October 23, 2026, 8:47 am 

Biscuit breakthrough is spreading

Shocking but true!	The pace of technological breakthrough remains unabated and hot on the heels of the iPhone and that stuff you can spray round your house to get rid of the smell of dogs and mackerel comes spreadable biscuits. If any of you have been feeling an unfulfilled void gnawing at you every time you go the cupboard to get something to spread on your toast, because none of it tastes like those little continental biscuits you sometimes get given with your coffee when on holiday in France then your anguish is at an end.
A couple of years back when asked to take part in a Channel 4 program about the KitKat when it was at the peak of its derivative product madness, I was asked to speculate what they might do with it next. On the spur of the moment I said 'some kind of spread that you could put on your toast'. I was fairly pleased with that, but I really honestly didn't think that some crazed biscuit doctors would ever make this leap. If they did I was also mainly expecting it to be in a squirty tube a bit like Primula Cheese spread and not a really quite big jar. Belgian biscuit baker Lotus well known for their Caramalised Biscuits and Speculoos has found a way turning biscuits into a spread. This seems to be grinding them up with some vegetable oil, sugar and emulsifier much in the way peanuts might find themselves ending up in peanut butter. The upshot of this is that it tastes almost exactly like Speculoos, just is peanut butter tastes just like peanuts. Beyond breakfast I can see this new technology being put use in two important areas. The first as new form of biscuit adhesive for making advanced types of birthday cakes. In fact I reckon you could pull off a half decent Jabba the Hut's sail barge sticking on the window shutters with a jar of this stuff. The second and perhaps more obvious use is in the manned exploration of Mars. Biscuit crumbs in zero G during the 3 year round trip could prove quite a problem scuppering the no doubt endless opportunities for a nice float around and a cup of tea presented by 18 months in space. Lumps of this should be much better behaved in space. Demand in Belgium for the product has been overwhelming, and if there is any of it spare Lotus UK will try and bring it to our supermarkets.

Biscuit breakthrough is spreading

Shocking but true!	The pace of technological breakthrough remains unabated and hot on the heels of the iPhone and that stuff you can spray round your house to get rid of the smell of dogs and mackerel comes spreadable biscuits. If any of you have been feeling an unfulfilled void gnawing at you every time you go the cupboard to get something to spread on your toast, because none of it tastes like those little continental biscuits you sometimes get given with your coffee when on holiday in France then your anguish is at an end.
A couple of years back when asked to take part in a Channel 4 program about the KitKat when it was at the peak of its derivative product madness, I was asked to speculate what they might do with it next. On the spur of the moment I said 'some kind of spread that you could put on your toast'. I was fairly pleased with that, but I really honestly didn't think that some crazed biscuit doctors would ever make this leap. If they did I was also mainly expecting it to be in a squirty tube a bit like Primula Cheese spread and not a really quite big jar. Belgian biscuit baker Lotus well known for their Caramalised Biscuits and Speculoos has found a way turning biscuits into a spread. This seems to be grinding them up with some vegetable oil, sugar and emulsifier much in the way peanuts might find themselves ending up in peanut butter. The upshot of this is that it tastes almost exactly like Speculoos, just is peanut butter tastes just like peanuts. Beyond breakfast I can see this new technology being put use in two important areas. The first as new form of biscuit adhesive for making advanced types of birthday cakes. In fact I reckon you could pull off a half decent Jabba the Hut's sail barge sticking on the window shutters with a jar of this stuff. The second and perhaps more obvious use is in the manned exploration of Mars. Biscuit crumbs in zero G during the 3 year round trip could prove quite a problem scuppering the no doubt endless opportunities for a nice float around and a cup of tea presented by 18 months in space. Lumps of this should be much better behaved in space. Demand in Belgium for the product has been overwhelming, and if there is any of it spare Lotus UK will try and bring it to our supermarkets.

Boreda blant

As my Welsh teacher used to say. Of course I had no idea what she was going on about as my family were all from Essex. Yesterday being St David's day we decided to give Sue Northcotts traditional handed down Welsh Cake recipe a go, and here are the results, with supporting daffodil and leek.	Made with currants, and butter again
Having been raised in Wales, although being English, I really did appreciate the celebration of the Welsh patron saint's day, as it was basically a jolly. In primary school the girls would come dressed in traditional welsh dress, being a long skirt knitted shawl over their shoulders and mad Welsh hat, think Witches hat with the point chopped off. They would also have a daffodil pinned to them. The boys too came in traditional welsh dress, which was possibly what ever you normally wear with a leek pinned to you. Unlike the Prince of Wales's leek yesterday when he was on the telly, a small delicate affair, most were full size vegetables requiring a couple of safety pins and a bit of string to secure them to the child. Many boys would start eating their leek raw before morning break giving them an authentic welsh dragon breath by lunch time. Some of the boys who had the more feminine daffodils attached to them would eat them too in displays of male pride/stupidity. By far and away the best thing about St David's day was that it was half day at school. Even now well in to my forties I find that a March 1st that falls on a weekend seems like lost opportunity. I feel that somehow I've missed out on my afternoon off. It was several years into my working life before I could fully stop my self going home at lunch time on St David's day.

Somebody somewhere thinks you would like a cake

Well its February 14th and the romantic ones amongst us are no doubt planning something wonderful for their special love tonight. Here at NCOTAASD HQ the YMOS and myself see this as a perfect opportunity to bake some cakes whilst Wifey is out earning a crust. It may appear that this is merely a way of circumventing my diet, but it passes as romance here - right!

Made with Love.. and butter and quite a lot of sugar too

2008 reviews to be waistline neutral

I've never been one for New Year resolutions, or Wifey for that matter. However this year Wifey has made a strict and solemn resolution, that I should go on a diet. A strict limit of only one breakfast a day, no puddings, no cheese and crackers in front of the telly, and although she denies she ever said it, no biscuits.

These mud huts in fog don't really illustrate this do they

Yes I was shocked too. However, in order to keep the punishing schedule of sporadic biscuit reviews that you've become used to I will use the clever calorie counting exercise machines at the gym to ensure that biscuit consumption is mitigated by simulated cross country skiing. Thus all reviews in the coming weeks will be have to 'waistline neutral' until such times as I reach my target weight. Of course my big worry is that my biscuit judgement may become impaired, as any biscuit no matter how ropey will taste like manna from heaven. Now you may be wondering what incentives Wifey has promised for me hitting my targets? Well obviously most of them are of a distinctly personal nature, apart from the sneaky week long lads ski holiday. So if you happen to be in a French mountain restaurant in the Trois Vallees between the 12th and 19th of this month and see a man eating cake and drinking tea who really should be drinking beer, that'll probably be me. As for the picture I didn't really have anything appropriate, so here is one we took on Christmas Eve in a small Welsh village. No they don't all live in mudhuts, it was the Celtic village at the open air museum of Welsh life near Cardiff. For some strange reason we were the only family there having a picnic.

