If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit

I won’t be joining this club,
But I’ll forever think of it when I see a certain snack

Jacob's Club Biscuit

Ah, Jacob’s Club biscuits, those silver wrapped chunky chocolate staples of my childhood school lunchbox. I haven’t thought of them in years.

Few Brits of similar vintage to myself will need a reminder but, for the uninitiated, Club biscuits were one of W&R Jacob’s more successful offerings in the cramped and crowded British snack market, a small but thick wafer generously coated in chocolate and offered in a variety of flavours such as orange and mint. Few Brits of similar vintage to myself will need a reminder because one of the reasons for its success was its annoyingly memorable advertising jingle “If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our club.” A tune which ranked 7th in a 2012 survey of the catchiest advertising jingles of all time.

It was in fact that jingle that brought the memories flooding back.

Indulging my predilection for using the gym during less sociable hours (when it’s comparatively knob-head free and the kit I want isn’t being hogged) I noticed two very friendly gentlemen emerging from the showers while I was getting changed. A man with a build to put a Calvin Klein underwear model to shame was in rather close company with a foppish, longhaired rake of a lad who took camp to similarly impressive levels.

And then I heard it. Apropos of apparently nothing and delivered slathered in suggestiveness.

“If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our club.”

I was nonplussed. Then I heard it again with subtitles; in particular a lewd groinal nod during the word “biscuit” and inviting wiggle of the ass at the end.

“If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our clu-uub”

Three thoughts occurred in fairly rapid succession.

In my 40 years on this planet I’d never twigged to the gay sex double entendre in this little child-pleasing advertising ditty
First off, in my 40 years on this planet I’d never twigged to the gay sex double entendre in this little child-pleasing advertising ditty. Delivered as it was that night it’s actually rather hard to imagine the song ever had a clean meaning.

Secondly, I will now forever be reminded of gay sex whenever I see a Jacob’s Club biscuit or hear that dratted song.

Thirdly, why will I now forever be reminded of gay sex whenever I see a Jacob’s Club biscuit or hear that dratted song?

 

Guilt by association

In my younger years I remember visiting a terminally sick relative who had reached the doubly incontinent stage of their demise. Mindful of both the sufferer’s shame and the comfort of their visitors their family were using a rather heavy air-freshener – Vanilla Flowers – to disguise the odour. It wasn’t entirely successful and even now, whenever I smell that particular scent I instantly think I can smell sweet, sickly shit at the same time.

Several times in my career I’ve worked with people who pronounce common words in an odd fashion. In my first job one of my colleagues insisted on pronouncing “duplicate” with a hard “du” rather than a softer “dew” (“d-up-licate”). In my second role my manager was rather fond of pronouncing MIME (an Internet standard I won’t bore you about) “mi-mi” rather than the more familiar way to rhyme with “mine”. Whether these were regional things or merely personal quirks they have stuck with me like leeches. I still have to stop myself pronouncing “duplicate” with a hard “du”, or saying “mi-mi” when I want to say mime.

From now on whenever I spy Jacob’s Club biscuits in the supermarket aisle I will instantly be reminded of a different club entirely. And I suspect pass straight along to the Kit-Kats

The human brain, especially its long-term memory, works by association. Quite often when we’re reminded of something from the past it sets in train a succession of associated memories, a succession that repeats itself every time we’re reminded of the same thing. Thinking of a trip I’ve taken for example might remind me of a song I heard or a book I was reading or a toothsome local tipple I first quaffed at the time. And in reverse the song, the story or the shot will remind me of that place.

Oddball events we encounter in life don’t necessarily fit the established patterns in our long-term memory. Perhaps for this reason they become amplified, stronger in our minds because their very exceptionality demands that reinforcement lest they slip away.

And so I know that from now on whenever I spy Jacob’s Club biscuits in the supermarket aisle I will instantly be reminded of a different club entirely.

And I suspect pass straight along to the Kit-Kats.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *