January 09, 2004
Old Skool
It's probably a clue that you're drinking too much when the people in the local off licence (US: liquor store) greet you like an old friend and reward your faithful custom with little gifts of candy. God knows how this tradition began -- I blame Ian -- but these days nearly every wine purchase is accompanied by some little sweet tidbit or other.
Case in point: the astonishingly old school wafer biscuit whose wrapper is pictured above. I somehow believed that they didn't make 'em like that anymore, but evidently I was wrong.
Looking at this scrap of 1940s styling, I imagine T. Tunnock of Uddingston as a dour, octagenarian Scot fighting a losing battle against the modern confectionery industry. His upstart grandchildren have tried to get him to move on to modern plastic wrappings in bright primary colours, but he's having none of it. "Ye'll bring in that new-fangled shite over ma deid body!" he cries, standing shakily at the bakery gates brandishing his claymore.
Which is no doubt what they want us to think. More likely Tunnock's is just another tentacle of Nestlé.
Anyway, let me draw your attention to the following factoid on the label: "More than 4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week." How many? Where the fuck do they all go? At "Net 26.5g" each, that's over 100 tonnes of biscuits. Just imagine the oven capacity required to bake the bloody things, let alone the vats of chocolate to coat them and the acreage of red-and-gold foil paper wrapping. And this, by the standards of the food industry, is a small scale operation.
Humans are notoriously bad at comprehending big numbers. We have no sense of proportion. But every now and then it's possible to snatch a tiny glimpse of the size of things, and it's enough to give you vertigo.
I feel quite faint after that. I think I'd better have another caramel biscuit to settle my stomach.
Posted by matt at January 9, 2004 12:36 PM
Last time I went to my local offy before xmas, somebody put a handful of sweets in my booze bag. I only noticed when I got home. I dumped them out on the two-foot high rubbish bin that passes as my 'table', and I've been eyeing them suspiciously ever since. Definitely poisoned. Don't like sweets anyway.
[/ontopic] Anyway, I'll fuck off and leave you alone now. Here, I mean. The whining will obviously continue at work. Posted by: atym at January 9, 2004 09:44 PM
Haven't got time to do the math for the earth...
Where do all the wrappers go !! Posted by: Simon at April 5, 2005 01:41 PM
