mostly david ephgrave

Two foods I have no cut-off point with are biscuits and grapes. The former option is obviously far less healthy than the later. If somebody started selling grape-flavoured biscuits, I'd never leave the house (providing whoever baked them delivered; if not, I’d have to pick them up in person or make them myself, which sounds like too much effort). Today’s a case in point: my breakfast consisted of ASDA’s crunchy nut cornflake-( con flake?)-substitute, a mug of coffee, an episode of Frasier, followed by biscuit after biscuit after biscuit after biscuit. My alibi for the lack of exercise and the multi-biscuit intake was I was trapped under a sleeping cat. I had to eat what was in arm’s reach to survive; thank God I wasn’t sat next to a Bounty or I would have starved; those bars are the Devil’s fruit. Speaking of Bountys, Wikipedia describes them as consisting of a coconut filling “enrobed in chocolate”, which sounds too grand for my liking...

Today saw the second instalment of this year's series of the Bake Off, which I watched with the fingers of one hand poised on my mobile's Twitter app, and the other hovering over the biscuit barrel; I like to multi-task. See below for a round-up of my sweet-treat tweets, thus marking the third day running of Twitter-based blog posts; it seems that after Edinburgh, I can only write in 140-character bursts. 8:01pm: Mel's hood makes her look like Rod Stewart. 8:04pm: The strings underscoring #GBBO are played by the Hollywood, Berry, Perkins and Giedroyc Quartet.   8:05pm: Val's ice cream anecdote was worthy of Parkinson.   8:07pm: Tom packing a sausage = FOOD PORN. 12:08pm: Benjamina's not a name. 8:11pm: I like how the colour of Paul Hollywood's beard fades into his shirt. 8:14pm: Paul & Mary's challenge: make 24 identical biscuits. David's challenge: to eat 24 identical biscuits before the end of segment. 8:16pm: The downside to...

Last Sunday, I survived the tense experience of shopping in ASDA with a pack of custard creams I’d bought from the same shop on Saturday secreted in my bag. I was carrying the biscuits due to poor forward planning. ASDA run a three-packs-for-a-pound deal* that I regularly take advantage of. Not because I’m addicted (though I am); more for the fact it enables me to keep one packet in the office and one at home, and have a spare pack left over for the commute. I didn’t do it for the buzz. I wasn’t playing chicken with supermarket security. I had no intention to attempt to shoplift in reverse. I was taking them to my office. This didn’t stop me feeling on edge. If they stopped me, I’d be unable to prove my innocence without going home for the receipt, and I wasn't sure they’d let me do that. I browsed Hitchin’s spindly arm of Walmart expecting a hand on my shoulder at any moment. I avoided the biscuit aisle entirely. Going there would be tempting fate. Thankfully, I e...

I accidentally left my mum’s biscuit barrel in her garden for a fortnight. I didn’t realise this until today, when I went to pick up my mum's dog from the place he stays when she's away on holiday. No sooner had I unlatched the gate than I saw it sitting on the table, slightly damp, almost taunting me for forgetting it. It had been outside for two weeks. That’s fourteen days, or three hundred and thirty six hours, or twenty thousand one hundred and sixty minutes. I could keep breaking up the time into its bare components, but I won’t. Let’s just say it was in the garden for longer than a biscuit barrel should be. A cookie jar isn’t meant to face the elements. It’s not in its remit. That’s what you have a house for: to provide the requisite shelter for your biscuits. You could keep them al fresco for a weekend at most, but I wouldn’t recommend it. As I lifted the lid I feared the worst. What mushy, crumbly horror would be rev...

My office's biscuit barrel currently contains what I would best describe as ‘biscuit detritus’. It’s a sorry state of affairs. There’s nothing good left. I purposely bought a variety pack to keep things interesting, knowing full well that the joy could only last so long . I ate all the best ones in the first few days and now I’m left with the dregs. Transferring the biscuits from the packet to the barrel was tense. There were a lot of different shapes and sizes to fit into a comparatively tight volume. I felt like I was playing Biscuit Tetris. In the cut and thrust of biscuit decanting there will always be casualties; some will be broken while others are fast-tracked straight to Biscuit Heaven (A.K.A. my stomach.) Perhaps I should be more optimistic. The current situation may be uninspiring, but it will improve before long. As soon as I finish off what’s left I can move on to something else. I might even buy some Party Rings; then I can have a party in my mouth.