Back in August (“A Quarter of Nostalgia“) I wrote about the “bobbly aniseed jelly ones” in Bassetts’ Liquorice Allsorts, when I should have called them by their ‘correct’ name of spogs! How did I come across this? Well, recently on BBC’s “Breakfast” program they interviewed Danny Danzger and Mark McCrun, authors of a new book “The Thingummy” , this book provides the real names of many common ‘thingummies’ complete with history, myth and anecdote behind them. Apart from explaining that Spogs are the blue and pink aniseed sweets out of liquorice allsorts, the book also gives the name for the groove that runs between your nose and your mouth, the stringy bits of a banana, and the name of the white exhaust trail that an aeroplane makes in the sky! The Retro Sweet Hamper web site clearly know their spogs! But if Spogs are the blue and pink aniseed sweets, please tell me what the yellow thingamajigs are in their picture – I have never seen them in the UK – have you!?
