the ultimate bag

Comes to a sad state of affairs when you only catch up with the Sunday papers on the following Friday, but sat down with the Observer Music Monthly at the library at lunchtime and not sure why I bothered; from the first few issues when the magazine seemed like a wonderful cross between the NME and the Friday Review, the content seems to have lost its edge.

That said, the final paragraph on the final page, where Lauren Laverne was interviewing The Beautiful South's Alan Bennett-like frontman, Paul Heaton, was a corker.

"LL: Do you still collect crisp packets? And where do you stand on Snack-a-jacks, if so?
PH: Well said. They're not a crisp, are they? Cheesy comestibles are comestibles to me, still, and a crisp is a crisp. Where do you draw the line? The master of cheesy comestibles was Smiths, of course. 121 King's Road, Reading, Berkshire RG12. Square crisps, Frazzles, Quavers, they were all Smiths. All taken over by Walkers! Smiths took over Tudor and Walkers took over Smiths. But Tudor Spring Onion remain the ultimate bag."

Actually, I don't remember Tudors. Before my time. But Vic still insists you can't beat Salt and Vinegar Golden Wonder (not as sharp as the Walkers alternative). I've always sworn by Square crisps, ever since I had to collect 50 packets to get a '100 best ever World Cup goals' video as a kid. But you know what? That rogue square crisp, which looks normal but is unusually brittle and crunchy, seems to be cropping up more and more these days, which I find upsetting. Slipping standards at the Walkers factory, clearly. This country.

Laverne meets Heaton