The intellectual conversation in the Ooh.com office this afternoon has turned from politics to Pick ‘n’ Mix. OK, so politics never featured, but the Pick ‘n’ Mix debate has become epic.
Here’s what’s causing the office arguments: what would our top four Pick ‘n’ Mix sweets be? Heated discussions in the office include:
Jelly bears are good, but large jelly snakes? So good but so darn heavy…which means so expensive.
Flying saucers: light and cheap, but do they really deliver on taste?
And who on earth puts the boring mint humbugs in their bags?
And because we’ve been talking so much about it, we want to send someone a kilo+ of the finest Pick ‘n’ Mix.
So send us your top four Pick ‘n’ Mix must-haves and why you’d include them (amuse us please). We’ll pick our favourite combo and send the winner a 1.5kg jar crammed with the delicious Pick ‘n’ Mix sweets they’ve chosen! Entries from mainland UK only please, and by this Friday, 6pm.
Send your entries to contact@ooh.com, or write a leave a reply/comment below this post.
If you’re more of a lobster fan than a foam shrimp fan, enter our competition to win 2 places – and lunch - on a ‘Seafood in a Day’ course.
Disclaimer: we cannot be held responsible for sweet-related tooth decay. Or any other tooth decay for that matter. So use your toothbrush well.
Photos courtesy of Jo-h and NeoGaboX.
ooh, mouth watering with the thought of having a whole 7 pence to spend in the tuck shop – decisions, decisions – parma viloets with a black jack tang, or bulk buy (3) liquorice catherine wheels … or go for bust and splash out on a whole packet of pacers [were these really the sweet that showed you supported Celtic?]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by oohdotcom: New blog post: Pick n’Mix – what’s hot, what’s not? Win 1.5kg of your favourites http://bit.ly/bHRSIy...
Coke bottles straight up for me! Don’t need 3 other things when the coke bottles are so good. Small ones, not large ones – they’re too heavy.
Flying saucers, love the paper and fizz feel! Sherbet fountain with liquorice ’straw’ getting bunged up after 30 seconds and having to munch through it (does that count as pick and mix?), I’m with George on the liquorice catherine wheels – I love a slow unravel! And lemon sherberts – zing and bubble once a crack appears in the lemon casing… ooh this brings me right back to Elliots Newsagents circa 1974 – 78…
Oh, just in case I can’t have the sherbet fountain, I’ll have mini ‘milk bottles’ instead – delicious!
Licorice allsorts (the spotty pink and blue ones), cola bottles, foam shrimps and the undisputed king of pick n mix: The Fried Egg. Not even up for debate
Its the healthy option straight up for me – fruit salads washed down with the medicine bottles, gotta have that fizzy sour zing which leaves you tingling for more. But after such a saintly beginning it all goes pear shaped – I’ll cut the drops and opt for the very sinful chocolate cigarettes and can I have those straws of white powdery stuff? Uhhummmnnnn…
Jazzies – white chocolate only, skulls with oozing pink goo, fruit salads, sour peaches. Sorted.
Foam Shrips, cola bottles, jazzies, white chocolate mice and astro belts! Not forgetting those weird white powdered toffees.
This is a tough one:
Fizzy Dummies
Strawberry Cables
Fizzy Pencils
Wine Gums
Whoever came up with this competition is a literally a genius.
The only place it seems you can buy pick n mix since Woolies shut down is at the cinema.
With that in mind I’m making my choices based on lasting me 1.5 hours without getting full or fed up of my sweets; requiring a delicate blend of chocolate, jelly, foam and boiled sweets.
1) Chocolate Caramels – I’m going with the chocolate coated caramel cubes, though the caramel barrells or fudge strips are an equally valid choice. Chewy enough to last while satisfyingly chocolatey.
2) Gummi Bears – A scoop of different colours (I say colours because after a while they all taste the same; like Smarties, except for the orange one.) as the amusement of biting of appendages rarely grows old.
3) Pear Drops – A dangerous choice as after sucking on one for ten minutes the edges become razor sharp. Helps keep me on the edge of my seat whilst enduring any number of rom coms.
