ninme

The Sunday Times - Feed the customers, or they’ll slash all the seats, by Jeremy Clarkson

Last weekend, as I spiralled round an endless succession of identical ring roads in the Midlands, looking for somewhere to have lunch, I realised with a heavy heart that the global food shortage had reached Britain. Quite simply, there was nowhere serving anything that a human being might reasonably want to put into its mouth.

I had in my mind a white-painted pub, perhaps by a restored lock. I imagined pretty gardens, some brightly painted canal boats, a pint of frothing ale and a hearty ploughman’s with lashings of Branston and some crunchy pickled onions. …

He ended up at TGI Fridays. I don’t know why. I could have told him not to. Any American could have told him not to. The fact that any American knows what it is is probably a fair clue that it’s going to disappoint his visions of a lock-side pub. And they wouldn’t make him a rare hamburger and the seats had all been slashed.

I can understand why the Vietnamese serve burnt slugs. I can understand why a chicken I was once given in Mali was skin and bone separated by nothing but warmed air. And I know why in Havana I was once given a spaghetti bolognese that came whole. Like a Frisbee.

Here in Britain there is no excuse for eating rubbish. We are bombarded with cookery programmes - and every Christmas the shelves in WH Smith groan under the weight of all the recipe books. Most people could name half a dozen footballers and maybe a handful of royals, but if you asked someone to list all the famous chefs in Britain we’d be here till Doomsday. They’re all so famous that we know them now by their Christian names: Gordon, Delia, Jamie, Marco, Heston, Gary, One Fat, the Hairy and so on and so on.

So why is it impossible to eat properly in Britain unless either you are in the middle of London or you are prepared to book six months in advance for a plate of vertical leaves drizzled with something odd? Why can’t someone open a restaurant in the provinces that serves bread, cheese, Branston pickle and some onions? Good, honest food for people who know how to use a lavatory and won’t slash all the seats.

That sounds yummy.

So over the weekend, we were eating what I suppose people eat. Breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, dinner at 5.30. 5.30! Three square meals! All practically back-to-back! My tummy was all, “Woah woah, what’s all this?!” I don’t understand how people do it. Besides get hugely fat. But isn’t it uncomfortable? And with dinner so early, the longest space between meals is between dinner and going to bed, never mind having to wait all night for breakfast, so you’re guaranteed to have to get a snack at bedtime, which rounds it out to a good solid four meals. Plus all the snacking. There was a snack table set out. I admit, I had a donut. And some cookies. And a handful of rice crackers (thank god for the Asian couples).