Comments on: Dinosaurus and their Biscuits

Dinosaurus and their Biscuits

thirteenkiller — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:49:48 -0800

Here is a nice site about dinosaurs and biscuits. Don't miss their answer to the age-old Jaffa cake controversy!

By: serazin

serazin — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:57:17 -0800

I tried Jaffa cakes once. Yech.

By: Atom Eyes

Atom Eyes — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:05:39 -0800

Those aren't biscuits, they're cookies! It has been well-established that dinosaurs had an affinity for cookies. This is not really news.

By: gurple

gurple — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:09:12 -0800

As an American, I find the biscuit/cookie difference troubling. I often wonder if it's symmetrical -- does a "cookie" in Britain refer to, say, a sprocket wrench? We should settle our differences. Henceforth all these things are "bookies". That shouldn't confuse anyone.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:09:18 -0800

thirteenkiller, I love this site! And now I think I know why monkey punch dinosaur - not enough biscuits to go around, probably. Now I really want some of those dino cookies.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:14:35 -0800

Interesting, although I wish the site touched even briefly upon the relationship between zombies and carrot cake, not to mention the controversial recent findings regarding Vikings and chocolate éclairs.

By: tomsk

tomsk — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:15:22 -0800

I find their classification unconvincing. True, Jammie Dodgers and Fig Rolls are not as firm as most other biscuits, but they are clearly not composed of sponge, like the Jaffa Cake. I expect that compositional analysis would show that Jammie Dodgers are in fact far more closely related to Custard Creams. The Pseudobiscuit classification seems a specious grouping that could only be arrived at through a flawed methodology. Jaffa Cakes would be more accurately classified as a Microcake, along with Mini Swiss Rolls and Tunnocks Tea Cakes. They're right about the dinosaurs though. They loved their biscuits.

By: everichon

everichon — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:27:19 -0800

I think it was the (now discredited) Robert Bakker who first suggested that the larger carnivores may have enjoyed Tim-Tams.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:11:13 -0800

The site it's hosted on is worth an FPP as well. Bakker's discredited?

By: imperium

imperium — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:30:34 -0800

The final link includes this, which is an outstanding anecdote/rant. Yes the VAT man wanted it to be a biscuit. That way it would fall by virtue of its chocolate coat into a category of products liable to VAT at the standard rate, i.e. luxury biscuits. As a cake however it is zero rated for VAT, no matter how luxuriant, much to the VAT man's continuing annoyance. In fact Wifey and I once had a chat with ex Tory Minister John Knott who brought in VAT when the Conservative Government of the time took Britain into the Common Market. He recalled that the whole VAT introduction went surprisingly well expect for the Jaffa cake which caused all sorts of problems. In 1991 the matter went to a tribunal (number 6344 in case you were wondering) in which the VAT man argued that the Jaffa wasn't a cake and so should not be exempt from VAT (VATA 1983 Sch 5 Group 1 excepted item 2), trotting out all the old arguments. McVities countered with all of the other old arguments plus a specially prepared 12 inch Jaffa Cake, which focused the tribunal's attention on the sponge base. The tribunal concluded that, while the product also had characteristics of biscuits or confectionery which was not cake, it had sufficient characteristics of cakes to be a cake for the purposes of zero-rating. (The tribunal also determined that the product was not a biscuit.)

By: scalefree

scalefree — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:46:30 -0800

It is also now known that dinosaurs did not eat biscuits randomly, a custard cream here or a hob-nob there. They were picky; if a dinosaur didn't have its preferred teatime snack it would undoubtedly go ape.

This is nonsense. Apes hadn't even been invented back then.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:53:14 -0800

I never knew dinosaurs had such big penises. I mean, biscuits! No, I mean penises.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:54:39 -0800

Well, they're proportional I suppose.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:56:36 -0800

Proportional to what? Four-story buildings?

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:57:42 -0800

A post about cake and nobody e-mailed me? Yeesh. It is cake. I repeat: IT IS CAKE. That is all. Your Vice President of Cake.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:25:21 -0800

It's already been established I know, but Jaffa cakes are not cookies or biscuits. They are small cakes. And I think Dinosaurs invented small cakes.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:02:13 -0800

To a Kiwi, JAFA means "Just Another F**king Aucklander".

By: Kudos

Kudos — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:04:26 -0800

Awesome.

By: everichon

everichon — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:25:28 -0800

Bakker was thoroughly discredited on the Tim-Tam issue; recent developments in cookie dating have revealed T-Rex's biscuit of choice to be hazelnut Quadratini. He has since made some reckless claims about lady fingers, but I've had to just look away.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:55:49 -0800

How bizarre. Is he implying he's found lady fingers below the KT boundary? Right. And cavemen used sauropods as construction equipment.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:14:04 -0800

I understand that in England, Cookie is the person who bakes the biscuits.

By: everichon

everichon — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:21:56 -0800

It actually showed up in Carnets de Geologie, and he had all this pretty hyperspectral data pointing to (Bakker maintained) pervasive Cretaceous tiramisu turnover in the eastern Alps. And I'm like, whatever, dude.

By: fillsthepews

fillsthepews — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:31:48 -0800

Oh man, I could really go for a jaffa BAR right now.

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:40:35 -0800

Love it!

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:58:29 -0800

An extra datapoint to the ongoing Jaffa debate: In Finnish they are called Jaffa biscuits. And taste superior because of the better chocolate we have. Suck it, haters.

By: vbfg

vbfg — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:09:20 -0800

There are two types of cookie in England. The monster variety, which is imported, and the chocolate chip variety, also imported. I fear jammy dodgers are unable to stem the tide of invasion.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:20:21 -0800

Loved his charming cladogram page.