As a teenager, I went with my father every week for dinner at Sandra's house. Sandra is a little outrageous and at all times in the grips of some controversy or other, so sitting around the table with her kids on a Wednesday night, we would listen to the latest. Typically her stories involved members of junior officialdom, who likely regretted turning up for work that day, because Sandra is relentless when wronged by anyone in a position of authority. The more remote . . .

You don't expect to see a biscuit on display in a museum, among the sculptures and paintings. But at Reading Museum, I find myself staring at just that. It is large, round and a hundred years old. Impressed into the dusty topside of this centenarian cookie is the name "Huntley & Palmers." They once made biscuits for the royal family, for soldiers going to war and for people at home in the kitchen. Fifty-two digestives are eaten a second in Britain. Yet, day in . . .