Good Grief here comes Christmas

YMOS Christmas imagery

Are you sure it's Christmas again? It doesn't seem like a year ago since we put up our last Christmas page. Well no sense in burying our heads in the sand, the calendar doesn't lie and so we proudly bring you this years Christmas page which much like last years we'll cobble together as we go along. Rather than spend the best part of a week painstakingly creating a three dimensional computer modelled piece of yuletide fireside imagery as I did last year, I thought I would just raid the younger members of staff's Santa letters. The pics were taken from their second attempts, the first which were vetoed by Wifey for being nothing more than a list of demands. The second attempts were much nicer, thanking Santa for all his efforts last year and full of 'please', 'may I' and 'thank you'.

Fruitful Mission Accomplished

Serving suggestion

Our cake mission is complete and we returned only slightly damp after two nights camping in the English countryside. I have written up our exploits which reads quite like one those confessional food diaries that you have to do before resolving to change your life. I'll put that down to the fish and chips rather than the relentless fruit cake.

Focus on Fruitcake Fortnight

A cherry in every slice bigger

..or how ever long it takes. Yes if we can all drag ourselves away from the urgent business of re-designing logos for the London 2012 Olympic games, then there is important work to be done in the field of fruitcake too. Indeed fruitcake is going to play a vital role in our own fitness efforts as we take on a small part of Suffolk by bicycle.

As you may have seen in Wifey's bit we are off cycle camping to Suffolk and with such a challenging expedition a great deal of pre-planning and preparation is required. Specifically how are we going to make the tea and what are we having with it? Well the tea makings have been brought out of mothballs and refitted and are all set to go. In scenes redolent of the re-commissioning of the green goddesses, I've managed to get my 25 year meths powered camping stove back to its former glory using a drill, some pliers, some emery cloth a vice and new lid. We will bring you a special report on our mobile tea makings upon our return. As for the fruitcake, we have allocated the bottom quarter of one cycle pannier to carrying it, such is its strategic importance. The cake above is a Guinness cake which I made last week, however we will be taking with us our own recipe fruitcake which has been painstakingly developed over the last year or so by Wifey and myself and subjected to extensive field trials. For details on how you could make your own NCOTAASD fruitcake see this detailed intelligence briefing (..alright, recipe), which outlines plans for a boiled fruitcake that takes much less than 45 minutes to prepare, and has in no way been 'sexed-up', apart from some gratuious images of cherries.

Spring Tea Tours

Out of focus herbaceous border bigger

Spring has sprung backwards this year, warm hot sunny days followed by lots of much needed rain. Before the rain set in NCOTAASD under took a quick strike mission on Suffolk using the mobile NCOTAASD HQ and its associated tea making facilities.

We managed lay our hands on this rather useful cream tea in Antiques haven Long Melford, haunt of Lovejoy and Bargin Hunters. Despite not wanting to visit, view or in any way associate with Antiques, they did prove very useful for keeping the younger members of staff in order. The mearest hint of trouble in the ranks would be met with threats of having to case Antique shops for in advance of any future visits by Nanny Nicey. In fact we mearly popped in to the Co-op to get some Garibaldis and pack of Fig Rolls.

Cause I only have Pies for you

Stacks of pies	We asked which Christmas tea time treat we should review and you said Mince Pies. We really did want to do Lebkuchen this year but never mind. Are all mince pies created equal? Certainly not, some even come in a My Little Pony purple box, as you can see in this pack shot. Don't Sainsbury's know Christmas is red with a bit of green?

Gift ideas from Nicey and Wifey

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

This festive season, we thought it might be nice to round up some of the various sit down orientated things that have come our way recently that might make handy gift ideas. From tea, biscuits and cakes to books ( ours of course) and others, there might just be something here that helps you get Christmas just that little bit more sorted out. Most of the things we'll be looking at are available on line so you could do your shopping whilst enjoying a cuppa.

The same thing only bigger

We are going to adding to this over the first week or two in December so do keep popping back.

Plain Chocolate Hobnob axed

Lets picture them as we would like to remember them

It might of been the third biscuit to join the HobNob family but for years the plain chocolate HobNob (that's dark chocolate for those who don't quite follow UK chocolate naming conventions) has enjoyed a loyal following. Of course there are exceptions but as is the way with plain chocolate it seems to appeal to the more mature palate. Now we all know that such biscuit eaters are not easily swayed from their routine biscuit buying choices, so what could have happened to drive them away from their beloved plain chocolate HobNobs?

Well a while back McVities decided to change the packaging on some of its premium every day brands. Rather than a simple cellophane pack, the chocolate digestives, and chocolate HobNobs could also be purchased in cardboard tubes lined with a foil finish and topped off with a polythene lid. For those who want to buy their biscuits already cloaked in their own tin it's a good idea. The loyal Plain Chocolate HobNob people were given the ultimate test of their devotion when their biscuit and theirs alone became available solely in tubes and could no longer be bought in its sensible cellophane pack. So amazingly the biscuit which you voted into first place as your loyal favourite in our poll in which over two and half thousand of you took part as has been de-listed (they don't make them anymore). When we polled you on your thoughts about the tube packs half of you thought they were a means to bump up the price and only one person in six thought them a good idea. Our interpretation of the evidence is clear, most people aren't prepared to be forced to pay a premium even for their favourite biscuit. As a mark of respect we'll be turning our title black through out October. Mean while McVities have been furiously innovating in the HobNob range with Hazelnut and Caramel, Orange, Chocolate Orange and so forth. How can they be comfortable pouring resources into developing new products and yet happily letting tried and tested ones fall by the way side? Of course the situation isn't that black, McVities could easily resurrect the biscuits at a drop of a hat. What is really worrying is that this product has been managed and manipulated out of existence, whilst apparently blind to the fact that great deal of people still want to purchase it.

Summer Cake Quest 2006

Tea time stuff from Brittany Gallettes, Prune tart, a little Kouign Amman and Rice pudding, close up look

It's that time of year again when the younger members of staff take over NCOTAASD HQ for the summer, and we go in search of exotic and interesting tea time stuff. Cake, biscuits, we don't mind just as long as it goes with a nice cuppa and a holiday sit down. Last year we found ourselves in Brittany, virtually opposite a patisserie, and made a valiant attempt to sample their entire range, some of which is pictured alongside. Wifey insists the proprietors had a new car by the time we left. The inset picture is a fearsome local delicacy which is called Kougin Amman, being carved up by our trusty orange knife which is called Orange Matey. I would say it's a cross between a giant heavy set croissant and a toffee apple, without the apple. The butter toffee seeps into its very core and made as it is from flour, sugar, butter and little else it's the sort of thing that would require you to sign a disclaimer before you could purchase it in the UK. This would absolve the vendor from liability for any consequences to your cardiovascular system.

We would love to hear about your holiday cakes, biscuits and sit downs. Perhaps you'll find something as impressive as a Kougin Amman. Or may you'll find something dreadful and ropey that we can all have a good laugh at. Either way, why don't we all meet up again at the end of the holidays? It'll give us a good excuse to use the bucket and spade icon.

PG Tips half time cuppa comp

This summer there is only really one cup that Wifey and I are interested in, the one which helps wash down our biscuits, although strictly it's a mug. Still, with all the half time tea drinking ahead this summer NCOTAASD and PG Tips have teamed up to bring you an inspired tea orientated, sport led, eco-friendly win a cutting edge kettle sort of competition.

