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Wednesday 22 April 2015

Going Clubbing - Have a break Have a Kit Cat. Business Directed #Conversation

Man is a sociable animal and we take all occasions and pretences of forming ourselves into those little nocturnal assemblies which are commonly known as clubs.                  
Joseph Addison  co founder of the Spectator Magazine 

In the 17th  Century century business could well be seen to be conducted in the Coffee House and Taverns of the times. Coffee from Africa entered England in around 1650s.

Richard Steele co founder of the Spectator
National Portrait Gallery, London
Joseph Addison co founder of the Spectator
National Portrait Gallery, London
The Kit Cat club was a 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives, meeting at the Trumpet tavern in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.

The first meetings were held at a tavern in Shire Lane (parallel with Bell Yard where  the Royal Courts of Justice now stand) run by an innkeeper called Christopher Catt.

He gave his name to the mutton pies known as "Kit Cats" from which the name of the club is derived.

The club later moved to the Fountain Tavern on The Strand (now the site of Simpson's-in-the-Strand), and latterly into a room especially built for the purpose at Barn Elms, the home of the secretary Jacob Tonson.

 In summer, the club met at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath.

One bar bill for such an evening of the Kit Kat club read that the 55 members consumed

20 gallons of Claret
4 gallons of white wine
42 bottles of ale
and broke several glasses.
Coffee houses were popular for meeting friends and doing business and to read the latest books, periodicals  and even the Spectator. 

Launched in March 1711 the Spectator was a success. Selling for one penny it soon was selling  6,000 copies per issue.


 The readership was mainly supporters of the Whig party. Its purpose was to advance the moral and cultural refinement  seen as the  basis for a well ordered and genteel society.


The Spectator we know today is a weekly British conservative magazine. It was first published on 6 July 1828, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language.


KitKat of our times


the chocolate-covered wafer biscuit bar confection
 formally known as Rowntree's Kit Kat bought by Nestle in 1988
The "Kit Kat" brand go back to 1911, when Rowntree's,  based in York , England, trademarked the terms "Kit Cat" and "Kit Kat". The first conception of the Kit Kat appeared in the 1920s, when Rowntree launched a brand of boxed chocolates entitled "Kit Cat".

The original four-finger bar was developed after a worker at Rowntree's York Factory put a suggestion in a recommendation box for a snack that "a man could take to work in his pack".

 The bar launched on 29 August 1935, under the title of "Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp" (priced at 2d), and was sold in London and throughout Southern England.

The product's official title of "Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp" was renamed "Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp" in 1937, the same year that 'Kit Kat' began to incorporate "Break" into its recognisable advertising strategy.

The colour scheme and first flavour variation to the brand came in 1942, owing to World War II, when food shortages prompted an alteration in the recipe. The flavour of "Kit Kat" was changed to "dark"; the packaging abandoned its "Chocolate Crisp" title, and was adorned in blue.

From 2002, Hershey Kit Kats adopted the slanted ellipse logo used
 worldwide by Nestlé, though the ellipse was red and the text white.
This is  a wrapper from one I bought in Chicago last year.
To me - the taste was slightly different

 After the war the title was altered to "Kit Kat" and resumed its original milk recipe and red packaging .

The slogan for KitKat around the world show those who enjoy KitKats make up one of the biggest clubs around !

チョコとウェハーの名コンビ, एक ब्रेक लें, एक किट कैट लें, Ha en paus, har en kitkat, Есть перерыв, есть KitKat, Bir Mola, bir kitkat var, Faites Un Pause, un Kitkat, Machen Sie Eine Pause, eine Kitkat,Ada Break, ada Kit Kat,Tener un Descanso, tener un kitkat, Tenha Uma Pausa, Tenha um Kitkat.................. Have a break, Have a KitKat.

After your break may I wish you Good Selling! 

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