AN OUTSIDER LOOKING INSIDE

To anyone from Sweden, washed up in the U.K. you know that you have to fight for your right to … fika! Although most ordinary workers enjoy tea-breaks, for many in office employment it is regarded as most disloyal to leave your desk for a break. Much better, it is considered, to precariously balance a plastic coffee machine cup near your paperwork, and risk getting crumbs and flakes of food lodged in your keyboard.

Using subterfuge to leave the office, ‘delivering post’, ‘checking our rivals shopfront windows ’etc is a necessary skill-set for being able to break out for fika. Sadly, too often that means sitting in an overpriced ‘Italian-style’ chain café with a bitter cup of coffee, and for company? How about a ‘Linzer’ biscuit?

I’m not a great fan of the Linzer biscuit. Essentially two discs of sawdust compacted together with jam. Far too unwieldy for dunking in your coffee, as well. This however is not the main point of this rant. To really ruin your fika consider the odd-pricing policy, then choke on your coffee.

The annoying thing is that ‘Linzers’ are for purposes of Value Added Tax (VAT) classified by the Eurocracy as ‘cakes’ rather than ‘biscuits.’ They are therefore taxed as a luxury if consumed on café premises, rather than take-away. Hello Brussels, yes you, wake up at the back there. The clue is in the word Linzer BISCUIT. Got it yet? a rehab B-I-S-C-U-I-T?  No, no, no!

Far too simple for the European Union bureaucrats. They probably had to have an all-expenses paid committee of enquiry. Munching away and determining  the correct breed classification of the Linzer Biscuit. As Marie Antonette their heroine didn’t say: “Let them eat biscuits”. Look guys, it really is this simple. It’s a BISCUIT. Got that?  Not to be confused with the far more upmarket ‘Linzertorte’. Now THAT is a cake. Word association time. Brussels – Brussel sprouts – flatulence – Brussels, HQ of the European Union bureaucracy. Neat.

So, if you really want to risk breaking E.U. Law? You can purchase a coffee AND a Linzer biscuit. But pay for the biscuit as ‘take-away’ and avoid the VAT penalty. If you nibble the biscuit on the premises then you are breaking the law. You can have a last swig of coffee and as you go out, shove the whole biscuit in your mouth. Providing you don’t swallow before you get out of the door, you are street legal. In the U.K. having fika is really a subversive activity.

The Linzer is named after it’s city of origin, Linz in Austria. So what else is Linz famous for? It’s the old stomping ground of Adolf Hitler. They keep rather quiet about this association.  It’s a nice enough city, I’ve been there. I didn’t expect a statue but was disappointed that I couldn’t find a monumental plaque, not even a signposted historic route, nor Blue Badge guides offering an ‘Adolf Hitler Town Trail’. I guess the temptation to yell ‘Walk this way!’ would be too much. Goosestepping aside, Hitler may have been defeated, but his spirit is alive and well and living inside the E.U. bureaucracy. Celebrate the fact at your UK fika with a Linzer biscuit, ooops sorry ‘biscuit (cake)’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’

[Maybe first in a series of articles on Swedish adaptation to living in the U.K.?]

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