Is happiness triangle shaped?

I guess for those who like Toblerone, perhaps those happy tastebuds sensations are triangle shaped?

The lovely CJ Tudor author, providing important human scale to the auction item

I’m not one to craft, so my contributions to this year’s DecemberFundraiser, for and by Richard Armitage fans, is a personalised giant Toblerone and (if there aren’t too many already!) a couple of signed Geneva books (more about the books in a separate post).  I have to say, the giant Toblerone is the most wonderful, edible, shareable, auction item, and I encourage everyone to bid for it! 

For the sake of science, I bought a similar, plain, non-personalised giant Toblerone, to open up and show you what you can expect from the personalised one! I shared out the giant Toblerone triangles at work amongst my colleagues, and we were all smiling and laughing like children in a sweetshop. 

Imagine sharing this special auction item out (or enjoying it all yourself!) with that same feeling of childhood fun!

3 sizes of Toblerone (standard, medium and giant)

Toblerone comes in a variety of sizes, and now they have truffle options too.  In the photo I show you a 100 g (standard), 360 g (medium) and the giant 4.5 kg version of the bars.  I’m sure I’ve seen a pick-and-mix ‘fun size’ mini Toblerone too, but I haven’t found such in the shops lately.  And I didn’t spot the 760 g (large) version either.  I’ve put the 3 sizes (standard, medium and giant) together to give you some scale.  Ms CJ Tudor was also generous enough to put some human scale to the giant one too!

Close up of three Toblerone bars showing the net weight of them.

I decided to test the TikTok viral of ‘how to share a Toblerone’ to see if it would work for all these sizes of Toblerone. 

The knack if you want to share your Toblerone, or at least to eat it with some ease, is to pinch – don’t pull!  Yes, pinch two triangles together, and they break apart easily.   With the standard and medium ones, even I could do it with just my index finger and thumb.  But with the giant one, OK, I did need to use my palm to squeeze!  But I have small hands – size 6 gloves.  May be a tall ‘un (with giant hands) could still use finger and thumb to break apart the giant one?

Win this unique, never to be repeated item, and you could tell us how you share it!

To be clear – the auction item has not been opened – the giant Toblerone you see above is from the plain (extra) bar I bought (for research purposes)!

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Epilogue

More history about this giant Toblerone auction item… I had the idea in the summer, around the time the www.genevathriller.com website was announced. Alas the personalisation lettering when ordering from the www.toblerone.co.uk website is limited to 16 characters, so I couldn’t have used the Geneva website in full anyway. 

I had hoped to get Richard to sign and pose with the behemoth, but despite having the privilege of seeing Richard at various book promo event 4 times this year, Richard and chocolate never met.

I took the bar to the Sevenoaks Bookshop event, where Richard was interviewed by lovely CJ Tudor.  I drove there, so taking the bar was easy, and I met up with my London theatre partner-in-crime, PK, as well as recognising and meeting up with a few other Richard fans we had met at the Waterstones Piccadilly Q&A event, where Richard had been interviewed by Lucy Foley.  I hadn’t taken the giant T to Piccadilly because I had been trekking around London all day beforehand – first a wonderful Monet Immersive art show at the Boiler House, Brick Lane, and then hunting for the giant advertising hoarding near the Old Vic theatre, Waterloo, which Richard had posed at the day before.  I also didn’t want to bash the choccie bar about, and I hadn’t got a suitable bag to keep it in, without stretching my arms to Mr Tickle lengths!

I think the Piccadilly event was my favourite ‘Armitaging’ event this year, as I got to give him a present – a book on the history of the science park where his Mum and Dad had first met (and where I still work).  I’m still laughing at the glee in which he accepted the gift.  I hope it will be enjoyable to him and his family.  It was also the day of Richard’s book’s official launch, and he was having a party later that night.  Despite being one of the first to get my book signed (we were taken in row order, from the front row backwards), I had to wait whilst a friend got a photo re-taken with Richard – in her first photo, one of them had their eyes closed!  She was devastated, and so we waited until all had gone through for the repeat photo.  Because of the wait, I got to notice one of Richard’s close entourage hovering patiently in the background.  As soon as all the fans’ books had been signed, and photos taken, he unobtrusively came over and reminded everyone of the time, and so Richard and friends scooted out in a flash.

Likewise (as quick as a flash, I mean!), Richard left the Sevenoaks event as soon as the interview was over.  He was later spotted at the Madonna tour opening concert at the London O2 arena that same night, presumably having gone with friends Charlie Murphy and Sam Yates amongst others, if an IG story from her account (now deleted) is anything to go by?  Richard also released a short selfie video looking around a Sainsbury’s supermarket for his book, dressed in the same outfit as he had worn to Sevenoaks, and to his earlier book signing at Waterstones Bluewater the same day.  So he probably recorded that video earlier in the day, or shortly before changing to go out?  All sounds like it was a pretty full-on day for him, so I don’t begrudge him rushing off after the CJ interview.

I know at least one other fan, who had taken some various other books for Richard to sign at different book-signing event this year, mentioning the fundraiser as the reason for asking for the signatures, but who was politely refused. Richard said he could only sign his own book on these occasions.  So I don’t think I’m going to be too regretful that I didn’t hoick the chocolate bar across London to any of the other meets.

I took what opportunities that remained at Sevenoaks with the behemoth after Richard left.  CJ Tudor stayed behind and signed (her) books and chatted with fans.  She said it had taken her 10 years to get published from writing her first book. Nevertheless she was very supportive of Richard (who obviously had been able to circumvent such slogging).  I bought and got one of her books signed (The Burning Girls), and asked her if she would model the chocolate bar, which she kindly did!  I needed some scale for the bar, you see!  I hadn’t thought of putting the bar alongside a standard sized bar at the time. I warned her I was going to put the photos on social media, and she was kind enough to ‘like’ my post of her holding it.  I should add that I did remunerate her with a standard Toblerone afterwards for her efforts!

My grateful thanks, once again, to CJ, for her modelling and enthusiasm!