Finger Lickin' Hood

I awoke this morning to brilliant news. Waltham Forest Council are to ban fast food outlets from the proximity of schools, parks and playing fields. If there's one thing Leytonstone isn't short of, it's places selling fried chicken. I reckon there are at least 20 on the High Road with numbers increasing the further you get toward the most horrible bit of East London, Stratford. You know the sort of place - they always look a bit like a real, properly franchised KFC. There's USA Fried Chicken, Perfect Fried Chicken, Chicken Spot, Chicken Point, Kennsy Fried Chicken, Dixy Fried Chicken, a Favorite Fried Chicken (and indeed a Favourable Fried Chicken). There's even a Karachi Fried Chicken. Elsewhere I've seen a Big Portion Fried Chicken and a Peter Chicago Fried Chicken. Back home there's this personal favourite*:



There'll be a mountain bike laying on the pavement outside the door, the cycles' owner arguing with the staff and threatening to come back with his troopz if he doesn't get enough fries. You can get a "meal" at one of these places for a quid - the best deep fried chicken that the factory farms of Thailand can produce. The worst thing these shops generate (apart from an enormous drain on the NHS in 10 or so years) is the empty cartons. This being London, they are discarded without the slightest thought or consideration. Toward Leyton tube station they are more numerous than ever. I've become angrily obsessed with them. Every time I see one I want to write to Gordon Brown and ask him to consider putting snipers in the trees. Now I can't walk past one without taking a picture. The streets of London are paved with gold boxes.


*Photo from Evil Twin