4) Foam Bananas – Often a tough decision between bananas and prawns but the more flavoursome bananas win out, due to better ergonomics and being easier to find if you drop them on your lap thanks to some sort of magical luminescence (NB – DO NOT EAT OFF A CINEMA FLOOR!) .
Of course as all cinema scales are calibrated on the moon (and therefore pick n mix costs 6 times as much as it should); on a night out I mostly have to stick with 4 flying saucers and 2 chocolate mini eggs
Coconut covered mushrooms. If you are a yummy mummy you can produce a tea time treat of a rabbit on grass, and …… coconut covered mushrooms. Using a plastic rabbit mould you can use chocolate blancmange (or creme caramel if you are a very yummy mummy) green jelly for the grass, and then your little darling/darlings with very clean hands can place the coconut covered muchrooms, courtesy of Pick n’Mix, on the grass. Done!
Fleuro Foam Bananas (E145 – the natural high)
Fizzy cola bottles (something oh-so-erotic about the fizz)
Skulls (squirty pink brains – to satisfy the gory)
Fruit Salad (spin out the pleasure with the undressing)
Black Jacks (ditto – plus black tongued delight)
salivating – off to the tuck shop…..
The Ooh Team is enjoying this response a lot. Eating foam bananas off the cinema floor is not something we’d thought about doing, but now you’ve given us an idea. A new form of free food foraging. Wonder what else we might find on the cinema floor…
@Emma
Unfortunately the little man they keep in the cupboard with the popcorn hoover often gets to the good stuff before you can.
Many times I’ve almost gotten to a piece of caramel coated Butterkist only to have the sweet, sweet toffee taste cruelly sucked up before my very eyes.
If you don’t know what I’m on about, try spilling some popcorn on the floor next time you’re in a large cinema. A man pushing a popcorn roomba will come out and clear it up. True story.
A ‘popcorn roomba’? What pray is one of those?!!
Flying Saucers.
Chocolate Covered Raisins.
Smarties.
Those CoConut Mushrooms.
and……Sour/Fizzy Pencils.
Standing at the Pick & Mix wall in Woolies I was faced by the biggest decision of my life, quality or quantity. Then I heard those words ‘hurry up’ and ‘wouldn’t you rather just have a chocolate bar’. Errr no I wouldn’t actually, who in their right mind would turn down a bag of multi coloured gems they could choose themselves in favour of a boring lump of chocolate?!? My decision was made, a good mix of light plus tasty would fill my brightly coloured bag. Pros and cons of course but at least I could fob my little brother off with the lighter ones and make him feel like I was the sharing caring big sister. So as I shovelled in the WHITE CHOCOLATE JAZZIES (a light choice that was still tasty and definitely worth the valuable space in my sweetie bag) I was eagerly eyeing up the PINK AND BLUE FIZZY BOTTLES. What was it about blue sweets that I just couldn’t resist? I knew food shouldn’t be blue unless it was the stinky smelly cheese that the grown ups seemed to like but heck I’d have all my food in blue if I could, it was just so darn pretty. Time was running out so just one more choice left. The MILKSHAKE BOTTLES had it. I was drawn to their yummy strawberry smell and the squidgy jelly texture, not to forget the fact that they were pink and white and looked like they were made of 2 different things that had been stuck together – now that was as good as 2 sweets in 1. I piled in as many as my little hands could before my dad called time on my sweetie rampage then trotted off to the till to pay – sweetie heaven was in my reach…
What a fab competition. I’m off to the sweetie shop to indulge…yum yum yum
Massive error on my part – 4 favourites not 3 – oh my gosh the possibilities. So in my original post had white chocolate jazzies, pink and blue fizzy bottles and pink and white milkshake bottles. Now it’s time to add JELLY CHERRIES and you would literally be handing me paradise in a bag. Mmmmm.
Right – let’s keep this simple. No pick n mix is complete without the humble COLA BOTTLE (with sour sugar). Next up, a priority, are the BLACKCURRANT AND STRAWBERRY GUMMIES. Just black and red mind. After that it’s got to be THE LONG FOAM BELLIED SNAKES, preferably with a high black and red content – no orange and green if avoidable. I don’t care about the weight – those things have *substance*. Finally, for a change in texture and just pure noming pleasure, CHOCOLATE COATED RASINS. Oh man that’s a tasty combo…
100-200 lengths of rope-like strawberry confectionary. Filled (a la pencil) or unfilled (old school lace-style). That is all.
