THIS MEANS NOTHING TO ME

We walked in the cold air… Freezing breath on the window pane… Lying and waiting…

I got given this box of biscuits recently. Thank you very much, by the way. They were terribly nice, much enjoyed and probably added inches to my waistline, but I thought it was worth the risk. I was on the very brink of putting the box in the recycling bag when I paused and noticed it, as if for the first time, and it made me think for a moment.

A man in the dark in a picture frame… So mystic and soulful…

Graphic design has always been a funny old animal, but the packaging for this particular “Marks and Spencer” product really gave me a moment to pause for thought. Viennese biscuits, all packaged with the kind of love and respect that only one highly trained in the Graphic arts could truly put together…

A voice reaching out in a piercing cry, it stays with you until…

Viennese biscuits, do you see? Viennese. Someone, somewhere has made a startling leap of mental connection to give this packaging the very best sense of that elegant cultural centre that they could muster, just to persuade you that you can be part of those exotic, erotic worlds by simply nibbling on a biscuit housed in a box that speaks volumes of the march of history and one city’s special place in it.

The feeling is gone only you and I… It means nothing to me… This means nothing to me…

Just look for a moment at the images on this piece of packaging. It has the air of genius about it really. Biscuits placed into things that are thought of as being quintessentially Viennese. A decadent, swirly biscuit standing centre stage at the theatre, another strawberry emblazoned one sitting comfortably in a decadent looking gilded armchair of dubious provenance, yet another being rather rakishly the subject of an elaborately framed portrait, and two more coquettishly stuffed into some dodgy looking ornate candlesticks. A whole intricate world of decadence and indulgence weaved into the very fabric of a box of biscuits.

Oh, Vienna!

Aren’t you just transported to the old city? Can’t you just hear the strings of the violins as they sing out the most exquisite melodies? Haydn and Beethoven, Strauss and Schubert sitting in a coffee shop idly picking at elaborate cakes and watching the ladies pass by an their elaborate ballgowns on their way to the opera.

The music is weaving… Haunting notes, pizzicato strings, the rhythm is calling…

No? Sadly, neither am I. Nor am I getting the pleasing waft of the baked strudel, or the sausages sizzling away on the street vendor’s stalls. Mostly, I’m getting biscuits. Harry Lime does little to ply his wicked trade in the sewers beneath my feet as I gaze upon these photographs of biscuity goodness, although the harm the biscuits themselves are probably doing to my own sewer-like complex intersections of arteries might be considered comparable as he runs for his life and the zither gets ever more frenetic.

Alone in the night as the daylight brings a cool empty silence…

Do you yet hear the roar of the cannon or the clattering of the horse’s hooves as the heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire beats to the rhythm of the Napoleonic wars? Does the crunch of the biscuit echo the crunch of ten thousand army boots trudging through the snow? Does the rich creamy filling remind you of a city divided, torn into four by the aftermath of a later, even bloodier conflict, its hopes crushed to crumbs by ten thousand other jackboots?

The warmth of your hand and a cool grey sky, it fades to the distance…

Does the soft lapping of the blue Danube soothe your mood as it drifts languidly by on its way from the dark chocolaty forests of the north to the distant Black sea? Does a bite into the soft liquid centre cause a sudden snap to ring out across this peaceful scene and turn the heads of a thousand startled birds to look your way before flying away?

A rather high proportion of biscuits are named after political figures: Bourbon, Garibaldi, Jaffa the Cake… Does the jewel in the crown of that lost eastern European empire need the same biscuity immortality? Is the exchange of such things as gifts at Christmastide some kind of hidden message?

I give you this presentation assortment on the understanding that one day, someone will present themselves to you, with an all-butter Viennese swirl concealed about their person and they will request a favour of you that you must not refuse. This day may never come, but if it does, you must act swiftly and unquestioningly so that the glory that is Vienna shall rise once more to its rightful place as the supreme power in this region of the world. Do people not speak in similar hushed tones of the Cakes of Eccles, Dundee or Chorley? We know of the Florentine, but where, of where, is the biscuit known as the Warsaw or the Cleethorpes?

The image has gone, only you and I… It means nothing to me… This means nothing to me…

Oh Vienna!