101 YEARS OLD AND STILL MAKING GREAT BISCUITS...

AYOUNG lady just rang me and asked whether I was aware that the British on average take only 14 minutes to switch off a film if they don’t like it. “Biscuits!” I replied enthusiastically. “Pardon?” she begged. “Biscuits,” I repeated. “14 minutes is the time it takes to bake a biscuit.”

“I was talking about turning off films people don’t like,” she said in a confused tone.

“I know,” I said. “I was just adding to that by pointing out that if you put biscuits into a pre-heated oven at 180C before turning the film on, they’ll be ready when you decide you don’t like it and turn it off, which could be very useful: if you don’t like the film, at least you’ll have some biscuits to enjoy, fresh from the oven.”

“I see,” she said, enlightened by my explanation. “It’s from a survey by Mastercard, you see, who are an official partner of Cannes Film Festival. They found that the British turn off films they don’t like significantly more quickly than other European countries. The average is 17 minutes.”

“Perhaps they like their biscuits more well-done than the British,” I suggested, “but if that is the case, I suggest they turn the oven down to 170C. Then there is a chance the biscuits may even be soft on the inside and crispy on the outside rather than crunchy all the way through.”

“Eighty-three per cent of people in this country will turn off a film within 14 minutes if they don’t like the opening scene,” she said.

“That’s terrible,” I said. “Both West Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire have reported an 83 per cent rise in knife crime this year. Do you think that’s because 83 per cent of criminals get angry when they see a film they don’t like and are reduced to being violent when they have turned the TV off, leaving their biscuits to get cold?

“Or do you think the film turneroffers are the 83 per cent of Britons who have performed an act of kindness in the past year? Do you think that turning off the TV and giving someone a biscuit classifies as an act of kindness if they don’t like the film?”

“I suppose it might…,” she began, but then I noticed something else.

“Hang on,” I said, “I’ve just seen that 83 per cent of UK adults believe that AI will one day be smart enough to take over from humans in many jobs. Maybe we could get robots to turn our films off and make biscuits instead.”

“Talking of you having just seen,” she said, “the opening scenes people are least likely to turn off are those of Star Wars Episode IV and Jaws. Steven Spielberg is seen as the least turnoffable director of opening scenes, followed by Quentin Tarantino and Alfred Hitchcock, though Saturday Night Fever was considered to have the best opening scene of a musical, followed closely by The Lion King.”

“Must go now,” I said. “This call has lasted 14 minutes and my biscuits are ready.”

“So will you be telling your readers all about this Mastercard survey?”

“If it will help them make better biscuits, I shall do so,” I said, and we left it at that.