Hello friends of The Bent Musket. I bring tidings from across the pond. You see, I write for 7500 to Holte. We cover Aston Villa. If the Premier League is not your thing let me just tell you that Aston Villa are a flaming pile of garbage that has been covered in smoldering manure right now. Things aren't great.
Nevertheless, we soldier on at 7500, bringing the #content that people want to read each and every day. That includes a podcast in which we ask for reader questions every week. As you can imagine, with eighteen losses in twenty-eight matches, people are pretty tired of talking about Aston Villa, so we get questions like this one:
@JackGrimse @7500toHolte is it recorded? Red vines or twizzlers? Answer incorrectly and risk an unfollow
— Tyler Fisher (@tfisher21) March 3, 2016
Now that, my friends, is a very good question. One with a patently obvious answer. I understand some of you may not like me for this, but the answer is this: neither.
Red Vines and Twizzlers are both trash. Imagine looking into a bucket of Halloween candy. You've got some Mr. Goodbars, your Three Musketeers, Hershey bars. If you're lucky, maybe you snagged a Whatchmacallit or some Peanut Butter M&Ms. These are all excellent (or at least passable) candies. And sprinkled among those choices, you've got some leathery, ropey, junky, wannabe licorice. Who wants to be like licorice? Eating black licorice is basically like doing unspeakable things to unspeakable parts of the devil, so why would you ever emulate that?
And the result? Cloying candy that's tough and largely flavorless beyond the taste of "red." Go ahead, tell me it's cherry. Or strawberry. You're lying to yourself. It's neither. It resembles the flavor of a cherry or a strawberry as much as Mountain Dew resembles the flavor of citrus. And at least other poseur candies that try this "nah really, we taste like fruit" trick have the decency to have a few other things going for them. Jolly Ranchers are long-lasting and have that satisfying crunch when they get small enough. Tootsie pops have a tootsie roll in them. Sour patch kids are sour. Swedish fish are delightfully chewy and also fish.
Red vines? Twizzlers? Rope. Tough, flavorless, rope that is joyless to eat. If they're around, and I need sugar, and I have no other choice, maybe I eat one. But usually I just say, "Nah, I don't need sugar. I can live without."
So in the great candy battle of :fire emoji: opinions, choose the side of good. Choose neither. Because they're both garbage.
Special thanks to Rob for his loan appearance on The Bent Musket today. Give him (@Robert_7500) and his blog (@7500toHolte) a follow on Twitter.
Are you Team Twizzler, Team Red Vines or Team Lintott? Vote in the poll and discuss other meaningless candies in the comments below.