Recollections of The Kray Twins.

“I only ever crossed the Kray twins once, at a pub quiz for the Walthamstow Walkers Society. And once was enough let me tell you”. So starts this story from Ross Keen. Read on to see how this tale from Ross unfolds.

Reggie wouldn’t have it that the Toblerone makes for a better ladder than the Curly-Wurly.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I agree that the question ‘What makes for a better ladder – the Toblerone or the Curly Wurly?’ is on the ambiguous side.

My O-Level in Chocolatery meant that I, of course, already knew the correct answer, but Reggie, who had by this time wasted his ‘Double Points Joker’ card on the ‘Slicing Slags’ round, took exception to the line of questioning.

‘When would you ever need a facking Toblerone for a ladder’ he disdained to the Quizmaster Bruce Forsyth.

‘Or a Curly-Wurly’ replied Bruce.

‘Or a Curly-Wurly’ conceded Reggie.

‘Well’ I interjected calmly. ‘…Saying a Fuse bar has blown up on the top floor of a Double Decker and you need to get the passengers down to safety? Then what would make for the better ladder – the Toblerone or the Curly-Wurly?’

A debate ensued. Ronnie kept out of it. He was always the thinker; the brains of the operation. Thinking back he mainly spent the row trying to think of a better team name for both him and Reggie than ‘War Whores’ (which in itself was decent enough; a pun on a theatrical production that was some 30 odd years from conception). But he could also see the hunger in my eye and it must have intimidated him.

‘Well…’ pondered Reggie aloud, else I probably wouldn’t have heard him. ‘It’s got to be a facking Curly-Wurly ain’t it? It’s got the foot’oles.’

This is the beginner’s mistake. To an extent Reg was right. A Curly-Wurly would definitely be the more ergonomic. But let’s assume that the Fuse bar did explode – then the Toblerone’s honeycomb centre adds enough core strength to the structure to render a Toblerone the most useful. For example should a chocolate ladder actually need to be used in a fire, bearing in mind that I’ve not actually researched this, it is widely held that honeycomb doesn’t ever melt ever, so even if the chocolate shell of the Toblerone does slide away, then the strong honeycomb can still survive as a Ladder.

Course, Curly-Wurlys have the advantage by their very nature of being taller (if the Fuse bar explodes near Christmas then we can use one of them foot long Toblerones that you have now too). But I personally am of the opinion that the Curly-Wurly is a Ladder for Leisure.

Ronnie did chip in after a while with the thought that we could test the chocolate ladders by coercing Gummy Snakes into going down them and seeing which is the more effective.

‘We could test the chocolate ladders by coercing Gummy Snakes into going down them and seeing which is the more effective’ he said in a slightly convincing tone.
I said ‘Ronnie. Snakes don’t need Ladders. They are basically Rope.’

My tone irked Ronnie greatly and he gave Reggie the secret signal.

I admit to not knowing what happened next.

I’m told it all got very heated until Reggie spontaneously combusted. But I guess we may never know.

All words by Ross Keen.

All words by Ross Keen. More articles by Ross on Louder Than War can be found here.