I’m lazy. It stays.)

I stared in delight at the wonderful collection of delights in front of me. This was like staring at the contents of a really cheap Pandora’s Box. But maybe that’s the whole problem. Maybe that is my horrible Sisyphean task. To eternally eat these ghastly biscuits in order that no one else hast to. Am I some kind of vile guardian to society’s health and prosperity? No. That is delusions of grandeur. I am just a filthy glutton with no willpower, destined for the third circle.

Ugh! The crisis is surely upon me, just look at that last over indulgent paragraph! Not one, not two, but three references to Greek or Roman mythology. I’m here to talk about biscuits god damn it! These are black days.

Anyway, I’m supposed to be confessing something aren’t I? Well the truth is I don’t think I actually like biscuits all that much. I just eat them because they are there, and because I’m so miserably malnourished that they constitute a viable food group. I would eat carrots if only they looked and tasted like biscuits. But that would make them biscuits, so I’d be right back to square one.

Christ, you’re bored of reading this now, and I haven’t actually confessed to anything that you can really get your teeth into, like a Garibaldi. Sorry.

Still, I left one Happy Face in the box. All is not lost. (back to the mythology again, what a pompous pseudo-intellectual prick I am.)

Fig 1. Fuck my hat! That’s not a happy face! If biscuits could give you a nasty dose of the clap, that’s the face it would make afterwards.

Diary of a morbidly obscene biscuit addict

2.

It’s been a tough week. I am battered, bruised and broken. Why you ask? Because I have been assaulted by the breathtaking biscuit brothers, the biscuit MEGA POWERS!

CHOCOLATE HOBNOBS & CARAMEL DIGESTIVES

Fig 1. – the human embodiment of chocolate hobnobs and caramel digestives. And look! A saucy cup of tea in the middle!

I have spent all week having the mighty leg of the hobnob crashing down across my throat while the caramel digestive postures from the top turnbuckle before dropping the elbow on my chest. OOOH YEAH!

As far as I am concerned you can’t have a chocolate hobnob with out a delicious caramel digestive to follow. You know what they say about rats in London? That you’re never more than 6ft away from a rat (or some such tosh)? Well I reckon if you have a chocolate hobnob in your hand, you are never more that 6ft away from a caramel digestive.

So, I bought these biscuits, as I always do, with the intention of sharing them with my embittered colleagues. Only they already know that they will be lucky to even start salivating at the thought of eating biscuit, let alone seeing a solitary crumb.

With determined zeal I begin attacking my foes with confidence. High spirits. Gnashing teeth.

3-4 biscuits – I feel terrific. Nothing can stop me! King of the World! Lord of biscuits! etc etc

7-8 biscuits – It just gets better! I can’t believe this. I want to live in a land made of biscuits!

11-13 biscuits – I am struggling although I still have the upper hand. I should quit while I’m ahead

14-15 biscuits – except I don’t quit

17-18 biscuits – CRASH! I’m burnt out. I must be dying or something. I’m withering like a spoon in Uri Gellers hands

19-20 biscuits – why am I still eating them!? I am sobbing into my hands. My colleagues shake their heads, pouring shame and scorn on me with equal measure. They knew this was coming. It was as inevitable as Gordon Brown doing that nauseating breathing thing at the end of a sentence.

All gone – I feel truly terrible. My insides are well and truly clogged up. I am of the firm opinion that I’m not going to be able to have a good poo for days. This thought only serves to compound my misery. I’m sobbing again.

1 hour later – I am sweating uncontrollably

2 hours later – I am swearing uncontrollably

1 week later – I finally have a good poo. I want some biscuits.

Diary of a morbidly obscene biscuit addict

When asked to put something together for this feast of a blog, I think only one person was expecting such a biscuit shaped spanner in the works such as the following.

Diary of a morbidly obscene biscuit addict

1.

This week I have been facing insurmountable odds in my battle with an aggressive combatant:

PARTY RINGS

These vile little biscuit specimens with such catastrophically kaleidoscopic faces, so gaudy they famously made Andy Warhol sick*1, have been taunting me remorselessly all week. The sugar rainbow adorning their attractive topside a very affront to my maudlin mood. I don’t know whether I think that by eating the Party Rings some of the delightful colour will some how rub off on my general outlook on life or that I am eating them to just get them out of my face!

Whatever the reason, it’s beside the point; dwelling on the philosophical ramifications of ingesting these day-glo edibles is not going to keep me from the task at hand. So I go about throwing hippy biscuits into my gaping maw with the same fervour as a hairy biker sucking the marrow out of a human femur “wye eye man, its right teehsty”*2

And then I’m off. Like Super Mario being fired out of a sour faced cannon I’m on a space odyssey. Look there’s the famous Friesian nebula, where all the planets look like cows. And look out! Crafty Pete the Cosmic Gibbon is aggressively waving his fist at me for trespassing. I chart a new course for the coco-pop asteroid rings of the cookie dough planet Great Uncle Beta. I take a closer look. Nine seconds later I have eaten my way through the Great Uncle’s 10,000 mile interior. Oh my God! Cheesy Sue is here, and with her sausage roll dog! Me and Cheesy Sue go way back, we had a thing together for a while. She was great! But then Carol Vorderman told me too much cheese could cause dietary problems*3 so we had to split up.

The sausage roll dog calls my name. The voice is familiar. My fantasy space voyage dissipates. My boss is asking me why I have been flying around the office spreading crumbs and eating any and all perishables that cross my line of sight. “I have been eating Party Rings” I triumphantly cry, dragging out the word ‘rings’ so I sound like a crazed telephone. “Only 89p a pack”*4 I add as my eyes dart around the room. “If I give you £1.78 exactly will you buy another two packs?” she politely asks looking rather nervous but also a little eager. “HAHA” I bellow, snatching the money and making for the door. “I will return as your king and military commander – Captain Riboflavin Cholesterol, the Caramac Kid, the Sultan of Smarties, the Double Decker douchebag, messiah of Maltesers, the pink wafer prince...

Exit.

My battle with Party Rings an abominable failure.

*1 - Not true
*2 - Requires a Geordie accent, oh and the hairy bikers are categorically not cannibals, I hope. For otherwise we are all doomed!! Doomed!
*3 - This could have actually been from GMTV’s Dr Hilary Jones
*4 - True! Go and see.