Snack of the Month - return to the biscuit zoo

Back in December, I posted about Leibniz Zoo animal shaped biscuits as my Snack of the Month. Since then I've eaten some more biscuit animals...

First up, Dream Animals by Ginbis, a brand I have only ever seen in Home Bargains.

I had high hopes from the packaging. The cartoon animals looked cute although the blobby looking biscuits in the background looked less promising.

The foil packet inside the box also had cute animals on. 

But the biscuits themselves were so poorly defined they all had to be labelled to help you work out what they were meant to be. I think "M.DUCK" stands for mallard duck, but it gave me an unfortunate Hanson earworm. 

Taste-wise these 'butter biscuits' tasted buttery and weren't too sweet. They also had a smidgeon of salt on them, which offset the sweetness. But overall they weren't as nice as the Leibniz animals. 

As a nice touch, though, the back of the box was educational.

Did you know the German word for hippo was nilpferd? I didn't.

I fared better with another Home Bargains purchase, Koala March biscuits made by Lotte. The box is bilingual.

The koala shaped biscuits inside have different characters printed on them. The foil inner sleeve is cute too. 

The biscuits had a chocolate filling. The biscuit was crunchy and the filling had a nice chocolate taste. It was a very sweet combination. No weird saltiness here!

To add to the excitement, there is also a 'message card' included.

The mystery message card in this box was of Fluffy the astronaut koala.

I'm afraid the message for Fluffy was that he (or she?) was getting recycled along with the box.

Hier Kommt Alex

One of the unexpected side effects of playing Guitar Hero is that I've developed a liking for German punk metal. Well, one song - Hier Kommt Alex by Die Toten Hosen.

Looking up on Wikipedia, it's from their concept album dedicated to a Clockwork Orange (such a good book), which explains why they're using the popular-with-droogs phrase 'horror show'. And their name means 'the dead trousers', vernacular for impotent. Good old Wikipedia.

I quite like the band logo too. Might see if I can find it on a t-shirt.

Two completely unrelated factoids

I saw these in this week's issue of The Week.

Factoid 1
Women who have their breasts surgically enhanced are three times more likely to commit suicide than other women.

Which leads me to ask: is having surgery a contributory factor to suicide, or are women who are depressed/stressed/emotionally imbalanced drawn to extreme methods of reinvention, e.g cosmetic surgery? Or is is just that having a breast enlargement is an indicator that you're stuck in a lifestyle that it's hard to exit from (e.g. the porn industry) and so the "only way out" is suicide?

Factoid 2
In 1935, 7.5% of Germans were members of the Nazi party; among teachers that figure was nearly one-third.

Which begs the question: are teachers more likely to become Nazis, or are Nazis more likely to become teachers? And is there a discernible difference?

Neighbourinos

Recently Cath and I were sitting outside our friends' new house waiting for them to come back. And while we did so we were flicking through a pile of hymn books, like you do. In this case, it was to try and find nice hymns for a wedding.

One of the books - 'World Praise' of the Mission Praise ilk - had an international section which meant a number of very popular songs and hymns were published in English, Spanish and German. Being a cultured internationalist, and uniquely gifted singer to boot, I was soon regaling my wife with well-known songs in German. True, I have no idea how to pronounce German words, but we had the car windows open and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a good impression on our friends' new neighbours by singing hymns in German very loudly. Who knows there may have been a German speaker within earshot who heard my singing and fell to their knees in prayer and supplication begging God to make it stop.

And, just so readers of this blog don't feel left out, here's one of the songs. See if you can guess what it is...
Der Himmel zeugt
von der Herrlichkeit des Herrn der Herr'n.
Wer ist ihm gleich,
dem einzig Auferstandenen?
In Ewigkeit bist du
das Lamm auf Gottes Thron!
Ich beuge meine Knie
und bete an den Sohn.

Extending my vocabulary

According to Helen who I work with, her daughter calls a bra a “booby vest”.

I think I have definitely got to start using that term myself. It tells you everything you need to know about the complex and mysterious items that are women’s underwear.

Viv tells me that the German for bra is “Bustenhalter”. This, again, is a very useful word to know. (My favourite German word is “Fussballrowdie” meaning ‘football hooligan’.)