100 YEARS OLD AND STILL DUNKING THOUGHTFULLY...

SUDDENLY everything has become clear – or has it? The reason behind my new awareness, or otherwise, is a survey into our winter habits that has been conducted by the biscuit people at McVitie’s.

As you probably know, I habitually store the percentages in surveys as I find that they so often explain each other but rarely has a set of figures fitted so well with those I already have.

For example, McVitie’s reveal that 61 per cent of respondents say “staying in” is one of their favourite things to do in the winter. Yet earlier surveys this year reported that 61 per cent of us think well-travelled people are more interesting and 61 per cent of people think fish and chips is among the most traditional British meals.

Does it not occur to these stay-athomes that they might themselves be more interesting if they got out and found something more exciting than fish and chips?

Also, McVitie’s tell us that 28 per cent of people say going out to dinner is a favourite winter thing to do. That sounds promising but 28 per cent of people say their love life is lacklustre. Surely things would improve if they took their loved ones somewhere more exciting than the local chippy.

Furthermore, 21 per cent of people, according to McV, say going to the cinema is a favourite winter pastime, Yet 21 per cent of teachers say behaviour at their school is good and 21 per cent of men say a pint of beer makes them proud to be British.

Obviously the “good behaviour” reported by those teachers is probably only due to the fact that their miscreant pupils are playing truant and going to the pictures, swigging beer from cans as they watch the films.

Furthermore, according to McVitie’s 16 per cent of men say Beyoncé is their ideal person with whom to spend a night in. Yet 16 per cent of people say they could not live without cheese and 16 per cent of people say differing interests are the biggest cause of tension in a relationship.

This sounds to me like a recipe for disaster if Beyoncé doesn’t like cheese. There is hope in the fact that 16 per cent of people say R&B, of which I am told Ms Beyoncé is a particularly gifted exponent, is the best music to make love to, but if she dislikes cheese, it may be best going for fish and chips.

There is, however, one figure in the latest survey that gives me cause for doubt about all this. McV tell us that 75 per cent of people admit to dunking biscuits every day during the colder months. Yet 75 per cent of people say they have not challenged themselves physically or mentally in six months.

Surely, though, precision dunking should be seen as both a physical and mental challenge. To hold a biscuit in one’s tea for just the right length of time that it becomes soggy but doesn’t deposit hunks of tea-logged bickie in the drink demands concentration, dexterity and a knowledge of applied physics to a very high degree indeed.

In view of the obvious incompatibility of these 75 per cents, perhaps we should take all the above figures with a grain of salt. Or crumb of biscuit, as the case may be.