It's taken a while, but we've finally OTFed this thread good and proper haven't we? By which I mean we've spiralled off to about 6 conversational degrees of separation away from actual Jaffa Cakes in 2 days flat. Tip of the hat, everyone.
(Jaffa Cakes – Jaffa Jonuts – Greggs – Wimpy – Little Chef – '80s car journeys – Vauxhall Cavalier mk. II... yep, 6 degrees!)
I was endeavouring to draw a line of direct connections, sticking purely to the progression of cause and effect, your honour.
A fuller compilation of the web of tangentially connected topics would of course include gherkins, not to mention TimTams, Happy Eater, pub food, throat sweets, mortgages, and Belgium.
I really want to revisit the ok diner on the northbound A1 in Lincolnshire. My Dad and I would stop off when he drove me up to Uni.
OK Diner looms large in our family conscience, being a handy stop when driving to and from cross Channel trips, and the sort of place I'll insist on stopping at in preference to a McDonald's. I don't know if they all have them but one of the ones on the A1 has a forlorn display of signed photos of half forgotten celebs which adds to the poignancy.
Imagine that in red. That's my first car. (not the LXi model though)
I was allowed a budget of up to ?10k, and the car had to have four doors. Otherwise I was able to choose (I didn’t let the four door rule prevent me test driving a Peugeot 205 1.9 GTI. Twenty-four year old me had never known anything like it).
the main part of Jaffa was in the Arab portion of the United Nations Partition Plan, whereas Tel Aviv was not, and no armistice agreements had yet been signed.[52] On 10 December 1948, the government announced the annexation to Tel Aviv of Jaffa's Jewish suburbs, the Arab neighborhood of Abu Kabir, the Arab village of Salama and some of its agricultural land, and the working class Jewish area of Hatikva.[52] On 25 February 1949, the depopulated Arab village of Sheikh Muanis, on the opposite (northeast) side of Tel Aviv from Jaffa, was also annexed to Tel Aviv.[52] On 18 May 1949, the Arab neighbourhood of Manshiya and part of Jaffa's central zone were added, for the first time including land that had been in the Arab portion of the UN partition plan.[52] The government decided on a permanent unification of Tel Aviv and Jaffa on 4 October 1949, but the actual unification was delayed until 24 April 1950 due to concerted opposition from Tel Aviv's mayor Israel Rokach.[52] The name of the unified city was Tel Aviv until 19 August 1950, when it was renamed as Tel Aviv–Yafo in order to preserve the historical name Jaffa.[52]
1. Happy Eater - yes I always thought the character in the logo was trying to induce vomiting;
2. From 1988 to 1990 I had my only job where I drove a lot. I mean a lot. I would tailor my outbound morning drive to reach a Little Chef close enough to my final destination for breakfast. On expenses. For the mid-late afternoon drive home I would buy the largest family bag of M&Ms or Minstrels I could, and empty them into the twin cup holders of the Cavalier for ease of access with my gear lever hand.
The past is another country.
Never mind about the Cavalier, I want to know more about Sits' gear lever hand. It does seem like an odd design of prosthetic to give an amputee. And how do you pick up sweets with it? Do you coat it in golden syrup or something?
I'm surprised to learn that a British car in the 80s had cup holders. I don't remember ever seeing one until I went to the states for the first time which must have been 94.
I'm surprised to learn that a British car in the 80s had cup holders. I don't remember ever seeing one until I went to the states for the first time which must have been 94.
I sort of filled that detail in. There was some sort of cavity into which I could empty an entire family bag of crisp-shelled chocolate treats. Not Treets, sadly.
Never mind about the Cavalier, I want to know more about Sits' gear lever hand. It does seem like an odd design of prosthetic to give an amputee. And how do you pick up sweets with it? Do you coat it in golden syrup or something?
It was a gear lever hand most of the time, for driving. I only switched it to a sweet grabber hand when I knew I wouldn’t be changing gear for a few hundred yards.
Cup holders that weren’t, wrong type of hand - that’ll teach me not to provide sufficient detail.
Edit: now I’ve reminded myself of Treets. Toffee Treets.
I was endeavouring to draw a line of direct connections, sticking purely to the progression of cause and effect, your honour.
A fuller compilation of the web of tangentially connected topics would of course include gherkins, not to mention TimTams, Happy Eater, pub food, throat sweets, mortgages, and Belgium.
That last section reminds me of the Sunshine Desserts computer failure in The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin:
“I didn’t get where I am today selling ice creams tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany!”
A fuller compilation of the web of tangentially connected topics would of course include gherkins, not to mention TimTams, Happy Eater, pub food, throat sweets, mortgages, and Belgium.
That last section reminds me of the Sunshine Desserts computer failure in The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin:
“I didn’t get where I am today selling ice creams tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany!”
”Of course you didn’t, CJ.”
My arranging of that sentence was purely for this sort of effect, to be honest, given that 'Belgium' is one of those "inherently funny words" as I believe the late great Douglas Adams once put it. This was in the context of him altering the American edition of one of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy books (I forget which one), where some passing reference is made to winning a film award for 'Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay'. The US publishers baulked at the f-word – so Adams substituted it with "Belgium", making the joke if anything funnier.
Heh, and in the same vein Adams himself plucked '42' as the Hitchhikers' canon's "answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything" from the ether on exactly those grounds too. The fact that it was a number was the joke, because it was simultaneously obviously a fair-sounding mathematical answer yet entirely meaningless – but it could've been any number, for those purposes. "Forty-two" however was the one he settled on, because it felt, sounded and almost tasted simply 'right' somehow.
You guys have corrupted me. I popped into the little local shop to return an Amazon package on my way to the gym today and stumbled across this monstrosity, Jaffa Jonuts. Obviously I couldn't resist buying one to try and post on here. They are surprisingly not disgusting.
As today is September 1st, it is obviously the day that my local Asda unveiled special Christmas varieties of chocolate digestive, including gingerbread and mince pie flavours.
As today is September 1st, it is obviously the day that my local Asda unveiled special Christmas varieties of chocolate digestive, including gingerbread and mince pie flavours.
I, I, I...might have to give the latter ones a go! Is it an own brand product?
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