After all, it’s a well-known fact that those half-time power spikes are down to people running to the kettle and flicking that switch. If everybody boiled just the amount of water they needed we would save enough energy to practically run all the street lights in the UK, and could also take the edge off those half time power spikes. To help you on your way, PG Tips is offering three lucky NCOTAASD readers a fantastic eco-friendly kettle, a special edition PG Tips football mug and a year’s supply of PG Tips tea, oh and we're throwing in a copy of our book signed by Wifey and I. To be in with a chance of winning these PG Tips Premier Prizes and NCOTAASD goodies, just answer these two simple questions by logging in to our mailing list page:

Looks like a lady trying to make a cup of tea in front of the telly

1) If everybody just boiled the water they needed then with the saved energy we could practically run all the street lighting in a) Battersea b) London c) The UK 2) What distinctive shape are PG Tips tea bags a) square b) round c) pyramid Competition now closed!

Jaffa Judgement

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

It’s been a good while since we did a big in depth multi-review of a complete genre of tea time accompaniments. Actually we’ve only done one so far, the Fig Fest, and that was years ago wasn’t it? So with all that’s been happening in the Jaffa Cake arena over the last few months we thought that our long overdue Jaffa Judgement should get the green light.
We’ll be taking a look at these new developments and also looking at possible Jaffa futures in this growing sector of hot beverage accompanying snacks. We might also tackle a few old chestnuts to ease the load on our in box as people will no doubt feel the need to tell us the difference between cakes and biscuits again. Your Jaffa Cake views

Biscuit City

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

Here at NCOTAASD we have had an unprecedented response to the building of the Biscuit City in Selfridges basement which we reported on back in January. So fervent has the interest been that we felt we had no other choice than to personally investigate. So whilst only halfway through her 11am mug of tea and second fig roll, I whisked Wifey down to the station and bundled her on the next train to London, with instructions to get to the bottom of it all. You can read Wifey's special report here.

2006 Year of Custard?

Desktop sized custard picture for download.

Yes we've had weeks and months for one thing or another, so we thought wasn't it about time we had a whole year for something. What better than that king of pudding lubricants; Custard. Its been the mainstay of proper puddings for generations and the muse for such tea time classics such as the Custard Cream biscuit and the Custard Slice cake and its the middle layer in a trifle. In the olden days custard was made using eggs, sugar and milk and flavoured with vanilla, all very lovely of course, and indeed some people still do this to this day. When in 1837 Mr Bird's wife who was allergic to eggs complained about the lack of custard in her life, her devoted husband Alfred formulated Bird's Custard powder based on cornflour. Thus proper custard was born. In 2006 proper Custard is under threat not only from other puddings but also by its own ready made versions in cans, cartons and tubs, which is marginalising Custard powder. As Nanny Nicey found out at Christmas you can't make a structurally sound trifle using the ready made stuff. Of course Custard is fantastic stuff which I could go on and on about, and who knows if we get some emails I may even make a web page and a little custard icon. Your Custard Views

Yet another Rover take over

Take a close up look at the selection

Not the troubled Brummy car maker this time but the seasonal biscuit assortment. When United biscuits acquired Jacobs UK business and its brands last year who could have imagined that the writing was on the wall for Rover, (again the biscuits not the car maker). Over the years Peek Frean's Family Circle selection has always gone head to head with Crawfords Rover when in comes to securing that all important place accompanying those numerous Yuletide cuppas. Now the brand has passed via Jacobs to Crawfords and in a remarkable move Family Circle has donned the red and white livery of Rover. The new selection includes Jacob's Happy Faces as well as chocolate covered fingers. The role of yuckky left till last biscuit is competently dealt with by the coconut cookie.

The shocking revelations continue when we discovered that our review pack was fitted with Digestives rather than the rather interesting Jacob's Lincolns we had previously spied. Actually I noticed this when I called by our local Radio station for a chat earlier in the week. I was there for the local weirdo section of the evening show and they had got a box in for me. Next week they are talking to a man who puts ferrets down his trousers, so presumably they'll get him some new trousers or a packet of plasters.

Biscuit Voting Results

We asked you to cast your votes, and you responded in your thousands, hoorah! So now we can reveal the results of your favourite biscuits, your most regularly eaten biscuit and which one you really can't stand. You have all been very good waiting for results but now we have revealed them we'll need to shut the poll as it might affect new votes. It's just like in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, when the contestant says what they think the answer is then asks the audience, and we don't want that do we.

Of course this picture may account for the Pink wafer being the top Yuckiest biscuit

UPDATE Much to Wifey's horror I've gone a bit Peter Snow with our results, and put up advanced analysis features. You can now view the results sorted according to their calculated loyalty factor.

Wallace and Gromit inspired tea inventions

PG Tips official sponsor of the new Wallace and Gromit feature film The Curse of the Ware Rabbit, have been inspired by the inventive duo. They got in touch to let us know about the great new Cuppa Contraptions they've come up with. Who amongst us can honestly say that we haven't dreamed of having a remote control kettle? Well PG and mobile phone network Orange have combined their know how to create a kettle that you can set boiling by sending it a text. If Tomorrows World was still on the telly they would have had kittens over this.

Cracking good cuppa contraptions

And whilst they were at it they came up with the Gromit shaped Thermo Nose mug, and the Brewometer tea strength aid. You can find out all about these tea making boons and how to get hold of them on our Cuppa Contraptions page. Winner Congratulations to Victoria Worton from Lanarkshire who won the Wallace and Gromit goody bag and a years supply of PG Tips. Commiserations to everybody else who took part, including the two people who thought that PG Tips teabags are round, and the chap who entered himself twelve times using different email addresses.

Now in paperback

We are bouncing up down with excitement as our book is published in paperback on September 1st 2005. It's remarkably like the hardback, only with a new cover which as you see is covered in biscuits, nineteen different sorts, plus a couple of jaffa cakes. Other innovations include its categorisation as Humour, which is nice and should stop it turning up in odd places such as the travel books, as the hardback has been known to do. Also the tricky to read for some, orange on orange and orange on grey sections are now easy peasy orange on white. To find out more then visit our book page. Buy it on Amazon

Look at the lovely cover

Lovely Tarts

With late summer upon us the home made jam season is in full swing. The NCOTAASD jam cupboard is now groaning after being topped up with Strawberry Jam, Raspberry Jelly and now Bramble Jelly. The mighty NCOTAASD kitchen mixer's fruit strainer attachment has been busily removing all the pips, which saves on dental floss bills. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss not to make 36 jam tarts, which will no doubt come in handy over the next few days. We also have our eyes on some wild plum trees which should be ready for a raid in about 2 weeks time. Perhaps you too have become obsessed by Jam recently or just throught about it for a bit. If so drop us a line, we already have an icon!

