By Robert Barry
It was the question that put Gordon Brown in the hot seat. What do you have with your tea? And more importantly, do you dunk? In a press conference held to promote new film, Remember Me, Robert Pattinson put aside months of speculation when he revealed for the first time his love for the crumbly biscuit treat.
Syrupy new romcom (well, rom anyway), Remember Me, represents something of a departure for Pattinson. Used to playing brooding, insecure types with unresolved oedipus complexes in teen flicks about vampires and wizards, here he teams up with Lost star Emilie de Ravin in a film that deals with (or at least mentions) real, adult themes such as global politics, nihilism and international terrorism, and in which Pattinson plays a brooding, insecure type with an unresolved oedipus complex.
To herald Mr Diggery - I mean Pattinson's coming of age, it seemed only right to challenge him with what has become perhaps the political question du jour. Mumsnet users were shocked and appalled late last year when Gordon Brown repeatedly refused to answer this simple question. After more than 24 hours, finally the truth came out via the Prime Minister's Twitter feed, ending the Great Biscuit Silence of 09. So, between the austerity nostalgia of David Cameron's choice of oat cakes, the bland sincerity of Nick Clegg's Rich Tea, and the cheeky little secret of Gordon's finally, naughtily avowed, "anything with a bit of chocolate." Where was Pattinson to nail his political colours? Or would he storm off in a biscuit-induced huff, refusing to comment and thus inviting the fury of mums and Telegraph columnists everywhere?
In the end, there was no such dramatic scene. Instead, there was rejoicing at McVities Central Office as Pattinson revealed to the world his love for the Hob Nob. "I do like a Hob Nob" he said, no doubt for their cheeky mixture of rustic flakiness and oh-so-naughty butteriness. For co-star Emilie de Ravin, the question seemed to bring her childhood flooding back in a Proustian rush as she recalled her fondness for madeleines. While the film's producer, Nicholas Osborne, brought further joy to the good people at McVities when he plumped for their chocolate digestives - insisting, nonetheless, on "dark chocolate - not milk."
On the subject of biscuits, Pattinson opened up the thorny question of their nomenclature, admitting that he found American-style chicken and biscuits "very nice." However, as the the word 'biscuit' comes from the French 'bis cuit' (quite literally 'twice-baked') and the bready patties served with fried chicken in the Mid West are baked only once, these are clearly not really biscuits so Mr Pattinson's fondness for them can for the moment be disregarded. It seems that Pattinson may have been spending rather a lot of his time in the States enjoying their fast food, however, as producer Nicholas Osborne revealed Pattinson first read the script for Remember Me in the car park of an In 'n' Out Burger. Pattinson was drawn to the script immediately for its realism, claiming it seemed, "much more naturalistic" than others he had been sent. "I never like anything," he pouted, "so its quite easy to decide what to do." But he insisted firmly, "I never think about the box office!"
Perhaps Pattinson's biggest revelation, however, was quite unintentional. Asked whether he had ever considered anyone to be a personal hero of his, he replied, "I don't think I've ever been considered a hero" and immediately sent any close readers of Sigmund Freud's The Psychopathology of Everyday Life within earshot into a paroxysm of delight. Though the explicit content of his sentence sought humbly to deny his own heroism, the parapraxis whereby he mistook the interviewer's innocent question for another proves that he really believes otherwise.