A Fundemental Choice

Bourbons and Custard Creams. This classic pair of biscuits are acutely English and the choice is more than a choice of biscuit; its a series of delicate choices that define who you are. I'll begin this blog entry with the the question, do you prefer boubons or custard creams? Your answer is likely to be an instant one, in which you polarise the two types of biscuit into a strong sense of like and a strong sense of 'awh man, im not really enjoying this biscuit so much.' Traditionally it seems that the bourbon and custard cream go hand in hand.... but why? Although fundementally they are biscuits which sandwich a sweet fondant filling, i believe they are nothing alike.

The bourbon doesn't taste like chocolate as you might first expect, and neither does the custard cream taste like custard. The general consensus, it seems, is that the custard cream is more popular. I personally prefer the custard cream, and so it seems Tesco does too. Figure 1 depicts a packet of Tescos Custard Cream biscuits and Bourbon Cream biscuits. The Custard cream pack weighs a respectable 400 grams, whereas the pack of Bourbons weighs just 200 grams. Prejudice against the Bourbon?.... or just good research? In this absolute 'Politically Correct' nanny state, it wouldnt' suprise me if Tesco are ordered to make both packets of biccies the same weight, as it may be deemed that the bourbons are recieving an unfair representation as an ethnic minority in the kingdom of biscuits. In the majority of biscuit tins you will most notably see the two biscuits sitting side by side, but Tesco understands that the ratio of Custard Creams to Bourbons is an important aspect and expect that the custard cream is twice as popular as the Bourbon. Why is it deemed more popular? If you observe figure 2 you will see that the custard creams design is far more intricate than the bourbons. This could be a key reason for it success. Another point which I believe to be worthy of note is the fact that bourbons jus dont taste much like chocolate. They probably aren't supposed to tase particularly chocolatey, but you still expect a creamy chocolatey delight, yet you are left dissapointed, and pondering a slightly dungy taste.

The best thing about the bourbon and custard cream is the fact the quality never differs. Think about it... have you ever had an exceedingly good or bad bourbon or custard cream? Although both biscuits make good tea dippy, i believe that the custard cream has the edge over the bourbon when it comes to dipping. According to Prof. Conor McGuiness of Sothampton Solent University, the buttery vanilla fondant melts when dipped in the tea, and this, he believes, is why the custard cream is a classic dippy biscuit. "I like to let the biscuit rest on my tongue and let it melt to really get the taste"
How you eat a custard cream or bourbon differs from person to person, but i have noted a few key idiosyncrasies that are classic among bourbon and custard cream eaters alike:

• You will attempt too open the biscuit in half without damaging the biscuit or fondant filling in any way. (this tends to happen when you are becoming bored of the biscuit)

• You will bite the corners off the biscuit, creating a relatively flush edge of biscuit and fondant, as aposed to having biscuit overhang.

• You will search feverishly for unbroken ones... a broken bourbon or a crumbly custard cream just 'takes the biscuit'. haaaaaaar!

So it seems that these two most humble of biscuits have some talking points, but for whatever reason, they are true classics... biscuits which i grew up eating and still eat now. Take that Jammie Dodgers and BN's!...wankers.

Thanks for reading.






bishquit.

Sharted

Since my last blog numerous things have happened in my life, i would hazard a guess of somewhere in the region of 9-17 things happening. One of the things that happened is my recent purchase of scales. No, i didn't purchase small rigid plates that grows out of an animal's skin to provide protection and neither did i buy a measurement of the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. I bought weighing scales. It weighs shit down to 0.01 grams. I bought it so i could weigh shit. I was fed up wondering how much things weighed. For this reason, my brother called me autistic but to him i say 'A skittle weighs 1 gram' (in a repetitive and impaired way)'

A PEG WEIGHS 4.59g.

Last night i went out for a night on the town with my pals McLean and Greg. Ended up being a cataclysmicly messy night of obsesive drinking, fag smoking, shit dancing, greg pooing, straw spinning, getting started on and strangled yet again, matt smith, fit ladies, wankers, lettuce throwing, ren and stimpy, weird girl dancing, james omar daley.

One of the best happenings of late was when my flat mate (and now pure legend) Conor brought back shit loads of sugary, fatty treats from Marks & Spencer which he had acquired for free. Above you can see my cake inspired collage courtesy of my artistic (not autistic) alter ego, Tred.

I have rediscovered playing football again and only a few days ago myself and mclean played football with a swarm of prebubescent arabians. I won via the 'next goal wins' rule.

Also, i am not as hopeful of England winning the world cup in the summer due to the fact i played as them on Fifa and lost.