Nicey made some tarts all on a summers day the younger members of staff ate the tarts which then had to be put away in a tin actually

It's suitable spoon month

Yes it's that time again when we look at a burning topic not far from everybody's minds. This month (probably the rest of the summer actually) we are looking at things that you stir your tea with. Perhaps you have a trusty teaspoon that serves you faithfully, or maybe you can never find one despite there allegedly being hundreds in your cutlery draw. Do you have to resort to using dessert spoons, knives or even pens to fish out your teabag and stir in the milk? Perhaps you are forced to use those little plastic stirrer things, although you're not sure which way up they go. We want to hear about it. We may even make a new icon if we get some replies. Your spoon feedback

Take to the Lakes for tea

Lovely view

If you've ever visited the lake district then you'll know that drinking in all that wonderful scenery can soon leave you wanting to drink in a pot of tea or two. Some freshly baked biscuits and a nice slice of cake wouldn't go amiss either or maybe some home made scones and jam. Well now some enterprising ladies in Cumbria have launched the Cumbria tea trail, a collective of rural tea shops that covers the county. Not only will you find maps on their website to help you plan a trip around lakeland, but also details of local walks so you can choose to work up a healthy appetite or walk off a big plate of goodies. And if you can't make it to Cumbria there are even a few recipes on the site including the famous Grasmere Gingerbread.

McVities Crumb Test Dummy

How many of us have lost sleep at night worrying about how exactly biscuit manufacturers ensure an consistant average number of crumbs from their biscuits? Well now we can sleep soundly in the knowledge that the boffins at McVities have come up with the world's first Crumb Test Dummy. The mechcanical muncher was developed to help perfect McVities new Milk Chocolate Orange Digestive, and has helped to reveal that a stagering 127.8 tonnes of biscuit crumbs are shed annually from Digestive based biscuits alone. More..

It's all so obvious really

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.

Lovely Tea-shirts

Hoorah, we have finally got our lovely new tea-shirts for sale at the NCOTAASD webstore, along with our mugs. We couldn't think of anyone better to show you just how much a NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown shirt can enhance your tea drinking than our good friends Mr and Mrs T. We gave them a couple of steaming mugs of tea some Jammie Dodgers and look how much fun they had. The mens shirts are available in Navy and Burnt Orange whilst the ladies can choose from Skinny Pink and Baby blue. The same picture only bigger Close up of the biscuits

Mr and Mrs T are enjoying their tea, thanks to NCOTAASD shirts and mugs, and a decent plate of biscuits

It's Sensible Kettle Month

The noisiest kettle I've ever known. OK its full of limescale, I'll give you that, but its always been loud

Kettles, we can't live with out them, unless we boil water up in a saucepan, or have one of those boiler things like Wifey has at work. Anyhow, there are a lot of kettles out there, some sensible, some silly, and we want to hear about them. It may be that you have been using the same one for the last twenty years trouble free. Perhaps you have one of those daft round ones that has the handle too near the spout so it scalds you with steam every time you pour from it. Then again you might have one that like the one here that makes such a din when boiling that its difficult to be in the same room as it. Maybe, like our friend Val, yours boils on top of your gas cooker and it's got a whistle. As is the custom for anything like this we like to kick it off three quarters of the way through the month before. So if you are boiling mad with your kettle, have gotten all steamed up over something, or have lost sight of your little red level indicator then drop us a line. If we get some emails I might even make a new icon to go with it. Your kettle feedback

Mug, lovely mug

To celebrate our new book we've had some moderately exclusive mugs made. They look like the cover of the book. I say 'moderately' because our publishers are going to sending out a bunch of them to media types and celebrities. Still if you would like to get one for yourself, then our new UK webstore has just opened for business, which means you can spend good old pounds there. If you do live out side the UK we can still ship abroad. Our webstore is hosted and fulfilled by the very lovely Toughshed. When I went to see them and we had big mugs of tea and Rich Tea biscuits and a long natter about how the old foil and paper Penguin wrappers used to be better than the ones you get today.

We put some tea in and some biscuits next to it so you can see how it works

Organic excess

Organic chocolate is becoming increasingly popular not least due to the efforts of Green & Black's who really kicked the whole thing off. I've also known people who really should be eating less of the stuff, justify their next bar by getting an organic one. "Well it must be good for me, it's organic!". Hmmmm.

When they got in touch to let us know they were launching a range of biscuits, we got our chocolate heads on and dived in.

Irish Tea Tour 04

We've just got back from our Irish tea tour most of which we spent in lovely County Mayo. The landlady of NCOTAASD's field HQ enquired what it was we did for a living. Good question. I told her that this year I was mostly writing a book about tea and biscuits. Being Irish she looked pleased. However, her mood quickly changed when she asked if we use proper tea and I replied that we had acquired some nice Nambarrie tea bags for our tour. Barely containing her disgust and pity she said "I couldn't drink tea made with tea bags, it would have to be loose tea", she then beat a hasty retreat.

We also tracked down the elusive and hard to find ToffePop, which seems freely available in most shops in Ireland, so expect a review of that very soon.

A traditional Irish scene: The holy mountain of Croagh Patrick, some tea, Kimberley, Mikados and Coconut creams Fullsize image

No, I wasn't looking for you

Lionel Richtea and his mates, Simon le-Bourbon, Abraham Lincoln, Vanilla Iced Gem and Sid Viscount

We have seen rather too much of Lionel Richtea over the last fortnight, site regulars, friends, family, people I've never heard of and our literary agent all sent him to us with their best wishes. His creator FiST got in touch to say sorry and to let us know that Lionel is not alone. So before you reach for that forward icon in your email package, its OK we've seen them. Part of Lionel stared life as a biscuit image on our site, FiST used it to make himself an amusing avatar for the www.no-future.com message board from where he quickly escaped and started doing the rounds via email. Cyberspace is a very odd place where a bunch of pixels that you made several years ago can suddenly turn up in your mail box in your own personal spam deluge. A very similar thing happend in the Star Trek the movie when Voyager turned up as giant robot the size of a planet after falling out of a black hole. Well I can see the similarities. Mind you they never said how they got rid of V-ger after they calmed it down, "Alright you've touched the hand of the creator, now shove off".

NCOTAASD wins a proper award

Well it was off the glamourous east end of London for the Wife and I last night to the first eMap Fanzine awards. eMap are the people behind tons of different magazines, like 'The Face', 'FHM', 'Heat', 'Empire' and 'Steam Railway'. We had a nice cup of tea on the 17:45 to Kings Cross and a HobNob flapjack, so we hit the event all guns blazing. We were thrilled to come top in the Webzine category, and also thrilled to find out that we are a 'Webzine', something which we were largely ignorant of till now. At one point we were offered a lovely bottle of Champagne to celebrate with, and I think we were meant to open it up in a triumphant Formula 1 sort of way. However, I said that we would take it home with us and probably have it Friday evening whilst watching telly.

