Invent a new flavour of crisp

Invent a new flavor of crisps

I'd like to start this post by explaining that i've given myself many distractions during the upcoming week of this blog entry. It's deadline was saturday the twenty eighth of April and i am submitting mine on the first of May. 

I'd also like to point out that the title this month was provided by me and i truly regret writing the words down on the paper before putting it into the hat.

So here we go:

Ladies and gentlemen feast your eyes, mouths and bellies on a crisp. 

But what?

You've never heard of Prime Spud (trademark) before?

NONSENSE! Prime Spud (trademark) is the new crisp on the tip of everyones tongue. It has perfect texture. Perfect CRUNCH! PERFECT FLAVOURS!

That's right, our great variety of flavours will have you trembling with pure potato pleasure!

Flavours like: Number 1, number 2, number 3, number 5, number 7, number 11, number 13, number 17.......

Waaaaa?

THAT'S NOT WHAT PRIME SPUD (trademark) STANDS FOR!

We have REAL flavours, such as:

Dragon Age flavour. Wrap your tongues and bite your teeth into the tantalizing taste of Archdaemon Dragon stake flavour. It's Fiery!

How about Fallout: New Vegas Falvour? These crisps are RADIOACTIVE! And that's not even the best part! They taste better than a DeathClaw omelet! Mmmm.

If that's not you're style, why not try Dead Space flavour! Have you ever tasted pure zero gravity? It'll chop your limbs off! 

All these flavours and many more at your nearest Prime Spud Crisp stand. Or get them online at primespudcrisp.com/unreal/reallynotreal! Standard delivery charge.

 And for one month only you can get our limited edition flavour.

CROC FLAVOUR! You get the true taste of classic platformer legend Croc with a peppering of Gobbos just for good measure! It has that classic, colourful yet boring taste! GET IT NOW!

Prime Spud (trademark) 

stimulates your

Taste Bud!

*****

Another use for a crisp

Tetrahedron whined plaintively under the ferocious gaze of my dearest wife.  Such a coward, I thought, as I attempted to sidle through a nearby door.  No such luck.

"…and you, Maxi.  Why?!" she trilled at me.  Skies above!

Lounging in one of the many lounging rooms which festoon my manor house, Tetrahedron and I had been workshopping ways in which we could regain some favour in the eyes of our darling Queen Vicky-Tory I.  It is not easy to think up a novel gift for a Queen.  She is sure to have been inundated with an encyclopaedia's worth of novel gifts.  Our gift would have to be more than novel.  It would have to be trilogy.

"Dear Ian," I said to him "we are going to need a very trilogy idea to please Vicky-Tory."  He looked at me blankly.  Quite understandable, of course.  The joke doesn't really work, but I was damned if I wasn't going to use it.  I was irked, and it was the best I could do at the time, so he was going to have to lump it.  "What do you think, then?  Lay your ideas on me."

My good companion indulged in a spot of handwringing, his favourite pastime when he is caught without an idea.  If brains were like secret organisations then all of Ian Tetrahedron's secret operatives were often openly inoperative.  I gave him a moment, and saw the briefest blip from what I could only assume was a very lonely secret agent.

"Well~" Tetrahedron allowed, his hands having been entirely wrung "I've heard that Vicky-Tory is a bit of a snacker, Max, she loves new and interesting snacks."

"Does she?" I replied, feigning distracted disinterest, but in reality I was delighted to be given even this scrap of information.  After all, if this eventually was revealed to be untrue then blame would earth itself to Tetrahedron as the originator of the idea.  A very pleasing state of affairs.

"So I hear, so I hear.  Apparently, she becomes very enthused every time a potato crisping manufacturer runs a competition to invent new and novel flavours.  Rumours tell that she never invents flavours herself, but she is free and easy with her rewards for those who do."

Eyes aglitter with a plan spreading out organically in front of me, I smiled and clapped Tetrahedron heavily on the back.

We found ourselves in a large industrial building the next day, not in the main hollow but, passing through an officious-looking portal we were shown to a smaller, meticulously clean room.  It was a spacious kitchen area, the surfaces gleaming with fresh cleanliness and the reflections of the equally clean implements which adorned the walls.  The room's cupboards had glass windows, behind which we could see all manner of pots and pans.  In my suit, I felt a little out of place.  I would have felt worse were it not for the similarly besuited Tetrahedron beside me.  The presence of my correctly attired butler, Simkins, became an instant annoyance.  We'd brought him along as we figured that he had more practical experience when it came to… well, maybe not cooking.  Perhaps we simply felt he was more practically experienced generally.  He certainly has silver hair, which suggests an amount of experience.

