“I can’t believe it’s true.” I say to myself incredulously as I grab another biscuit from the packet, tearing at its wrapper to get inside. I dunk it into the steaming hot cup of tea, waiting impatiently for the chocolate to melt. Usually, the chocolate melting into a cuppa would annoy me to no end but today was different. Today, I needed the truth.
As the chocolate melts away, I see the sight Phil has promised. Mind blown.
I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of The Planet of the Apes, seeing the statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand. The truth had been there in plain sight all along.
"You maniacs! Damn you all to hell!"
I phone Phil immediately, just as he predicted I would in the pub earlier. Our usual chat about football, music, and spreadsheets (Phil works in Accounts, too) had been detonated by the biscuit bombshell he had dropped onto our conversation.
"I told you it was true." I can hear the smugness in his voice. "It's been public knowledge for years; I can't believe you didn't know it already. Everybody knows that a penguin biscuit is just a bourbon biscuit coated in chocolate!"
After the call I think about it more and stare intensely at the brown tea-drenched rectangular shape on the plate in front of me.
Is it really a bourbon though? Yes, the trademark holes are there in the top half of the biscuit, but it doesn’t actually say Bourbon on the top as Phil said it would. Does it still count as a Bourbon?
There was only one authority I could go to in order to get the answers I needed... McVities themselves.
I headed to their Twitter page (no one calls it X Elon, grow up!), and I sent them a message
But then scroll down their page, and see that someone else had already asked them this same question in 2018, and they had answered it definitively.
So, the biscuit part is from a Bourbon, but the filling and chocolate are not. So, maybe 50% Bourbon?
The next day, I phone Phil and explain to him that "a penguin is only 50% Bourbon, at most." The line goes quiet for a moment, so I continue "50% does not make a penguin a bourbon. Come on Phil, admit that you were wrong."
He refuses.
After the call, I sent him a clip from The Office TV show to illustrate my point. It's a talking head scene, where David Brent is talking to the camera about Mr. Spock’s parentage, to settle an argument on whether Mr. Spock is an alien. Mr. Spock is 50% Vulcan, 50% human.
This is the transcript of that scene.
Brent: "It's like saying I've got a new pedigree dog breed. It's half Alsatian, half Labrador". I go on to Crufts, I go, "Can I enter this dog in the Labrador section?" "No." "Why?" "Because it's not a Labrador." "Correct." "Can I enter it in the Alsatian section?" "No. For the same reasons. Now get that dog out of my sight." "Thanks, I will. You've proved my point." And that's Crufts...
The two blue ticks appear on my WhatsApp message, meaning he has seen my message, and watched the clip. I settle back into my armchair. Phil's fast reply moments later though, pulls me back out of my self-righteous bliss.
"Yes, but my point is that you were surprised by it. It's 50% more bourbon that you were expecting to find in a penguin, and we both know it's that 50% you'll be thinking of every time you eat one from now on."
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