That's not any of your old GIF files, its a proper thing that can go on our shelves

Huntley & Palmers resurrected

After an absence of more than ten years the Huntley & Palmer brand is once again to found on our shelves. Huntley & Palmers of course dates back to the early part of the nineteenth century and is one of the pillars of the British biscuit industry, with a whole museum devoted to their past in Reading their birthplace. The brand had passed on to Jacobs, who had effectively wound it down although continuing to make many H&P originated products such as Iced Gems.	Nice new logo
Huntley & Palmers' products became famous in 137 countries and, even today, their reputation for baking unique, top-quality products, such as Milk & Honey, Breakfast Biscuits and Chocolate Olivers is fondly remembered. The brand's packaging also achieved unsurpassed standards of excellence with its presentation tins and promotional posters. Many of these can still be seen today at the Reading Museum. The new MD of H&P Nigel McCrea acquired the Huntley & Palmers name whilst working as a director at Jacobs, and is relaunching the new H&P as a luxury brand. The company is exclusively targetting the speciality and fine-food sector, including delicatessens, major food and department stores, airport duty-free, food-service, hotels, mail-order, hampers and internet sales. Initial products include "When Taste Matters", an assortment of bite-sized sweet biscuits. "Not Just For Cheese", an assortment of biscuits and wafer-thins. "Chequers", a box of mint crisp chocolates, wrapped in two different colour foils, with a board designed into the pack, so you can enjoy an after-dinner chocolate whilst playing a light-hearted game of draughts and "Brandy & Walnut Christmas Pudding", described simply as the richest traditional pudding you can buy. Of course we put in a plea to Nigel on behalf of all those NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown readers who long to see the Milk & Honey, and maybe the Chocolate Bath Oliver resurrected too.

Classy Orange Innovation

Well here at NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown we have just got our hands on the new Orange flavour Choco Leibniz, which should start appearing in stores in the second week in December. Bahlsen has chosen the UK to launch this product. Presumably this is such a radical make over on a well an established biscuit that the home market of Germany would be stunned. However, I'm sure the British public will rise to this little challenge, and the launch of Orange flavour After Eight chocolates this Christmas will help raise the profile of Orange flavoured things even further, we expect. To find out what we thought of them take a look at Biscuit of the Week.

Look closely for the little orange segment on the pack

Triumphant Cornish Tea Tour

Well if you wondered why NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown had gone a bit quiet, we've been taking a much earned break down in Cornwall on another of our Celtic tea tours. The Cornish consider themselves to be Celts and have their own Celtic language, Woo. However, to most visitors what is more important is the uses to which they put prodigious amounts of clotted cream produced in the county. Sticking it in a scone with jam works for us, although the younger members of staff were impressed by its addition to strawberry and chocolate ice cream.

We based our stay in the delightful south coast village of Fowey, and not just because its close to the Eden project but because its about the loveliest bit of Cornwall there is. To find out more about our Cornish Tea Tour and which important tea time plants we found at the Eden project see our monthly newsletter.

Vending machine tea

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

Have you ever been fortunate to work at a company that is so successful, so huge and all powerful, that it deems that its employees shall not have to make their own tea. No, not for them the drudgery of tea and coffee making, the demeaning scrabble for the kettle, or the productivity sapping wait for it to boil. Oh no only the best for these lucky people. Bestowed upon them the ultimate convenience, their own free vending machine dispensing a variety of hot and cold beverages.

What's going on in there? Fullsize image Illustration by Dave at www.liveinabin.com

Well thats the idea, but of course we all know that vending machines produce some of the most offputting and unpleasant discharges known in any branch of science, engineering, plumbing or industrial waste disposal. Lets face it, anything that produces tea, coffee, vegetable soup and lime squash whilst making a noise like a bin lorry collecting rubbish should be viewed with deep suspicion.

Many have their own idiosyncratic twists. The refusal to dispense drinks into anything but their own flimsy plastic cups is all too common. Once the cup is removed from sanctuary of the machine it quickly looses all structural integrity. This is much like a milk carton whose top has been completely opened and then recklessly filled to brimming with boiling oil. Try sticking your own mug in the dispensing bay one of these guys and it will receive a small squirt of something foul whilst you'll be sprayed with scalding hot water as the whole machine shuts down to await the attentions of its 'local' service engineer. The engineer of course has three other similar incidents at machines to attend to this morning in the same fifty mile wide callout area.

Should you find yourself present when the engineer does turn up, then whatever you don't look inside the machine when it's opened up. To do so is to gaze upon a forbidden nightmare world of pipes and fluid, beyond our everyday comprehension. This is much like being the hapless witness to an alien autopsy. The fact these people usually turn up with a couple of buckets and wearing waterproof footwear puts one more in mind of farmyard animals being assisted in the act of giving birth, rather than a nice cuppa.

Perhaps you've been physically or mentally damaged by the output of one of these deranged metal boxes, or perhaps you actually like them and are constantly charmed by the offerings. Either way we want to hear your stories. Who knows we may even do a little icon to go with them.

Your vending machine feedback

It's Cake Jim, but not as we know it

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

Mars is nearer to us at the moment than at any other time in the last 60,000 years, and so we are marking the occasion with this special report into 'Universal Cake Theory'. Is there life on Mars? Well probably not but here at NiceCupOfTeaAnASitDown we are more concerned if there is cake on Mars and somewhere for a nice sit down out of those 200 mile an hour winds that are prone to whip around the red planet.

Two little old space-alien ladies having a nice sit down Fullsize image Illustration by Dave at www.liveinabin.com

So what is 'Universal Cake Theory'? Well its my theory that cakes must be universal. Where there is intelligent life in the universe they probably make and eat some kind of cake. It's obvious really. I like to think that when Carl Sagen was wandering around his dodgy colour separation over layed spaceship in his epic TV series 'Cosmos' pretending to look at nebulas and stuff in awe and listening to Brian Eno, that he was thinking 'the vastness of the cosmos and cakes, there must be a connection'. Well of course if he had of thought that then that would have made two of us.

Now I know what your all going to say, 'What about silicon based life forms Nicey! Or beings composed of pure energy or those who inhabit places where the laws of physics preclude the formation of cake, or even flapjack?'. Well, the silicon based life forms probably would be quite at home with Iced Gems, or maybe an assorted selection of Spanish biscuits, which whilst not cakes are quite similar to rocks. As for those beings composed of pure energy, they probably would have something a bit like a cross between a Swiss roll and Duracell battery. The folks that live where the laws of physics preclude the formation of cake, they want to get with the plot and move house.

We know that man has baked cakes from the earliest times, infact in the 'Epic of Gilgamesh' earliest known written story ever dating back to nearly 5000 years ago, there is a bit about flour or something. Cakes have deep cultural significance, and are baked and shared at important events in our lives and across many different cultures. Now if I was Eric Von Daniken, I would probably attribute this to visiting Space Aliens in our distant pre-historic past who introduced us to baking and probably had some form of advanced technology like a fan oven ideal for getting tricky sponge cakes to rise evenly, and non-stick cake tins. Of course we would have to wait until we sent men to the moon before we discovered how to make non-stick cake tins using space age teflon.

Northern Ginger Technology

We've gone Bothams bonkers this week on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown. Visitors to the Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby may be drawn into the Bothams establishment to be treated to a tour-de-force in tea and sit down technology. With plum bread, sticky Yorkshire Brack, a range of biscuits, their own blend of strong Yorkshire tea, and a built in tea room, Bothams are able to deal with any tea and sitdown situation that might arise. We've already scoffed our way through an All Butter Fruit cake, a sticky Ginger Yorkshire brack with stem ginger, and three packs of biscuits. Good job the Brack is low fat, although I think the damage has been done. Find out more in this week's Biscuit of the Week.

