Gucci & Tea Cakes

I had a quiet rant last week about Tunnock's tea cakes, how I reckoned the marshmallow filling wasn't it's usual self. Talpa reckons the ingredients have now become H&S friendly ie non-saturated. This evening one has consumed two Marks and Spencer tea cakes. They were just as I remember Tunnocks; turning to the contents, where it mentions non-saturated fats there is one simple word, "Don't." My investigations will continue, I shall put my belly where my mouth has been and continue the rigorous testing regime which is required of all scientific research. As for peer review, buy your own.


So where does Gucci come into the equation? This little thing is about the size of a book of matches, such little bits of kit which are purchased privately by members of the services are called Gucci Kit, although this is more Black's. The match, which normally screws into the blue block, is a wick held in a brass handle, at the end of which is a small amount of wick surrounding a metal spade like end. The end is struck along the metal groove you can see in the top edge of the plastic. The resulting spark ignites the wick and you have man's greatest friend, fire. Lighter fluid is held in a tiny reservoir in the plastic holder, enabling the match to work repeatedly. There is a downside. If it has been burning, as it had been here for about one minute, do not try and pick the bloody thing up. Fire = Heat. Numb nuts was dancing around.

The match was handy in damp dark and donk conditions such as one finds everywhere on this planet. 24 hour ration packs came with a tiny folding stove, supplied with Hexamine blocks, which are basically firelighters. Matches would often blow out in the wind or just be useless due to precipitation, however one of these works almost all the time. Gucci!

Then the ethereal being let us discover camping gas stoves. Oh the joy, the convenience, the heat. During December 1973 when the Navy helicopter dropped four of us off on a gentle stroll to find the Legion d'Etrangeres in the mountains of Corsica we were surprised to discover that our sleeping bags were covered in ice and shocked when our gas stoves failed to heat the food and water we desperately needed to thaw us out after an interminably cold night on the mountain. What the ethereal being did not tell us was simply that they would not work over about 5,000' due to lack of pressure and freezing cold. We, being British thought the maps we were issued were in feet, NAH, WRONG, take all your clothes off; they were in metres. Instead of 2500' we were at 2500 bloody cold nasty freezing metres. Luckily being switched on cookies one of us carried the old style hexi burner just in case.