Age: About 400 years.
Appearance: Staid. Biscuity in colour, shape and indeed nature.
What's the world's most boring biscuit doing in the news? How dare you, sir! It is one of the finest biscuits in the land, as proved by the fact that it is the main ingredient in one of the wedding cakes in the forthcoming nuptials of Prince William and the lovely Kate Middleton.
A royal wedding cake made of biscuits? Really? Yes indeed, broken up and mixed with dark chocolate, condensed milk, a bit of butter, some nuts, raisins and some optional glace cherries and then bunged in the freezer rather than baked in the oven.
Hmm. Just like momma used to make. Or nanny, at least. It was William's favourite treat as a child.
Truly, there is a part of every native Englishman that never leaves the nursery, what what? True. You just have to hope that you end up married to one of the ones who are happy with rice pudding or a daft cake rather than those who require regular spanking in specialist Mayfair brothels.
I think we should stick to talking about biscuits. Why is Rich Tea the preferred option? They are famously frangible, as Peter Kay's rant about their "one-dunk" properties reminds us. The robust HobNob ("The marine of the biscuit world") would surely be a better choice. Ah, but the Rich Tea has more appropriate lineage. It was invented in the 17th century for the upper classes as light snack between meals and impregnating the scullery maids. Its most direct ancestor was baked for the first earl of Strafford by his chef Keryn Knight.
That explains why it's too large and flimsy for dunking – such an activity would have been frightfully infra dig. Quite. So perhaps we could all try to behave with a little more decorum around McVitie's finest from now on, could we? Lovely. Thank you.
Do say: "This isn't the most disgusting frozen concoction I've come across in my life at all!"
Don't say: "Could we have some cornflake-and-syrup fairy cakes as well?"
