Evidence that chocolate can bring you pleasure and excitement in all kinds of ways
We bought about six boxes of Matchmakers at Christmas, right, thinking we would give them away to people we visited.
Shame we never got invited anywhere. (I guess answering phone calls, emails and texts would have helped.) Anyway, in the end, we had to eat them all ourselves.
For the unitiated, Matchmakers are chocolate sticks which look like this ....
... and it's a very clever marketing ploy, to have chocolate in such a thin form. In fact, the advertising even claims that Matchmakers are a healthy diet food ....
It's all a Big Lie, of course, because no one, no one, says, after one Matchmaker, 'Hey, guys, I'm STUFFED. Let's put these away and have more tomorrow.'
Still, you can nibble away at a Matchmaker while watching Downton Abbey and pretend you are being elegant like them. It makes a change from usual practice ...
... which leads to your sofa looking like this ...
Well, friends, I didn't come here to talk about food.
No.... get up OFF the floor. That was a very silly, immature over-reaction from you all.
I'm actually here to talk about the enormous difference the Quality Street company which manufactures Matchmakers made to our Christmas because of the FREE GAME we received inside each box.
It is a very entertaining game and I honestly don't think I could have survived Christmas without it. Here is what you get in the packet. (I'd take a tranquilliser right now if I were you. This could excite you beyond reason.)
1. a piece of square crinkly paper, the type you normally get covering a box of chocolates
2. on the square paper, a circle, which is split into four quartered sections, like this:
They call this the 'Lucky Launchpad'. Don't ever tell me the days of hyperbole are dead.
Here are the instructions, as set out carefully on the packet:
Stand a Matchmakers stick up on its end in the middle of the lucky launchpad
Before you let go, guess which quarter the Matchmaker will land in.
Call out your choice.
Let go of the Matchmaker.
If it lands in the right segment, you win the Matchmaker.
I am almost in tears with gratitude to Quality Street, who have provided me and my family with such an innovative, fascinating team game to play, giving us hours of pleasure with which no number of Christmas visits from George Clooney in an Italian suit could ever hope to compete.
I know you are all jealous and want to play the Lucky Launchpad game immediately. You must rush out and buy a packet of Matchmakers, so that you too can while away a happy evening balancing a Matchmaker on its end and letting go.
Next year, I am expecting further entertainment. Perhaps there will be the ....
'Roll a Matchmaker along the table and guess how far it gets' game
or the
'See if you can line up some Matchmakers in a straight line' game
I prefer, myself, to play the ....
'How many boxes of Matchmakers is it physically possible to consume during the back-to-back watching of two episodes of Downton Abbey on iplayer' game
Shame we never got invited anywhere. (I guess answering phone calls, emails and texts would have helped.) Anyway, in the end, we had to eat them all ourselves.
For the unitiated, Matchmakers are chocolate sticks which look like this ....
... and it's a very clever marketing ploy, to have chocolate in such a thin form. In fact, the advertising even claims that Matchmakers are a healthy diet food ....
 |
| You too can lose so much weight eating chocolate that you make no indentation on the sofa |
It's all a Big Lie, of course, because no one, no one, says, after one Matchmaker, 'Hey, guys, I'm STUFFED. Let's put these away and have more tomorrow.'
Still, you can nibble away at a Matchmaker while watching Downton Abbey and pretend you are being elegant like them. It makes a change from usual practice ...
... which leads to your sofa looking like this ...
Well, friends, I didn't come here to talk about food.
No.... get up OFF the floor. That was a very silly, immature over-reaction from you all.
I'm actually here to talk about the enormous difference the Quality Street company which manufactures Matchmakers made to our Christmas because of the FREE GAME we received inside each box.
It is a very entertaining game and I honestly don't think I could have survived Christmas without it. Here is what you get in the packet. (I'd take a tranquilliser right now if I were you. This could excite you beyond reason.)
1. a piece of square crinkly paper, the type you normally get covering a box of chocolates
2. on the square paper, a circle, which is split into four quartered sections, like this:
They call this the 'Lucky Launchpad'. Don't ever tell me the days of hyperbole are dead.
Here are the instructions, as set out carefully on the packet:
Stand a Matchmakers stick up on its end in the middle of the lucky launchpad
Before you let go, guess which quarter the Matchmaker will land in.
Call out your choice.
Let go of the Matchmaker.
If it lands in the right segment, you win the Matchmaker.
I am almost in tears with gratitude to Quality Street, who have provided me and my family with such an innovative, fascinating team game to play, giving us hours of pleasure with which no number of Christmas visits from George Clooney in an Italian suit could ever hope to compete.
