Have you heard of National Biscuit Day, a McVities marketing concoction, which came and went last week? Probably not, but in my view, it was as meaningful a prompt to reflect on British culture as any.  There are, of course, both sociologies and histories of the Great British Biscuit, though more as the silent partner in the Great British Tea. In her book Watching the English, Kate Fox makes the good (if obvious) point that tea and all that goes with it is a social lubricant central to English identity and vital for retaining the ability to keep buggering on. 

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My personal interest in biscuits is rooted firmly in the biscuits, not the tea, and specifically in my attachment to their buttery embrace, their reliability, their sheer availability. Biscuits are a hug. Biscuits are a mother. Biscuits are sex. Biscuits also make you fat. 

There’s a lot there to unpack, therefore, in a life lived in tension with the biscuit tin. But one can also keep it simple: some people are savoury (crisps, cheese, pizza) and some are sweet (cake, chocolate, biscuits) – I am sweet.  

Less simply, I am also an emotional person prone to adrenaline spikes and jagged anxiety. Tucking into mounds, tubes, tins of biscuits does two main things: it........

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