Sticky Ginger Yorkshire Brack, Tea, Shah Ginger, Ginger Chocolate Chip biscuits and a nice cup of tea

UK launch of the ANZAC

Well we were very honored today to be invited to the official UK launch of the ANZAC biscuit, at the National Army museum at Chelsea. You may remember that we reviewed the Unibic ANZAC back at the end of April this year, explaining its connection to the ANZAC forces that fought in WW1 at Gallipoli. Now whatever your views about business doing good deads and charity work there simply is no denying the 500,000 Australian dollars that have been raised in the last 5 years for retired servicemen in both Australia and New Zealand. There was also no disguising how pleased various bodies involved were to receive the support, and how keen our British Legion fund raisers are to get involved. The Australian Returned and Services League (RSL) had sent over Bruce Ruxton (pictured alongside) the veteran, whose idea it was to also raise money for the British Legion using the tasty ANZAC. We were also treated to a very moving poem written and read by Aussie media celebrity Clive James, long time supporter of the RSL, about his childhood memories of ANZAC day parades. All this whilst drinking cups of Tetley tea, complete with bubbles, and munching platefuls of ANZACs. ANZACs are available from today, July 14th at Sainsbury's stores through out the UK with 4% of sales going to the British Legion.

Holiday season

Well Summer holidays are nearly here. Soon many of us will be heading off to exotic destinations, or maybe just a few miles up the road for a well earned break. There are certain necessities for a truly pleasant holiday. A nice cup of tea and a sit down is certainly high up on our list. Edward Weedon recently emailed us to say "When packing for holiday jaunts, especially those to foreign parts, the most important item to pack after the diarrhoea tablets is the tin which contains the Rich Tea Biscuits. The benefits to be gained from the bland, yet tasty, biscuit, free as it is from all adulteration cannot be stressed too strongly. There have been many times that our happiness, even our sanity, have depended upon the availability of that king among biscuits. They are so important that for breaks lasting more than five days a second pack is a must. A particularly good holiday can be identified by the number of Rich Tea Biscuits we bring home - to run out means a disastrous time was had by us both!" Perhaps you have holiday tea and sit down essentials if so we would like to hear about them. Go on I've done a lovely bucket and spade icon to go with them.

Spooky welsh tea money

Recently Emily Cole mailed us to say 'While enjoying my sunday afternoon cuppa, i noticed that there were many little bubbles on the top of my tea. My gran once told me that this is called "money", and if there are many bubbles, then you are due for good fortune in the near future. Is this myth recognised throughout the tea-drinking world or is it confined to the pensioners in the South Wales' valleys?' Well we checked with some other Welsh people who although having not heard of such a saying, conceded that it was perfectly possible. Perhaps you know somebody who has a Welsh Granny, or maybe you know of some tea and biscuits superstitions of your own. If so we want to hear about them, fire up those email programs! Your tea money feedback

Bin there for tea

Big brother house mates Dean and Stuart came up with the Tea Bag Bin, a little bin thing that sits next to your kettle and collects up all your used tea bags. We've had one for a test drive for a little while now. To find out how we got on and for a gratuitous picture of our Courgette patch take a look at our Tea Bag Bin report.

Personal mug awareness week

If you're like myself or the Wife then you probably have your own favorite or personal mug for use in your place of work, or some such communal area. If you do then you'll no doubt know the embarrassing and sometimes ugly scenes that can occur when somebody else uses your mug. I have seen people resort to drinking tea from truly ghastly excuses for mugs, such as our appalling Jar-jar Binks mug with its strange stains, in the hope that other people will pass it over when searching for a clean drinking vessel. Perhaps you have gone to extreme ends to ensure the sanctity of your mug, or maybe caused an unpleasant scene as you reclaimed it from a fellow worker. Then again maybe you use those nasty plastic cups from vending machines. Either way we want to know, send those emails in! As we have started this campaign week on a Thursday we'll probably let it run for a week or two or until we can think of something better, I expect. Your personal mug feedback

A surprising week

Well well well, last week the Wife and I took a trip to France to finally track down and apprehend the sticky sort of Mikado, which we did. I also picked up a pack of Galettes Bretonnes which we were tipped off about by Amelia Jones ages ago. At last a true traditional French biscuit that is so good I ate the pack. Yes that's right a French biscuit Nicey likes, amazing. Unfortunately I scoffed them so quickly there were none left to review. If that were not enough we were interviewed by BBC Online for an article about biscuits, then on Thursday it was off down to see Richard and Judy for a nice sit down on their settee, and a natter about biscuits.

Official UK Tim Tam Launch

The Wife and I have just got back from the official launch of the Tim Tam in the UK, at the Australian Australian High Commission, Hoorah! We were treated to huge plates of double coat Tim Tams and some nice cups of Typhoo tea, and had a splendid evening finding out about all things Tim Tam. The Tim Tam is now available in UK via Tescos. Apparently Tescos and Arnotts have been working for nearly 18 months to bring the Tim Tam in bulk to the UK, surmounting such tricky problems as how to ship chocolate biscuits across the equator with out them melting. We were also treated to a demonstration of the 'Tim Tam Slam', or 'Tim Tam Suck' as Arnotts called it, by a plucky Arnotts employee specially trained and flown out for the event. We didn't try it ourselves as our white NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown tea-shirts tend to show up chocolate stains. Alas at no point in the evening did we hear somebody say 'Ambassador with these Tim Tams you are really spoiling us', so I said it on the way out, armed with a slightly immodest amount of Tim Tam packs. I may have also been that he would be a High Commisioner not an Ambassador. We'll be bringing you more on the Tim Tam soon once we have recovered from the excitement.

The biscuits of Uruguay

This fantastic review of a mad South American biscuit has just come in from NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown reader Martin De Saulles. His exotic specimen, new to western biscuit eating science, looks like some sort of inflatable vinyl burger to us. Martin was the first to alert us to McVities now revised claim of more than 65 Million packs of chocolate biscuits being eaten a day. May be you could be the first, like Martin, to bring an odd biscuit to the attention of the Western biscuit eating world. We like strange stuff like this, so send your emails and pictures to us.

Dead lions and bees

We are very excited this week to be reviewing not one, but two brand new biscuits from McVities. We love the barking mad Lyle's syrup logo, of a dead lion with bees all round it, which the packs have emblasezend upon them. If only all product logos were this odd.

Winter fact finding mission

The entire NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown team are off on a week long Winter fact finding mission, in search of new and exotic review biscuits. We will be visiting the Alpine regions of France to try and establish if the French have finally worked out how to make sensible biscuits. We'll also be studying the tea making process at over a mile above sea level, using our own supply of imported tea bags of course. Meanwhile The Wife is off to Ireland, County Down, in search of the fabled Kimberly Mikado biscuit. If you are visiting either of these locations keep an eye out for us, we are instantly recognisable in our de rigor NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown tea-shirts.

