The Bookworm Club Review
Created | Updated Nov 10, 2005
All reviews are written by members of The H2G2 Bookworm's Club. We hope this review is helpful, and that we'll see you airing your views at the Club soon.
nice cup of tea and a sit down by Nicey and Wifey
Mmm... oooh, *munch* yum, ooh, sorry, did I just splutter crumbs at you? Hang on, just let me have a mouthful of tea and... ah yes! That's better.
Right then, in honour of this exceedingly fine little volume, could you all sit yourselves down and arm yourselves with a nice cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. Lovely. That's it, really, for this week's book is all about this pleasant pastime. Generally, though not exclusively, a British institution, nice cup of tea and a sit down explores the finer elements of tea, biscuits, cake and sitting down. It also bravely examines foreign quirks: for example, the Australian 'Tim Tam' — a sort of lesser 'Penguin' that can be used as a straw in the 'Tim Tam Slam'. Not a very right and proper way to treat a biscuit, but it does sound like brilliantly gooey, chocolaty fun. What better fun is there, really?
Of course, it's not all fun and games, oh no. Nicey (real name Stuart, but that's a bit boring, don't you think?) also ponders such important questions as 'is a Jaffa Cake really a cake or is it a biscuit?', the answer being something to do with tax — which is a very serious matter. And then there is the matter of dunking and how to do it when the biscuit is bigger than the cup. And the intrinsic difference between a biscuit (wonderful British invention) and the cookie (American, but that's not its fault).
The title nice cup of tea and a sit down might seem a bit familiar to you. That's because it started life as a very cool website, the articles of which you can get via an RSS feed, which is rather useful. The idea of a website — and, of course, book — devoted to tea and biscuits seems like something Arthur Dent would approve of. And when reading the book you do get a flavour of Adamsesque writing. I'm off to try malted milk biscuits (They have cows on them; could biscuits get any cooler?) and may I strongly suggest that before you read this book you stockpile: it's thirsty work and you get awfully peckish!
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