Posted by Glyn Wade
Biscuits
Introducing biscuits has been one of the least controversial steps taken by the club’s committee during my tenure as Secretary. In fact I have only had one person, who sadly is unable to eat biscuits, suggest we should have had fruit or something similar instead.
If a vote was taken, let’s be honest, the biscuits would win. Unless they were Garibaldi of course. I mean, if you had a choice of biscuits why on earth would you choose the fly-ridden putrid excuse for food that the Garibaldi is? Just because they wrap it in some sort of biscuit substance doesn’t make it okay you know.
If we take Boasters or chocolate Hob-Nobs and put them alongside Garibaldis who in their right mind would put themselves through the horror of chewing dead flies rather than revelling in the sugary, chocolaty, crunchy goodness of the first two? Biscuits are supposed to be crunchy, NOT chewy!
Now I suspect that our incumbent biscuit buyer will be buying some Gammybaldis for our next club night…..she’s funny that way…..but I suspect that they’ll get left….and with a Bourbon alongside it or even a Rich Tea who can blame us? I can’t think of anything that classifies itself as a biscuit that is so wrong in every way. Wikipedia describes it as a sort of currant sandwich….a CURRANT SANDWICH!?!? Are the manufacturers insane?? Who would swallow this abomination??
And, according to Alexei Sayle in The Young Ones they were named after a revolutionary….this isn’t true but it’s stuck in my head! Garibaldi was in fact an Italian general and politician who is probably still turning in his grave and has been since a certain ‘biscuit’ was given his name. The story goes that if you are near his grave on a quiet day standing on one leg and the wind is in the right direction and you put your left hand up to your right ear while touching your left knee with your right elbow you will fall over….but that could just be an urban myth.
Rumour has it that two months after the Roswell Incident the aliens came back to retrieve their fallen comrade. At a conciliatory meeting the aliens were offered Garibaldi biscuits. They made their excuses, left so quickly they forgot what they’d come for and haven’t been heard from since.
I think I’m going to have to stop here….I’ve just Googled the ‘biscuit’….and Wikipedia reckons it originated in somewhere called Stoke-on-Trent... You may have heard of it. I feel kinda dirty now.
They even describe their appearance as like squashed fly biscuits and here’s me thinking I was being original and witty coming up with that earlier. You’d better read the Wikipedia entry here and see what you think. I’m off to grab some fruit.
Disclaimer: Writer’s views are his and his alone and not representative of the club as a whole although, if they’ve got any sense, they’ll be too busy eating proper biscuits to care.