I could have directly confronted Simkins, since it was his butlerian responsibility to clothe me appropriately.  How was I to know?  It is not for me to know which clothes I should wear, that is why I employ the man!  But it doesn't do to directly confront the staff.  It simply isn't Done.  The Willoughbys never confront their staff, and in this way we can hold our heads high and proclaim that we have the best staff; staff that never make mistakes.  Catching my eye, Simkins closed the space between us and with an imperceptible lowering of his head informed me that factory clothes for Tetrahedron and myself were contained in the rucksack he'd prepared.  I would have felt bad for doubting him, but fortunately I am a Willoughby, and so I hadn't.

Mentally wiping my brow I caught sight of a figure approaching us at a pace.  With a stride so strident it approached goose-stepping, the figure bore down upon us and in our turns visited us each with a wank-stopper of a handshake.

"Basil Fullsugar, gentlemen," he declared, steadying himself and sucking a full breath through teeth clamped tight in an eternal grin.  Ah yes, one of Isabella's friends.  It never ceases to amaze me that my dearest wife, Lady Isabella Willoughby, manages to keep acquaintances with people so many and varied.  Such strange creatures, most of them.  This Fullsugar fellow was an entrepreneur who'd made his mark on the business world because of the fascinating and commendable things he thought to do with potatoes.  Quite scandalous, some of them, but you know the sorts of things that'll excite the plebs.  Who better to help us in our endeavours to win back the favour of our splendid Queen?

All kitted out appropriately, we were soon up to our navels in potato viscera, and we juddered industriously in a frenzy of creation.  We were Veg Lords, Masters of all that Grows Below Ground.  When the snackers of the world experience how delectable our snack is, we thought, they would curse themselves as buffoons for ever having delected anything else.  The value of deliciousness was about to be engorged beyond all recognition.  Or so we thought.

Fullsugar had insisted that he would accompany us to Court so that we could present our new flavour to the Queen.  You don't get to be a successful entrepreneur by missing a trick.  Fullsugar was a canny devil, he had developed a second sight which acted like a sheet of coloured gauze which could descend over his eyes and highlighted each and every trick in a prominent golden colour.  "I am a fucking trick!" each trick would scream, "don't miss me!"  And he didn't.  However, as the miners who discovered the sparkling faeces of the underground armpiglets now appreciate, not all that glitters is gold.

Resplendent in her regal finery, a shimmering magisterial glow hovering around her, Queen Vicky-Tory Thronetaker the First choked on a crisp.  A detonation of jagged fried tater shards hurriedly evacuated her mouth and settled in the hair of her nearby sycophants.  I swear I saw one of them pick a crumb out of his hair and ferret it away in his pocket; a potential family heirloom.

Shocked, hurt and angry, Vicky-Tory's gaze swept upon us like the beam of the lighthouse of utter buggery.  Had I not seen him since, I would swear that the look turned Tetrahedron to ash on the spot.  The Queen was quickly ushered to seclusion, and we three inventors made ourselves scarce.  We were confronted by Coyster, the Queen's secretary, as we attempted to make good our escape.  He pushed our crisps into our reluctant arms, and with eyelids at half-mast droned at us.  "Gentlemen, while some saucy individuals may delight that their rubber preventatives have the interesting flavours usually attributed to crisps, no single person, and certainly not our Queen, enjoys the situation being reversed."

We later discovered that Tetrahedron had gleaned his secret information from none other than Dominic leRevven, the greasy sponge, who'd set us up for a fall.  No doubt he was delighted by the stupendous scope of our regrettable misfire.  Condom flavoured crisps.  How was I to know?  I've never had the misfortune of tasting such devices, nor have I visited such on my dear wife.  No indeed.  We use no protection, and should we have the grand misfortune of falling pregnant then we will have an abortion as the Lord intended.

As I had done countless times before I glanced at Tetrahedron and wondered why I continued our acquaintance.  My wife fumed animatedly and the room become claustrophobic as it filled up with her copiously offloaded ire.  Slumped in my fourth favourite armchair, Basil Fullsugar was a pathetic, broken figure.  He had built his reputation on potatoes, and now his empire was mash.  How fickle is popularity I thought, safe in the knowledge that I had never had the ill-fortune of being popular.  Weeping wanly into his golden cufflinks, Fullsugar deflated even further.

Well, I thought to myself, though this has largely been a complete mess of a day, at least a well-respected, successful businessman has been brought to his knees for no reason at all.  Though nothing of worth had been achieved, nor any progression or advancement made, at least the status quo had been shaken up a little.  There's little worse in this world than stagnation, I thought to myself, dipping a bourbon biscuit into my milk and eating it with a single bite.

*****

Dafydd Evans
Adam Gilder