Update: The Wife did indeed find the Mikados, and I found some interesting French items in this high altitude supermarket pictured alongside. Some of the French items will feature in a future review.

Clash of the Titans

Two iconic giants of the biscuit world go head to head in our first chocolate covered biscuit review of 2003. The McVities Penguin representing the northern hemisphere vs Arnott's Tim Tam representing the southern hemisphere.

Happy new year

The lovely Pep of B3TA, CityCreator and our logo fame sent us this charming New Year card. Isn't it nice? Well we have been very quiet over the holidays, but the first biscuit review pack of 2003 is open and our Christmas selection tins have taken a bashing since the mince pies and Christmas cake ran out. Santa also dropped off a nice Biscuit recipe book, but so far we haven't managed to achieve anything more than a category A biscuit frenzy after looking at the pictures. However, if we do manage to bake anything we'll be sure to let you know.

The small Origami Dog of reconciliation

This week we have been thinking about biscuit wrappers and what they bring to the world of biscuits. When Jacob's re-introduced their original wrapping system for the Club biscuit earlier this year we were over joyed, as they lend themselves well to small origami animals. We have taken this as a gesture of goodwill and ended our embargo on Club biscuit matters. You can find out more in this weeks biscuit of the week. Perhaps you do something with biscuit wrappers other than chuck them in the bin! If so let us know we may even come up with a new icon.

Holiday romance

Its a familiar story old as time itself, the holiday romance. Boy meets foreign biscuit, boy buy's foreign biscuit then brings it home to meet his mates, who not wearing the same rose tinted holiday glasses pour scorn and mockery upon the unfortunate packet. The Guild of Biscuiteers (East Mids Sector) has sent us in this guest biscuit review, complete with pictures, which perfectly captures that Euro biscuit disappointment. Check out our guest review page for this Portuguese Maria Oro review, it will be very familiar to any of you who have carted home Euro biscuits keen to learn about the culture of others.

Did the Dinosaurs drink tea, or maybe were wiped out by some sort of tea related catastrophe?

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

Dinosaurs as we all know ruled the earth for about 270 million years, and although we can't be sure and despite there being no evidence it is now believed that they might have enjoyed a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

A dinosaur thinking about having a nice cuppa, and maybe some kind of primitive biscuit Fullsize image

So what are the flimsy lines of reasoning behind this astounding new theory? Well there are two main reasons. It is now believed that dinosaurs evolved into birds so if birds like tea and sitting down then its a fair bet their ancestors, the dinosaurs, did as well. So look no further than the household budgie or the common garden sparrow both of which spend much of the day sitting or 'pearching' and would probably like tea if they were offered it. As for biscuits well they love them especially digestives. Secondly 270 million years is a long time to go without a cuppa and a sit down. It simply doesn't make sense that they would have gone all that time with out one. Ooo I just thought of another one, it could of helped them get up in the mornings. We all like a cuppa first thing so dinosaurs being that much bigger were bound to.

As for being wiped out at the end of the Cretaceous period this could simply be a matter of tea, the plant that is, not having yet evolved. The dinosaurs were so dismayed at the thought of having to wait several million years for tea to evolve that they all just upped and dropped dead. This was a pity as they could of probably made so sort of wonky tea out of cycads, horsetails and ferns if they had tried. Yes, I know this second theory is at odds with the first one, so one of them must be correct.

Nice News

Well the big news is we just had our 100,000 hit and so we've decided to celebrate by opening a NEWS part of the site dedicated to serious business of tea and sit downs. So if the BBC, Sky or CNN start having tea and sit down correspondents and reports, you'll know where they got the idea. The other big news this week is that I've read a book, something that I very rarely get round to doing, and its all about toast. Want to know more? Then read go read the Nice News.

Welsh Tea Tour

All this week NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown has been on tour in Wales in the second of this years Celtic tea tours. We have had a lovely time, and had a very nice cup of tea and a slice of Bara Brith at Pontsticill Station over look the Taf Fechan reservoir on the Brecon Mountain Railway.

Bara Brith is a traditional Welsh bread made with fruit, and served as a tea time treat. It used to made with fruit that had been steeped in tea, and would keep well for up a week. The fruit was then kneaded into bread dough along with some thing to sweeten it like honey, or more recently sugar. The very best Bara Brith we are aware of, is baked fresh each day at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans just outside Cardiff, where they will very sensibly let you buy a nice cup of tea, to have with it whilst sitting down on the picnic benches provided.

We also had a few Welsh cakes, delicious fruited little flat round cake which can be bought all over Wales, but most especially in the old Markets such as Pontypridd, Cardiff, Bridgend, Swansea, Llanelli or Camarthen. Welsh cakes were traditionally cooked on the hot hearth stones next to the fire, a couple of minutes each side, but can also be made on a griddle, a big flat stone which can be heated on your cooker.

Traditional Welsh tea time fayre, Welsh Cakes and Bara Brith Fullsize image

Lovely views from the Taff trail above Tal-y-bont on Usk Quicktime Panorama

A Smashing 1st Birthday

Hoorah, we are one year old. To celebrate this momentous event we held a 2 day long festival of tea drinking and biscuit eating at NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown HQ. A special thanks to all those who came along and made our celebrations extra lovely. Also our thanks to all of our readers who have emailed us over the year with ideas and suggestions or just aimless ramblings, we love it all.

One of the highlights of the festival was the oversize Marrow smashing, using nothing more than a heavy sledge hammer, the sort you might use for breaking rocks up.

Several Marrows were harmed in the making of this film (1.5Mb) and had to be composted.

Fox's biscuits have also kindly contributed to our celebrations with a consignment of their new biscuit ranges, some of which are so new we've never heard of them! They also popped in a packet of Sports biscuits, Hoorah. Expect some reviews soon.

Biscuit Tin Awareness Week

This week we are discussing biscuit tin issues on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown. The biscuit tin is to biscuits what the teapot is to tea, and plays a pivotal role in most peoples biscuit eating. However, we may be in danger of seeing the biscuit tin sidelined by todays advanced biscuit packaging. Already biscuit barrels, are being reported as scarce or hard to come by. This is the NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown biscuit tin. Show your support for biscuit tin awareness by sending us a picture of your favorite biscuit tin, or by telling us about your biscuit tin experiences. Hoorah! Update biscuit tin awarness week has been such a success we've made this biscuit quiz to celebrate. Test your biscuit recognition skills.

Horses, what's going on there then?

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

A horse, quite close up Fullsize image

We're not ones for shying away from the serious issues, so this week we've been thinking about horses, and why they are a bit crap. Horses as everyone knows have largely been been redundant since the introduction of the internal combustion engine in 1894. They should have known they were up for retirement when James Watt started rating his new engines in horsepower. Up till then horses were gainfully employed by mankind for a few thousand years.

So what were they up to in the 55 Million years prior when proto horsey Hyracotherium (Eohippus) was scampering around the Eiocene forests? Well not much, appart from evolving ever bigger teeth with which to eat grass, and ever fewer toes with which to trample it flat. Mind you, your horse unlike your cow will quite happily suppliment its diet with other foodstuffs given the chance, lets compare shall we?