Happy trails. x

Went To London

It was a fun weekend, but was covered in metaphoric burnt raisins. These burnt raisins firstly came in the form of me oversleeping (shup! it was 5 am). I must have been in a deeper slumber than the time i saw a Narcoleptic sloth that had drunk 2 glasses of wine and inhaled copius amounts of carbon monoxide. I managed to sleep through a 20 minute fire alarm, my phone alarm and numerous minutes of alex banging on my door (shitting on his own face) and shouting my name. I then had the tired audacity to be ratty.

We set off to get a Coach to London at roughly 5.30. FAIL. (burnt raisin No. 2). We ran round the whole of Southampton at various bus stops and kept getting told that 'Greyhound buses don't come here, try...*insert place about 2 miles away*' The coach eventually went straight passed us and Alex got well ratty and punched a brick wall; it wasn't very clever but he wanted to look hard infront of me and mclean because we are alpha males that are well good at fighting and have uber experience in punching walls... yeh.


Booked another coach for about 10. Got on it. yay. Slept the whole way. Got to Alex's mum's flat. It was pretty much impeccable, but i noticed a flaw - extreme amounts of fluff ander the sofa. I obviously don't care, but i was purely shocked at how much fluff there was. It was like a sea of hairy, linty clouds. McLean enjoyed this.

We had well nice steak and watched time team. We went to a nearby pub, and watched England beat Wales in the six nations. Wales are CRAP. We all fancied the barmaids but they liked me best. Shup, yeh they did, she liked my interest in Kurly Kale and my playful, youthful and exuberant banter. We hit london town but had no idea where to go. Got fairly drunk and went to 'The Old School'. It was a cocktail bar and got ripped of for beer (becks bottle = £3.30). We then got outageous cocktails. Mine cost £6.90, it tasted like vishnus earlobe. it was nice.

Got back and done playfighting a bit with mclean then alex punched me in the rib/stomach area, thus rendering me a gasping woodlouce that had been singed with a lighter.

Went to bed listening to my ipod and mclean jumped on to my bed and scared me. ASS.

Had bacon sandwiches which were peng! Went to Brick Lane at about 1. Mclean shat himself and left. Me and alex had a reet good time, and i bought a Zine by Illustrative artist / Doodler - Blu ( Mclean was with us at this point still as it was before he shat himself and left).

Alex bought a salad for £5. Regreted it. Absolute burnt raisin moment.

2 black geezahs approached me and alex trying to sell CD's of their shit Hip-Hop. We weren't convinced so one started freestyling at us; and i have to say that the style that he was freeing certainly didn't agree with my ears pallette. For example, the lyric he started with was 'Woke up in the morning...' Need i say anymore?

Myself and Alex visited a conceptual fashion exhibit which was free and quite funny. It was situated above a rotting, junk infested little courtyard, which we both found very bizzarre. For one of the instillations we had to do a drawing of what we thought the garment felt like. I did it silly and Christina Tso (the woman whose exhibition it was) done a japanese laughs.

I got a chicken burger meal for 1.99 and alex got a pizza meal for 2.99.

Went back home (cb with details) xxxxxxxxx

The Flat.

Outrageous Acorn Bellend - Bermondsey Street

Hench Poo - London Victoria Coach Station.

It's 2010. Now i've entered a new decade i feel that i should do a little bit more with my rancid mollusc of a life. I want to move up through the ranks of the mollusc world from a poorly maintained Winkle to a well rounded Scallop. Things i want to do in 2010:

• Make and write short films.
• Create a short animation (dat shit is gonna be tough)
• Make a time lapse video.
  
• Read books.
• Create HDR photographs.

This is my aim, although whether I do all this shit and don't act like a recumbant can of opened sweetcorn is a different matter entirely.

Now then. I love food. But what i've come to terms with is the fact i don't really like scotch eggs. I always think i do. I like pork, and i like egg, and i like breadcrumbs, but when brought together it makes me unhappy. Also, i like skittles, but eventually they become well shit. I've found that after about 50 of the fuckers my throat hurts and my tongue feels like i've been licking Ray Mears dried out elbow for a few days.

I started getting world cup fever as soon as it turned 2010. World cup years are always good. Everyone shits themselves with excitement and shit themselves with patriotism and shits themselves with pessimism and optimism, in which case the poo leaves and enters the anus at a rate dependant on how quickly you switch from pessimism and optimism. But firstly, before the world cup, we get treated to The African Cup Of Nations. Actually, its less of a treat and more of an endurance. Watching it is like watching a whole team of Fabian Bhartez, throwing their shoes at the ball and constantly ignoring the offside rule.

Watched Avatar the other day, which is like a totally unrealistic version of the smurfs. It was good but went on so long that i got scurvy in my shin. happy new year people.