[15:52]  * zxmpi microwaves a few mince pies and leaves them on a plate for the channel
[15:53] <daftykins> ooh i haven't even picked any up so far this year, i could definitely murder a mince pie
[15:54] <zxmpi> it's the little things you forget... the 16kg tin of quality street
[15:54] <daftykins> :D
[15:56] <zxmpi> the secret prize at the bottom of the tin is diabetes 
[15:58] <daftykins> and there can be many winners!
[17:03] <davef> QUALITY STREET .. god damn it.. I knew I was missing something
[17:03] <davef> (yes, one of the things I can get in Canuckistan)
[17:23] <daftykins> mission pop-into-co-op for a mince pie failed! none!
[17:26] <zxmpi> still 1 thing to get pre crimbo https://jacobs.ie/product/elite-chocolate-mikado/
[17:28] <daftykins> oh wow i don't think i've ever seen that
[17:30] <zxmpi> when they were first released in ireland a few years back 2006ish? they had to ration them to 1 tin per customer they sold out so fast
[17:31] <zxmpi> nicer than a jaffa cake but you wouldn't have them as often as they are 1)expensive and 2)too rich
[18:13] <penguin42> oh I've heard of the Mikado's but never found one
[18:14] <penguin42> zxmpi: When you say 'expensive' - do you mean relative to the same mass of jaffa cake, or to the entire case of jaffa cakes one normally eats in a sitting?
[18:16] <zxmpi> yes
[18:21] <zxmpi> E16 per kilo of jaffa cakes. E16.23 per kilo of elite mikado
[18:21] <zxmpi> E15 per kilo of jaffa cakes. E16.23 per kilo of elite mikado
[18:21] <zxmpi> grrr
[18:22] <zxmpi> and that's with mikado now on clearance 
[18:22] <zxmpi> much more expensive in october/november
[18:24] <penguin42> why?
[18:25] <davef> Jaffa Cakes > Mikado .. sorry
[18:28] <penguin42> perhaps this requires a deep scientific experiment?
[18:31] <zxmpi> i'll write up the facilities request for the hadron collider
[18:32] <penguin42> oh dear, cleaning the orange jamions off the inside will take some time
[18:33] <zxmpi> you can't do proper science without mashing jaffa cakes. well known fact that
[18:34] <penguin42> but, tbh I was thinking of more of the scientific experiment where we all get 1kg of each and eat them in random orders and decide afterwards which was the best
[18:36] <zxmpi> well that is part of the experimentation process but it also includes a multi player session of doom in cern and how handy the jaffa cakes/mikado are for snacking during it
[18:45] <penguin42> perhaps we need to build an equivalent ring between the Jacobs and McVities factories?
[18:52] <zxmpi> an advanced site testing biscuits are up to spec and haven't been optimised for the benchmark tests
[18:55] <daftykins> i could definitely lend some hours to such a worthy cause
[18:56] <penguin42> zxmpi: Bah! Optimising your biscuit for the ISO standard dunking machine!
[18:57] <daftykins> :D
[18:57] <daftykins> commence 'soak test'
[18:59] <zxmpi> of course the iso committee meetings on which tea to use in the tests will take years to come to a standard
[19:22] <zxmpi> might need to find a working leo to get a fair answer to that
[19:58] <daftykins> picked up a box of these after being disappointed by no mince pies - https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/265342258
[21:32] <penguin42> a grim substitute
[21:34] <daftykins> haha, i got lots more to console myself
[23:34] <zxmpi> a tesco with no mince pies... before crimbo... ::shakes head sadly::
[23:37] <daftykins> well that was just an example, we don't have them here - just local co-op was where i went
[23:38] <zxmpi> still, a supermarket without mince pies a few days before crimbo. should be a wall of them they're worried won't shift
[23:39] <daftykins> :D
[23:41] <zxmpi> you walk into any supermarket day 27th and it's 'MUST CLEAR' items everywhere you get for a steal
[23:41] <zxmpi> that's when you replenish your choccie orange stash :-D
[23:42] <daftykins> i'm still recovering from last time :(
[23:51] <penguin42> I was wondering about walking in just before closing on 24th
[23:52] <zxmpi> they'll be jammers with so many people coughing up a lung with latest variant 
[23:53] <daftykins> i did get some jaffa cakes as well of course
[23:53] <penguin42> I had to break my 2.5 year supermarket-abstinence in the last week or so, and yeh hmm