Review of the year 2011

I HATE REVIEWS OF THE YEAR. Basically an excuse for lazy, lazy journalists to fill up page after page of their papers/magazines with cut-and-pasted bore-o-grams rehashing the past 12 months.

Oh good some OLD news. Doesn't that sort of negate the whole concept of 'news' - it's supposed to be new, right? HEY! Remember that thing that happened in April? YES I DO REMEMBER IT. IT WAS ONLY 8 MONTHS AGO MY BRAIN IS CAPABLE OF REMEMBERING THINGS THAT HAPPENED WITHIN THE LAST 12 MONTHS. Thanks for reminding me of it about in a bite-sized paragraph though - I'd almost forgotten that there was a Royal Wedding this year, it's not like I heard much about it at the time. Tell you what, why don't you try writing something new and interesting rather than just regurgitating tweets from Ashton Kutcher next to a picture of Pippa Middleton's bottom?

(the BBC couldn't even name their 12 best pandas of 2011 without resorting to including random women)

A better thing to do would be to add up all the good things that happened in 2011, add up all the bad things that happened in 2011, work out the percentage and turn it into a pie-chart. Then put that on the cover of the newspaper with the following caption: "USE YOUR OWN BRAIN TO REMEMBER THINGS THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY"

like this:

Anyway with that in mind, here is the compulsory Gobble Monkey review of the year 2011:

Jan-Feb: not much happened in these months

March: or this one.

April: Cadbury's Creme Egg McFlurry goes on sale.

May: Gobble Monkey arrives on the Internet!

June: The Natural Confectionery Company confused everyone with the release of Guzzle Puzzle - accompanied by a barely broadcastable advert that succeeded in sexualising the gummy sweets and alienating almost all over their core audience (except perverts)

July: Swizzels Matlow Pigs Mugs receive the highest ever Gobble Monkey rating and subsequently sell-out across the UK.

August: Turbo Tango is released. It's a massive failure.

September: Gobble Monkey cereal Twix Mix launched. It's a massive failure.

October: Wispa prematurely re-launch Wispa Golds in a bid to capitalise on the Olympics almost an entire year too early.

Mid October: Giant evil robot Mega-Zoid attacks London, stepping on St Pauls and squishing the millennium wheel.
November: Nothing

December: Galaxy Truffles removed from boxes of Celebrations.

But what joys will 2012 hold? Will it finally be the year of the Twix McFlurry? (Clue: no)

The big confectionery boom in 2011 was the introduction of large sharing size 'grab bag' style packets of chocolates like Crunchie Rocks and KitKat Pop Chocs. I think we'll see more of these and perhaps another new range of gummy sweets after the huge success of Rowntrees Randoms. But I predict there will be few new launches, with the big choc companies playing it safe by tweaking their classic brands or testing the market with 'limited edition' variations like the Flake Allure and Triple Choc Mars we saw this year.

Have a good 2012!

Moshi Monsters

what the hell is a Moshi Monster? Am I supposed to know? They look stupid.

One is obviously a panda, that one with the sunglasses is a bird I think, and then there's the crazy purple star thing. In what world would those three hang out together? Maybe the bird and the panda would be friends but definitely not that purple star thing. He looks mental.

Now, check out these 'Monster Jokes' on the back of the packet.

"What's hairy and coughs?"

That could be anything.

"What do you get if you cross Flumpy with a dozen eggs?"

A Flumpy omelette?

What sort of a joke is that anyway? Who is Flumpy? Why is he being crossed with eggs - and why a specific number of eggs?

Then there's this one:

"What does Waldo eat for dinner?"

Even if I knew what Waldo was, I cannot fathom an answer to that joke which would be at all funny or make any sense whatsoever.

Let me tell you, the answer to these jokes are NOWHERE on the packet. I looked everywhere.
I was even forced to visit the Moshi Monsters website to search for them but they ARE NOT THERE EITHER.

But then I realised...

Perhaps they are not really jokes at all, but existential questions designed to make children question the world beyond their limited brains. The answers are not available anywhere because there are no answers, except the truth you find within yourself.

It becomes clearer when you look at the sweets themselves: 

Stare at that for a minute and then tell me the layers of your brain aren't peeling off like an existential onion.

Now look at this little fellow:

Does he look like a monster to you? No he is a jolly gingerbread man isn't he.  OR IS HE? Maybe he is laughing at your face. Does he know what Waldo has for dinner? Maybe he IS Waldo?

I was wrong about Moshi Monsters - they are not stupid, they are the opposite. They've made me question every single thing I thought I knew about the universe.

My only option was to gobble them all up before my brain exploded. (they all tasted really nice by the way.)

Moshi Monsters, 50p, from Bazooka Candy.
Gobble Monkey says: 6 out of 7

EDIT: new information has come to light since writing this post.
See:  Moshi Monsters: Addendum

Butteries

Imagine a salty flat croissant. I bet you never thought you'd have to imagine such a thing did you? But now you have imagined one, imagine eating it. Finished? Did you like it? You did?

WELL IN YOUR FACE ENGLISHMAN - you've just imagined eating a Buttery.  And you loved it.

The English love to constantly have a pop at Scottish cuisine HA HA HA fried mars bar, haggis, irn bru etc
WHATEVS - this is coming from a country who's national dish is a lump of meat that's been shoved in the oven for 7hrs, then placed next to three potatoes and a sprout. That and Monster Munch.

Anyway, what the English don't realise is that their Tartan cousins also invented these:

BUTTERIES. Scotland's secret pastry.

Can you guess what the main ingredient is?

WRONG actually there is NO butter involved - just lard and margarine. But what is butter but a cheap lard substitute anyway?

(notice that 'salt' is listed not once but twice on the ingredients. That is a good clue to the taste. A more accurate name for a 'buttery' would in fact be a 'Saltie')

In the olden days, a Scottish fisherman would take a Buttery to sea, it's high salt content keeping it from going off during long journeys.

Today, you toast them for breakfast and then add butter (OR EXTRA LARD). Top with a sweet conserve or honey to counter-act the saltiness, and they become incredibly moreish.

If the Buttery had been created in France, we'd all be scoffing them at posh dinner parties in Kent while talking incessantly about Stamp Duty and that new Waitrose that's opened on the high street. Instead, no one outside Aberdeen has ever even seen one, and if they did, they'd probably throw it back into the sea from whence (they believed) it came.

And you claim not to be a massive racist? THINK AGAIN MY FRIEND, THINK AGAIN.

Butteries, £1.35 for four
Gobble Monkey says 6 out of 7