Cows Horses Grass Hay(dry grass) Silage(grass thats gone all yucky) Grass Hay (OK the same as cows) Polo mints (even the new ones) Kendal Mint cake Biscuits (the're not fussy) Apples Sugar cubes (Obvious) Oats (Of course) Hats (Occaisonally) Carrots Ice cream cones Cornflakes (thats a guess) Frosties (they are like Cornflakes) Cushions (OK I'm making it up now)

Thus horses with their more nutritionaly rich diet don't have to work so hard at digesting it, and need far fewer stomaches and complicated internal plumbing than cows. In fact a cows internal plumbing is even more complicated than an antiquated French hotel. This frees them up allowing for leisure time which they mostly squander away standing around looking at stuff, whinnying (that's horse noises), or with the very occaisional game of chase.

When the Apaches in western movies used to round up the wild horses, most of them wanted to get caught, especially the ones at the back, as they were bored rigid just standing around all day long.

Watch out she's got a blog on a stick, and possibly a T shirt

All you B3TA regulars will know her as 'theWife', well we have finally relented and given her own bit of the site. So we've made this blog on a stick for her. Read it at your peril. You may have also noticed that we finally have aquired an armchair to go with our tea cup, thanks to the very talented Pep of B3TA. To celebrate we've opened another web store so now you can buy NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown stuff aswell as Giant Bee stuff.

Irish Tea Tour

All this week NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown has been on tour in Ireland. We've had a lovely time, including a particularly nice cup of tea and a sit down at the Bushmill's Distillery where they also apparently make Whiskey. We've also done a special double biscuit review of the Irish classics the Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley.

Impressive panoramic tea drinking in the Glens of Antrim Fullsize image

Woo 50K hits and Daily Mirror site of the day

The Daily Mirror has made NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com its website of the day, just as we are about to get our 50,000 hit. Hoorah.

Thanks to everyone who has emailed in guest reviews and biscuit feedback. You've all helped to make NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown the number one biscuit oriented web site on the web (source: our own opinion.)

Woo and Yay Reworked Sports biscuit by B3TA boarder Rogan

Astounding hybrid biscuit discovered

Guest biscuit reviewer Phil has tracked down this odd hybrid biscuit in a shop in Norfolk. Is it a missing link between the digestive and the custard cream? Or is it science gone mad. Read Phil's review

Say 'Hello' to Captain Plate Head

My head is a plate, and my body fashioned from lightweight knitwear

One of our younger members of staff made him. We were all very pleased.

Sports Biscuits found alive and well in Welsh KwikSave

As you might know we have been trying to track down the legandary Sports biscuit. Thought to be a bit like a biscuit Ceolacanth the Sports biscuits were thought by many biscuit experts to have become extinct around about the late 1970's. However and a recent flurry of sightings, and some detective work by B3TA board member Tom Illingworth, has resulted in Nicecupofteaandasitdown.com getting hold of three packets, sourced from a KwikSave in South Wales. These particular Sports biscuits are made by highly respected biscuit manufacturer Fox's (estb 1853).

This recent news has surely brought a ray of sunshine into the biscuit world, which has been suffering since the French reduced the amount of chocolate on the outside of a Club biscuit in the Danone takeover of Jacobs. A full review of the Sports biscuit is planed for the near future.

Two stick men playing football, perhaps

Oh No look who's taken all the herrings from the jungle

It hardly seems fair but Paul Daniels will deplete all the herrings from the Jungle given half a chance.

Giant Bee you're lovely

Joel made this great Giant Bee song with his brother Alex, and we've made an animation to go with it. As its a joint production B3TA are kindly hosting it for us.

Giant bees are blue and purple, like to ice skate and to have cheese rubbed into their knees.

Walking with Crabs

Its our entry for the fantastic B3TA cut out crab challenge. Its a Walking with Dinosaurs/Beasts type of Flash movie.

Watch the movie

Return of the Duck

Before the Rabbit there was the Duck. Can I feed the duck? Yes you can.

Would you like to know more

Prawnzilla Vs Citrus Sheep

With production costs spiralling out of control and the whole thing weeks over due work has finally finished on "Prawnzilla Vs Citrus Sheep". For one of the sound effects, a damp jaye cloth was used, which caused little drops of water to fall alarmingly onto the NiceCupOfTea iBook.

When asked about the whole thing the Wife replied that it didn't have a proper story, and that it should have words or something. See what you think.

Oh No Its a Giant All Terrain Pinguin

This is our entry for the B3TA second "Photoshop this" competition.

Underpant Toast

Nutricious and stylish, underpant toast could be the center piece of any dinner party.

Woo Giant Marmots in Blode 3

All three of the Giant Marmots have landed pivotable roles in the new Blode3 flash movie from RatherGood. Two of them are Baddies and one of them is a Goody. There are also lots of of other Marmots and a scary looking guinea pig, as well as the usual gang Blode, Food, Griblet, Hairy and the Crab of Ineffible Wisdom.

Big prawn sort of thing made from straws

Chatting about crabs today on B3TA I got to thinking about those rock hard prawns that David Attenbloke did a proggy on once. These prawns are hard as nails, and were smashing up the camera mans stuff. I decided to make one using my collection of Capri Sun straws and some cable ties.

Watch out he'll have you Fullsize image

Oh Dear Giant Marmots

Joel at RatherGood.com has just come back from his holidays in Canada or something, and now believes that Marmots are indeed the best thing, in the animal kingdom, right now. In an effort to help with his Marmot cravings NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown sourced these images of giant Marmots going about their business.

Its the Ultimate Doomsday battle

B3TA suggested a rework of the Duck to involve Rabbits and mayhem. The obvious choice of scenario was a Rabbit battling against the surviving home appliances in a post apocalyptic nightmare, probably much like the one that gave rise to The Planet of the Apes. Rabbits live in burrows so they would probably survive an Extiction event and today's home appliances have so many microchips that they would probably become self aware like Sky net in terminator or something. It could happen.

The featured appliances are from Breville who used to make Sandwich toasters, which could transform the humble sandwich into a deadly weapon fitting of a ninja warrior. Superheated Baked beans spewing from the rupture in a toasted sandwich are no joke.

Welsh hippy

I once asked my friend Clust, a Welsh hippy, what the two lights on the Breville where for. "The red one means its on" he said, "What's the green one for, I asked?", "That means its on as well.", he replied.

I also once got invited to a Toasted sandwich party being thrown by a bunch of Christians. They were all happily making Chocolate Buttons, and Banana and Sultana ones. In an act of atheistic one up manship I made a Beetroot, Spaghetti Hoops, Black pudding and Lettuce one using a handy salad, and the ingredients I brought along. Luckily they were all so busy being perfectly pleasant they didn't notice me not eating it and going to the pub.

Right that's the end of my Toasted sandwich anecdotes.

Antony Worral Thompson

All I'm saying is that the appliances are all in the Antony Worral Thompson range. There I've said it. Oh and he talks a bag of shite about Cheese Graters. I've said too much.

The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...