And an UM BONGO (consumed outside of the Pick n Mix bag)
First off, if we’re going to be proper old skool about this, please can I have the equivalent in lbs and oz. Oh, and my top picks would be foam bananas (towards my 5 a day), giant strawberries (ditto), chocolate eclairs because they last ages, and chocolate mini eggs to get me ready for easter
1) Flying Saucers- Love these as a kid and now iam not a kid i still do. Also they are cheap so cannon fooder for……
2) Fudge- Expensive but worth it. Something to chew on but not to chew on if you get my moaning. Also increases my likening for the flying saucers that makes the inclusion of fudge possible.
3) Strawberry Thingys- Now I dont know the name of these, but they are the big strawberry foam sweets, with like a red coating so have called them strawberry thingys. They have a good size and taste to weight ratio and taste amazing, im sure they class as 1 of my 5-a-day.
4) Sweet Bananas- The bigish foam banana sweets. Quite light so the wallet wont moan, and also i believe, 1 of my 5-a-day. With the strawberrys I wont need to eat the veg with my tea.
Oh My God are you serious!!! How am i supposed to pick. (mouth watering just looking at photos of sweets) Right then i am going for Vimto Flavoured Lollipops, Flying Saucers, Dynastix Strawberry Flavour Liquorice Giant Sour Strawberries! Yummm.
Oooh, such a difficult but lovely decision to ponder over on a Friday afternoon..
I think my first choice would have to be the little chocolate cupcakes that come in little foil wrappers..I’ve such fond memories of them as a child, and getting them from the local newsagents.
Then secondly, a bit of a strange combination but pink shrimps go really well with the chocolate. My daughter also loves them, but I think that is because they are pink.
Third up, for something a wee bit different would have to be gummi bears..I always remember when selecting pick and mixes tring to make sure I scooped up the red and orange bears, as they were my favourite..
Finally I’d have to go for cola bottles, as so far I’ve picked my/my daughters favourites. I’d have to pick something for my partner.
This really would be my perfect pick n mix..such a fun thing to think about..this was pretty much our pick and mix bag the first time we took our daughter to the cinema a few months ago…she now knows the cinema is where she can have sweeties..oops…
Flying saucers – because I can’t find the real ones!
Chocolate eclairs – chocolate encased in toffee, the perfect combination.
Dolly mixtures – my sheep loves them!
Cola cubes – they keep everyone quiet on a long journey.
Cola bottles, jelly bears, jelly bean and cherry lips. The jelly sweets are by far the best.
Bazooka bubblies..I still have the big kid in me, them lick n stick tattoo’s were great.
Cherry lips..They are so mourish, I could chew these perfume sweet forever.
Highland toffee bars..just to pull them fillings out.
Chocolate toffee logs..oohh there so chewy and addictive
[...] As the BBC reveals the winners of the £56m EuroMillions on Saturday night, we reveal the equally eagerly-awaited results of our Ooh.com Pick ’n’ Mix competition. [...]
[...] a photo from our happy winner of the Ooh.com Pick n Mix competition. We’ll be announcing a new competition soon. If there’s something you’d like to [...]
Yeeeeeeeesssss!!!
I emailed Odeon Dunfermline where they have the popcorn sweeper uppers
“Hi guys,
bit of a strange question and not sure if you still have them.
You know the big yellow and black (I think) popcorn sweeper-uppers you use to sweep up spilled popcorn? I’m trying to find a picture of one.
Can you tell me what’s it called or better yet, do you have a picture of one in action?
This is not a weird fetish, just nobody believes me when I say you keep a man in a cupboard who only comes out with the sweeper when somebody spills popcorn.
KR,
Barry”
and I got this response today
“Hi
I am attaching a picture of our sweeper as requested. It’s not a great picture but it’s the best I could find
Hope this is OK”
It is a really small photo but…
http://stalkerb.com/images/popcorn-sweeper.jpg
Hi, did you pick/announce winner yet? :0)