Colm O'Regan: You know about crisp sandwiches, but what about 'work biscuits'?

Irish Examiner

3 days ago

Work biscuit: It sounds like a unicorn $100 billion company that promises an AI platform that will revolutionise how we blah blah.
But it's not. Work biscuits are just biscuits that are suitable to store at work. My wife coined it for biscuits that need to be nice enough to give a little bit of a kick but not nice enough to be all eaten in one crumb and regret laden orgy.
Now that's a tribute to her wife's self restraint. Regardless of what they are, I will eat my village's entire winter stores of biscuit while standing at the sink, without any memory of ever having eaten them.
It gets me thinking about the other things that are surprisingly suitable. Things that fit the moment...
Sandwich crisps
Like the choice of 'sandwich crisps'. Crisps that are the right flavour and shape to be laid delicately on top of a layer of bread, strong enough to hold their own against the sandwich filling flavour, and not break up into a million pieces.
For me it's the Manhattan Cheese And Onion variety in its sleek black packaging. Too strong to binge on them neat but in a sandwich, perfect. They are pub crisps and rarely found in shops unless it's a small shop where the owner knows a fella.
Hotel TV
What are the programmes you can watch from the bed or listen to from the jacks? It can't be too long. You're there for a stag/hen even though truth be told you'd rather stay in as this is the best chance of doing nothing that you'll get in yonks.
But to leave your partner at home and then go away and just sleep is nearly worse than going out and getting balubas. It's an unauthorised change in the contract.
For Hotel TV I recommend one episode of an average American procedural cop show like NCIS, one episode of a baffling British quiz show presented by someone who used to be funny, or just inexplicably getting stuck into a documentary on solar power in Botswana on Bloomberg Africa.
Colm O'Regan: "They come and go in fashion but the basic denim jacket has a surprisingly suitable trick up its sleeve..." Picture: Chani Anderson
Ireland's Own
Next up, you're in a waiting room. The TV NOW! magazines are not doing it for you. But peeping out from underneath a GET 100 ABS! men's health magazine, there's an Ireland's Own.
You haven't read it in yonks but now you're finding out a surprising fact about Philomena Begley or wondering how amateur detective Miss Flanagan will get to the bottom of this week's mystery (...she was a retired school teacher in it decades ago, so could be well into her eleventies now).
Denim jackets
They come and go in fashion but the basic denim jacket has a surprisingly suitable trick up its sleeve. Or rather next to its sleeve.
The Denim Jacket's Inside Pockets. An anomaly of physics. How a simple jacket that is barely the length of your torso has inside pockets that hold as much as a small van.
Scarves, books, cans, shopping, umbrellas, a spare jacket. An underappreciated design classic.
Replacements
And one final, category of surprisingly suitable are Things You Bought Because Your Forgot Your Own One.
These iconic replacements are still around decades later. These are the Michael J Fox in Back to the Future, the Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. Stars who were not the first choice but turned out to be perfect in a role.
Black shoes bought in a hurry in Dunnes 10 minutes before a wedding. That coat that wouldn't normally be you but it helped you out of a hole so you're fond of it. These have all stood the test of time and you've forgotten who they replaced. The Bette Midler (Sister Act) and Eric Stolz (Back to the Future) wardrobe items have long been sent to the charity shop.
What's your surprisingly suitable?
Colm can heard weekly in a new podcast called
A Few Scoops with Aoife Moore on GoLoud or wherever you get your podcasts
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