When it comes to the crunch

If pushed to identify the one foodstuff I would find it hardest to do without, I would probably say crisps. My love of crisps in (almost) all their many wondrous forms is both deep seated and lifelong - as, judging by this superb piece for Vice, is Joel Golby's.

The article had me regularly crying with laughter and nodding along in "So true, so true" fashion - sometimes at the same time. The rules and etiquette for consuming crisps in the pub? Spot on. The conclusion that the inventor of the Twiglet must have been dangerously deranged? Yep. The sense of shame that comes with being an ardent leftie who enjoys Tory crisps? Understood.

While I can't agree with all of Golby's assessments (there's something to be said for Skips and particularly McCoys, surely?), the ways he describes and characterises the different varieties of the food of the gods are consistently brilliant. To take just a handful of examples...

On Quavers: "essentially peelings of air that got slightly too proud of themselves and got packed up and sold to children."

On beef and onion crisps: "Venn diagram of people who like Beef & Onion crisps and people who laugh at their own burps is a circle the size of the sun."

On Pringles: "Pringles are for people who say: 'I don't care how dirty it is, I want to have fun.' They are a drunken kebab. A pint of Foster's with breakfast. Dogging up against the bonnet of a Fiesta. They are life."

On roast chicken crisps: "You know that weird lad in your halls who ate the flavour sachet from a Pot Noodle dry like a weird umami form of sherbet? He's graduated on to Roast Chicken-flavoured crisps now, from his cell in prison."

On Monster Munch: "Monster Munch belong in a special sub-category of snacks I like to call 'Cuck Crisps', because every time you decide to eat one you are basically talking yourself out of having sex with anyone for the next 24 hours, minimum, while your body processes the sheer flavour of the crisp and pumps it out of every flap and pore you possess."

Monster Munch are my current post-gig snack of choice. Expose me to music and fill me with two or more pints in a city centre venue and I'm practically guaranteed to stop at the all-night garage on the walk back to Canton and pick up a couple of bags (pickled onion and flaming hot, not roast beef - I'm not a heathen). The next morning the stench on my fingers is as much a giveaway as to the previous evening's activities as the still-discernible ink stamp on the inside of my wrist.

On that note, the all-night garage is calling...