Entertainment For Lively Minds
Old English Spangles
Posted by WarwickHunt on 18 February 2011 - 8:39am.
I note a reference in the current edition of The Word to "Ye Olde English Spangles." I used to like those....but I've never had any insight as to what the flavours were supposed to be: Dandelion and Burdock? Shepherd's Pie? Bangers and Mash?
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Ye Olde English Spangles
TMFTL
They were a 60s band who featured a pre-ISB Robin Williamson along with John Renbourn, Al Stewart and (astonishingly) Bob Holness, who of course went on to play the saxaphone solo on the late Gerry Rafferty's, "Baker Street." Ye Olde English Spangles only released one album (the legendary "strawberry, blackcurrant, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime") which was really just a posthumous roundup of demo's and some poor quality live recordings. It sunk without trace and is a rare and valuable artefact today.
Olde English Spangles
looked and tasted like sick.
Spangles came in many flavours.
What characterised a Spangle was its sugar content, its texture and particularly its shape, a round-edged square lozenge approximately three quarters of an inch across and three sixteenths of an inch thick with a concave dimple in either side, rather than its flavour. I speak as an expert, having tested many thousands of them myself during my youth. I have the dentition to prove it.
They basically looked
like tiles for a TARDIS wall.
And mostly tasted like them too.
Olde Englishe Spangles
... I think they were meant to replicate some sort of Victorian confectionery experience - ie. to exist as, in effect, a sophisticated punishment for children. Like Gob stoppers (Go on! Try one. You might choke to death, it'll be brilliant!).
I always liked them, but they were
not a patch on Winter Mixtures. Mmmmm, camphor! Mmmmm, oil of wintergreen! Cloves! Proper flavours. Yummy.
I always thought one was mustard flavour
It was certainly that colour.
I think licorice was in there somewhere.
I was right
These were the flavours:
liquorice, mint humbugs, cough candy, butterscotch and pear drops.
Together at last.
Were Tunes
a Spangles offshoot, or vice versa?
Spangles came before Tunes
Indeed Tunes replaced Spangles and are the answer to the question "Whatever happened to Spangles?"
The reason is simple - the mark-up on medicated sweets was/is much greater than for children's sweets. And given the single production line, the cost of getting rid of the menthol etc. smell between batches meant too much costly down-time.
So Tunes in, Spangles out - basically the same size and shape sweet though.
Both made by Mars, by the way.
Spangles and Tunes
were made by different companies - Tunes technically were a modern update on things like Victory Vs and Fishermans Friend, rather than a sweet.
In a proustian way, the mention of Tunes has given me the urge to run to my local station and ask for "a secod class return do Dottingham please"
Although I'm now turning into a look back bore, as MES put it
"Balti and Vimto and Spangles
were always crap,
regardless of the look back bores"
Oh the fun...
...we had with Acid Drop Spangles in the late 60's.
Buy 2 tubes, cut one tube up and stick the words onto the other tube, reversing Acid and Drop.
Am chuckling to myself.
These posts all become funny when you know that "spangle" means "jizz" in the Viz Profanisaurus.
I am extremely puerile.
So Olde Englishe Spangle
is basically Victorian baby batter flavour? That's sounds about right.