The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

75 Years of PG Tips

	It's no secret that our favourite cuppa is PG Tips. We do try other teas from time to time because we think it will broaden our minds, but it's always a bit of a relief when the interlopers bags run out and we get back on the PG again. So we were very excited to hear that they have launched a new PG Moments Website as part of the 75 Anniversary celebrations.
Apart from all the useful tea information and the chance to try some decaf bags for free (you might!), the site features a fantastic interactive timeline tracing some PG Tips milestones. The real bonuses are the PG Tips TV adverts which you can play right in timeline. Wind it back to the 1950s to see all the classics such as 'Mr Shifter' and 'Tour De France', or on to the present day T-Birds ads.

McVitie's rebrand

In the first big biscuit news of 2005 McVities have rolled out rebranded livery over their core range of biscuits including the Digestive, HobNob and Rich Tea. Plans for the rebrand also include bringing Gingernuts and for the first time the Fruit Shortcake into the inner circle of core McVitie's products. This is terrific news for the fruit shortcake which has done such great work over the years without getting the recognition it deserves.	Lovely new logo
The McV branding introduced in 2002 was a halfway house of large McV logo inset with McVitie's. Perhaps McV was too close to McD and the obvious brand connotations that come with it. Maybe it was due to the fact that we all still continued to refer to them as McVitie's. This move also appears to tie in with the TV campaign of 2004 that simply promoted the McVitie's brand through shots of people flicking biscuits crumbs at each other. The whole area of Digestive biscuits will also have some interesting developments in 2005. McVities have produced a 25% fat reduced Digestive, called Light Digestives, along side their conventional ones which weighs in with a calorie count of 66 per biscuit. My very rough calculations mean that you can eat six of the fat reduced ones for the same calorie count as five of the others. Have I missed the point? Chocolate Caramels will be repositioned as McVitie's Chocolate Digestive Caramels to firmly hitch them to hugely successful McVitie's Chocolate Digestive. Finally McVities are set to introduce a Chocolate Orange Digestive in February we've got our hands on some of the first packs find out what we thought of them.

Christmas is coming

Yes, and no doubt the goose is getting fat. Our Turkey for example has left its paddock for Chelmsford we were informed on Saturday by the nice man at the farm where it was raised. However at this time of year our biscuit thoughts inexorably turn to at least one burning issue. What is the precise composition of the Crawford's Rover selection this year?

The Rover selection is the biscuit barometer of the nation, reflecting our most basic biscuit aspirations. Over the years we have seen the overdue departure of the Pink Wafer, reflecting the fact that practically nobody likes them. In recent times we've been perplexed by the appearance of the 'White Bourbon' or 'Dark Vanilla Cream Finger' to give it its technical name. The Rover selection will in the new year revert back to its normal duties as catering biscuits, appearing at one day conferences, seminars and the occasional two day intensive workshop for heads of departments.

This year the line up is as follows, Milk and Plain Chocolate Sweetmeal Digestive, Shortcake, Custard Cream, Bourbon, White Bourbon, Jam Ring, Coconut Ring, Hazelnuts and oat chock cream, Treacle Cream.