Wednesday 22 July 2009

BODY FASCIST

Mes chers amis

My friend, Mapstew, asks why I wouldn't want to be Beth Ditto, and I can answer this impertinent question with two words: fat lesbian.  I would be completely hopeless as a fat person, and particularly useless as a lesbian finding hot girl-on-girl action a huge yawnarama.  I am sorry to say that some disappointed suitors can attest to this.  Also, I do not have the discipline and commitment required to become truly fat, as I am easily distracted from the task in hand (eg eating a pie) and I am too nervous to enter a fast food establishment.  Occasionally, when my prodigal son turns up on the doorstep, with his burning eyes, his hacking cough and raccoon skin hat, I take him for a Drive Thru at MacDonalds.  I don't mind doing this.  My boy shouts his order into an intercom and the wageslave asks if he wants to go large.  Occasionally, I will agree to a Diet Cherry Coke, but I have never had a cheeseburger, nor a Whoppa in my mouth.  The MacDonalds we prefer is opposite Reading Gaol.  Sometimes, if we park up, my son will observe that it looks fucking awful.  

I see other people going into fast fooderies and I envy them.  They seem to know what to do.  I would be completely lost, because you have to place your order immediately, or risk annoying the queue, and you have to know which sauce you prefer.  Under no circumstances can you change your mind,  and the napkins are kept in a patented plexiglass trap.  This is all I know of MacDonalds.  I cannot even begin to imagine what goes on in KFC or Domino's.  However, I have to tell you that in Marlow we still have a Wimpy Bar.  Yes, really, we do.  The Henley Branch has only just closed down (to make way for an Oxfam Bookshop of all the gloomsome things!) so connoisseurs of frankfurters twirled around fried eggs and the fabled Brown Derby dessert have to head down-river.  You will be relieved to hear that it is still strictly waitress service and that the menu is illustrated, as it ever was, with highly coloured photographs of the fare.  All you have to do is point.  No flimflam about sauces, either, as there is a red plastic tomato and a ridged brown dispenser on every table.  The dimmer of my twins worked the Gaggia there during one unforgettable summer.  His spirited cry of "Una cappuccino, no froth!" was strictly pre-Starbucks.

But I digress.  My thrust here is weight.  My mailbox is oft-times becrammed with the plaintive plea:  Mrs Pouncer, how do you retain your schoolgirl figure (ie that of Marigold Russell in the first reel of Blue Murder at St Trinian's, gymslip and all)?  My answer is simple: history.  It is a generational thing, I'm afraid, and there is nothing that portly youth can do about it.  In the 1970s we walked everywhere; there was no rural bus service to speak of, and parents did not operate as Licensed Cab Drivers in those days.  Food in England was not easily available: you had to sit down to eat, for one thing.  The thought of Boots the Chemist providing sandwiches and Fruits of the Forest Yogosnaps was unthinkable then.  There were chipshops, yes, but none operated before 6.00 pm, and the only Kebab house I knew of was in Lambs Conduit Street.  I know some of you will yield up the appalling cry: what about sausage rolls and Oeufs Ecossais then, Mrs Pouncer?  Non-kosher, you aunts.

We all smoked, and when not smoking we chewed gum.  And then there were diet drinks.  How we loved them! My friends would neck quarts of Fresca and Diet Coke (Just For The Taste Of It!) but I loved Tab beyond all human comprehension.  I wouldn't have touched Tango with a bargepole; if it wasn't crammed full of cyclamates and sodium benzoate, I wasn't drinking - and none of this Tommyrot about how it inhibited mitachondrial DNA, either!  We couldn't care less.  We were on a roll then (an Energen Starch Reduced one) as the diet industry kicked in and lycra became leisure wear.  We had Limmits Crackers, Outline Low Fat Spread, ToniBell yoghurt and Savoury Beef Bisks - and whatever happened to Ayds?  Actually, I never ate any of this stuff, as by then I was supporting a moderate barb. habit and tipped the scales at just under 8 stone.  Of course, it wasn't healthy, I am not pretending it was, but the pavements were not logjammed with hefting teenagers who are too fat to care.  That can't be healthy either, can it? 

The trouble is that a healthy diet is a dreary diet, but I would always put my hand up for more spinach, raspberries, kneidlach, marzipan and vodka.  That's balance.

39 comments:

  1. That would be one hell of a cocktail, though.

    Ps. WV= vastr. How do they know?

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  2. Is there really a Reading Gaol still? Can you feel Oscar?
    I've never dallied in junk food and am a cheese burger virgin but I did become addicted to hot dogs with that bland mustard - in New York in the seventies.
    7 stone 4 ounces and could eat anything. Those were the days.

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  3. The key point here is that kosher food is awful, fucking dreadful, worse than English boarding school food. The uptown platform at 59th St on the West Side IRT used to (and still does for all I know) feature a knish stand. To duplicate a knish, fill a brown paper bag with warm wallpaper paste.

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  4. Pat, sweetheart, we all felt Oscar. That's how how he got the treadmill gig in the first place.

    Mmm, Wimpys and phenolbarbitone. Wasn't ICI just the best godammed company in the world back then? They made the drugs and the photo chemicals and the ketchup plastic. No wonder the meals looked fuck all like their photos on the wall.

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  5. Inky, only a savage would travel on the West Side IRT.

