OK, so last week, I ran a colouring in competition. In the end, ten people entered. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, to be honest, so I made this:
I do, of course, also need to pick a winner. But how can I possibly choose between these wonderful works of art? They’re all winners. Except, obviously, they’re not.
There can only be one winner. But I can’t pick who it is.
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My first job was working at Kingston Library during their Sunday openings. I got £25 for about a four hour shift – later, with more experience, this would increase to £50 as I rose to the lofty ranks of duty manager (responsible for opening up, supervising all staff, resolving any problems, cashing up once the library had closed and locking the building at the end of the day).
After work, I would get the 213 bus home, but rather than getting off at Worcester Park station, I’d stay on the bus one stop further and go to KFC (114 Central Road). I would then walk home, possibly taking one or two sips from my Tango on the way back.
Once home, I would carefully assemble my meal. Placing my Zinger burger neatly on my plate and then adding the fries. I’d sprinkle the contents of the two sachets of salt over the fries and then (and this is important) I would add lots and lots of black pepper.
The black pepper is important because it hints at what was so significant about this ritual. They don’t give you pepper in KFC, only salt. No-one ever gives you pepper; not KFC, nor Burger King, nor McDonalds (except for with the breakfast menu).
There’s something immensely satisfying about adding black pepper to fast food fries. It’s as if you enjoy a secret culinary experience – unintended by such carefully intentional organisations. Adding an entirely new flavour to an otherwise carefully planned meal. Just by grinding a few peppercorns, I was subverting a multinational corporation. These few flecks of ground pepper undermining the work of all the food technicians employed by this global company.
And even more than that, I’d eat it on a plate. With a knife and fork. Or at least a fork (there’s really no need for a knife with a Zinger Burger Meal).
For some reason, possibly relating to a KFC advertisement I may or may not have seen this morning, the memory of my plated post-library Zinger meal joy suddenly came to me earlier today. So much so, that (after calculating how long it would take me to walk back to my flat in Leyton from the nearest KFC in the Leyton Mills retail park) I went to KFC in an attempt to relive this experience.
Of course, since that time in the mid-late 1990s, certain things have changed. Entering KFC today, I realised that a Zinger Burger Meal would no longer satisfy me (not even a large meal, and indeed ever since the introduction of the Tower option, I had been reluctant to ask for a “large Zinger meal” as although I would intend this statement to mean a Zinger meal, made “large” with large fries and a large drink, this has on more than one occasion been misinterpreted as asking for the meal of a large Zinger ie a Zinger Tower, which were it not for the addition of salsa, I’d probably enjoy).
Instead, and cringing slightly as I said the words, I ordered a “Wicked Zinger Box Meal” (there is no other Zinger box meal available, so why do KFC insist I add the word “Wicked”?). Although the Wicked Zinger Box Meal comes with a regular drink and regular fries (there didn’t appear to be a large option, although there was a Tower option), it does comes with a Side of your choice and two Hot Wings. At KFC, there really is only one side any self-respecting chicken fan would even consider ordering. Chicken gravy. A glorious, gloopy, brown concoction (which, though delicious, perhaps isn’t suited to a sunny July afternoon. I ordered it anyway).
It took me precisely ten minutes to get home (two minutes less than I predicted) and happily, the fries were still hot. Fries seem to lose heat quickest, but today they coped fine. Possibly the “box” innovation was helpful here – not only in preventing heat loss, but also helping to avoid the unpleasant moistness which often results when chips are carried in a plastic bag for a prolonged period.
Naturally, I didn’t use the spork provided with the chicken gravy, as the subversive use of real cutlery was part of the appeal. Although interestingly, an equally important part of the ritual is drinking Tango with a straw from the paper cup (complete with slosh cap). Here, at home, I don’t use a proper glass, as I am familiar enough with the experience of drinking a soft drink from a glass. Drinking the same drink with a straw from a paper cup (complete with slosh cap) in my own home, however, is a rare and genuine thrill. Similarly, I can’t even begin to describe the excitement of using the free freshwipe while knowing that I could easily go to the bathroom and wash my hands properly if I chose to. (The instructions printed on the freshwipe packet are perhaps unnecessarily detailed: “Tear open, unfold and use”. Unfold? As you remove it from the packet it’s about two centimetres square, of course I’m going to unfold it.)
Burp.
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It’s competition time!
Simply print out the image below, colour it in, scan it and send it back! (If you don’t have a scanner, take a photo and then send that) The best one wins a prize!
You can use felt tips, pencils, crayons, chalk, paint or anything you want (please no bodily fluids).
People just copying the image and putting it into MS Paint or Photoshop or similar won’t be disqualified, but I won’t be impressed by the lack of effort.
Closing date for entries is Tuesday 28th July 2009 (2.30pm)
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The train was already at the platform as I rushed down the steps at Leyton station. As soon as I reached the bottom step, the doors closed and I cursed every millisecond of delay which caused me to miss the train.
My anger intensified the closer the cause of delay was to the platform, and gradually dissipated moving away from the station. The outer limit of my anger just brushed those people getting off the number 69 bus and blocking the pavement as I approached the station. Anything beyond that bus stop was blame free.
Inside the station, I cursed the people queuing to buy tickets who stretched out halfway across the station lobby – although at the same time, I recognised their essential blamelessness and so my blame hopped over to the people who were responsible for positioning the ticket machines in that particular corner of the lobby. Again however, I understood that in deciding where to position the machines, these London Underground staff were forced to work within the confines of the architecture of a station built over a hundred and fifty years earlier – built by people who could not possibly have realised that on the 18th of July 2009 at about two o’clock in the afternoon, I would (as a direct result of their design) miss my train by less than a second.
No, I needed to find someone else to blame. Someone who was at least still alive. I had two choices: the elderly woman whose slow descent of the steps stopped me from dashing onto the train, or the person fiddling around with a paper ticket at the barrier. I’d feel a bit guilty blaming the elderly woman, so let’s go with the guy with the paper ticket. Who uses paper tickets these days anyway? But I could see he was struggling with his ticket even before I headed towards the barrier. Why didn’t I use a different one? If anyone is to blame here, it’s me.
I was still thinking all this as the train pulled away. Looking further up the track, I could already see the next train so knew I’d have less than a minute to wait. I began to walk along the platform. As I was going to Notting Hill Gate, I’d want to be at the back of the train anyway so I’d be closer to the exit when I got to the station.
I reached the other end of the platform at the exact same moment that the doors opened and I boarded the train and took a seat. The time it took me to walk the length of the platform precisely matched the gap between the two trains.
At Notting Hill Gate, I was the only person in my carriage to get off. As I did, a couple slowly walking hand in hand also reached the exit. They had obviously been on the previous train, probably in the carriage I would have been in had it not been for those milliseconds of delay. Those milliseconds of delay, which, in the end, made no difference to my day at all.
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