I know you are all jealous and want to play the Lucky Launchpad game immediately. You must rush out and buy a packet of Matchmakers, so that you too can while away a happy evening balancing a Matchmaker on its end and letting go.
Next year, I am expecting further entertainment. Perhaps there will be the ....
'Roll a Matchmaker along the table and guess how far it gets' game
or the
'See if you can line up some Matchmakers in a straight line' game
I prefer, myself, to play the ....
'How many boxes of Matchmakers is it physically possible to consume during the back-to-back watching of two episodes of Downton Abbey on iplayer' game
I really can't take all this excitement so late in the day. I'm going to have to go and lie down.
ReplyDeleteBTW I wonder what game you could play with Cadbury's Creme Eggs (my particular weakness)...
With Creme Eggs, I like playing, 'These were definitely bigger in my schooldays'. I play the same with Wagon Wheels.
DeleteI've never tried Matchmakers but they look like yummy fun!
ReplyDeleteYou must try. They are virtually health food.
DeleteThe whiteness of that chocolate-eating-woman's teeth is a little frightening. Poor girl, she probably thought she was going to some high fashion modelling shoot.
ReplyDeleteFunny comment, JS. I thought you said you couldn't do funny comments.
DeleteDear Fran--
ReplyDeleteDo you think this might become an Olympic event? If so, I would be interesting in representing the US. Since Matchmakers are not available here, across the pond (at least, not here in the Happy Hour Rest Home), could you please send me 3 or 4 cases, prepaid, so that my fellow patients--I mean I--can start practicing?
Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter.
Your fellow athlete--
fishducky
Dear fishducky
DeleteHow kind of you to offer. I have sent you, as you requested, 3 or 4 cases, prepaid. However, I could not resist eating the chocolates from inside the cases, so I am afraid that you will, as a result, only be receiving the cases.
Yours sincerely
Fran
I can honestly see my gang playing a few rounds of Lucky Launchpad considering how amused we all were with the tiny basketball thingy that popped out of one of our Christmas crackers. We are easily amused. Or maybe those little tissue paper crowns have that effect?
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely the paper crowns. They have a magical effect and make you look at the world in a different way. I mean, when else would one say, 'How tasty these brussels sprouts are!' for instance.
DeleteAs yes, all very well but, can you light a fire by rubbing two together?
ReplyDeleteI will buy some more packets and try ...
Deletethanks so much for explaining the rules to the game- we threw away the lucky launchpad from our box cos we couldn't understand the instructions.
ReplyDeleteDo you think you could scan yours and send it?
You THREW AWAY the LUCKY LAUNCHPAD??? Don't you KNOW when your luck is in?
DeletePlaying with chocolate?
ReplyDeleteSacrilege!
I agree. I think even the unwrapping of it is an unnecessarily long process.
DeleteAha. But have you tried eating one sideways?
ReplyDeleteYou mean ... you mean ... there are OTHER ways than sideways?
DeleteMatchmakers - very 80's. The mint ones tasted minty and the orange ones tasted bummy, I always thought.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing about Matchmakers is that I am on a diet and as they are calorie free (because they are so slender and snappy) I can eat fistfuls of them.
Anna May x
Yes, very 80s. I remember eating them while playing Ker Plunk.
DeleteOh, and have downloaded your book to my Kindle. Looking forward to reading it. Loved the sample.
DeleteI've never eaten a Matchmaker but they look wonderfully sophisticated party fare .
ReplyDeleteOnly someone with no finesse at all would think they'd be ideal for tossing the caber .
Eating one or two is sophisticated. But it doesn't work like that in our house.
DeleteOh, that couch photo is priceless. I think this family needs to rotate couch positions.
ReplyDeleteI think the only position possible on that couch is 'slumped'.
DeleteThank you Fran, I'm crossing my Matchmakers that you enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteAnna May x
So far, really good. You have a really great style - funny and warm and the characters are so well drawn. Enjoying it lots, about a chapter a night before I go to sleep!
DeleteI'm not sure I can survive the evening without Matchmakers now I know there's a game to play with chocolate such that the whole event can be considered a sport rather than fattening... is there something we could do with Minstrels? I think they may be too heavy to see who can grab the most using only a straw. Mind, that would mean we were burning calories too!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have time, with Minstrels, to play any game at all....
DeleteI was once in a race which involved putting an After Eight mint on the forehead & gently let it slide down the face until it could be eaten with no touching !
ReplyDeleteI now see a whole range of chocolate based games to play. Thanks !
I've played that!!! How about putting a Matchmaker in one ear and through the other ear and then passing it round the group that way? What stomping fun!
Delete