AWAY from the Occupied Six-Counties fry, another staple food of Noel ’n’ Alan was in the spotlight this week. In the research and development wing of Tandragee Castle, Tayto have come up with the bright idea of the ‘Titanic’ crisp to mark the 100th anniversary of one thousand five hundred people drowning in the freezing North Atlantic. As you do.
Squinter would love to have been a fly on the wall when that concept was being hothoused. The initial decision to greenlight a Titanic snack must have been difficult enough, but then there had to have been endless agonising debates over what flavour to opt for, what slogan to adopt, what to put on the packet... In the end they went for
TAYTO
TITANIC
LIGHTLY SALTED
HAND COOKED CRISPS
A FIRST CLASS CRISP
HAND COOKED IN NORTHERN IRELAND
This on a retro monochrome bag with a picture of the ship – but no iceberg and no floating bodies. The smokestacks of the black humour mill are already churning out thick clouds of noxious comment, most on the sea/salt connection, some on the frankly ill-advised FIRST CLASS reference. Squinter? He’s just curious to know how you can hand-cook a crisp without burning your hand – naively he thought Tayto made crisps like every other crisp manufacturer: by chucking thinly-sliced potatoes into massive vats of boiling oil.
Squinter proposes not to join in this carnival of bad taste – it’s too easy a target and, anyway, he seems to remember he cracked a Titanic joke last week or the week before. And when it comes to dodgy jokes, the fewer the better for all concerned.
Just like crisps, come to think of it.