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  6. Mrs Pouncer, ol' butty, there's not much to add to your masterfull sweep across matters dietary - Elizabeth David can just sodding well sod the sod right off after this, Nigella will just be a name that should not have been allowed.

    Not much, other than to throw my own not very considerable weight (liquid diet and all that) behind the Wimpey. The orange gooeyness of the cheese in their aptly named cheese burger (oh, the innovation, the invention) is something I shall love till my passing. Sadly, other than certain west country service stations - big up the Strensham crew! - they are vanishing before the twin bladed combine harvesters of the industry. Britain will lose one of the letters in its Great when that happens, probably the E.

    I'm not aware of eating much Kosher food, but I do like Matzho biscuits a lot. And, when a younger drunk I used to eat salt beef sandwhiches in a cafe near Charing Cross which were as marvelous as Time Out had promised my bright-light-dazzled yockel gob, would they have been kosher. I reckons.

    Many kindnesses to you.

    Cardiff Drunk.

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  7. You got our Oxfam Bookshop, god damn it.

    ("Marigold Russell!" A girl can dream!)

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  8. A girl like you always had the dosh to maintain her habit, I imagine Pouncer. Think yourself lucky you didn't have to go about bringing off old codgers just for a dirty line of nose.

    I was in Mcdonalds just the other day, for a breakfast, so it doesn't count. Compared to the other clientale I felt like little Lord Fauntleroy. Does that make me a snob?

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  9. I'm so pleased you are not one of those horrible 'L' women, my dear. Men seem to be attracted by that sort of thing, but I think it's horrid, and it reminds me of certain teachers at Kingsley boarding school. They all had a lot of hair on their top lip, but strangely, not much on their bottom.

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  10. The problem with kids today is that there's not enough Tartrazine in the diet.

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  11. Poor Fingal, I wonder if anyone thought to preserve his midnight etchings upon the wall in the dreaded hell that was E wing?

    He too had a meagre diet of only morsels to amuse him.

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  12. Inky - go Sephardic, noch.

    Mrs P, did you ever enter a Starburger? These lime-green temples of gristle would appear like Brigadoon to haunt students return home through 1980s South London after an evening's taking of refreshments.

    The walls were etched with the souls of men.

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  13. God knows I try to encourage my offspring to follow a heathly diet, but I'm not sure they really grasp the first thing about it. The school calls it "Food Technology", which sounds like applied chemistry to me and possibly explains the conversation overhead yesterday when my son tried to explain to his little sister that a light sabre wasn't one with less calories in it. Basicm natural foodstuffs are the answr, Milk and Honey sort of thing (actually if you haven't been to the Milk & Honey speakeasy on NY let me take you there. It's very good value for money as you can drink all night and therefore don't need a hotel room. I guess the occasional monosodium-glumated-sugary-salty-junky-kebab-burgery thing would be fine. Which remainds me, if you've never had a Whoppa in your mouth I'd be more than happy to introduce you to that particular vice. Who knows, you might like it. I do

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  14. bloody hell, I promise to spell check before I post again

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  15. I am also perplexed by MacDonalds. The lighting is too harsh for one thing. And there are no plates even when you eat-in. And I don't like the vegtables they put in with the burger. I don't like burger.
    Sx

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  16. And your post time travelled into the past, messing up my blogrol.
    Are you Dr Who's new assistant?
    Sx

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  17. Daphne: she is a plump singer. I googled.

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  18. My dearest Mrs. P.,
    Most sincere apologies for one's impertinence.
    Truly, at the time of writing, one had no inkling that said person(ality) was that way inclined!
    I never noticed the fat before.

    Map.

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  19. Hello, Auty. I am sure I saw the troglodytes who run Fuel Juice in Reading whizzing that up in their begrimed blender yesterday. Sans vod, of course. They called it a Hansel & Gretel.

    Kev, whaddya mean? I am Marigold Russell to a T, with a generous helping of Yvonne Romaine and a side order of Hazel Court.

    Emerson, well really! You take a coarse line just to sound grown-up, and it doesn't work. And no, to be Little Lord Fauntleroy you would have to have guinea-gold curls, a crushed velvet suit and a pretty way with housemaids. You have none of these.

    Scarlet, I am cleverer than that. You see, this post is about the past so its delayed placing on your blogroll was just a little finesse on my part. (No, I did that thing again where I wander off and forget it, then come back and think oh yeah, I'd better finish that, but it was a week ago etc etc etc. You know).

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  20. Daphne, I suspect that you know fine well who B. Ditto is. However, to pander to you: she is very big in Queercore, apparently ..... and in everything else as well!!!!!!!!!!!! Badoom-tish. Reminds me of the late R. Scott one night introducing some tomfool clarinetist or other: "he's the best in the country; in the town, however, he's shit ..." I don't like jazz, but oh! how I loved going to Frith Street, sometimes with the harridan. Did you ever go?

    Hello Jimmy! Actually, O. Wilde quite liked Reading. He said the shopping was OK, a bit high street chain-y, but passable, and the Indian on Caversham Road had a good Eat All You Can buffet on Tuesdays.

    Mapstew, it's OK. Nothing is frowned on in these sumptuous pages; you can cast aspersions on anything you read, believe me, apart from Terry's Neapolitans, Karen Black and the Great Smell of Brut. Anything else is fair game.

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  21. Oh Boyo, you roll away the years. I used to go to the Starburger on Tooting High Street, oft-times with Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. We liked a thing called a Big Burger. It was a burger, and it was quite big. You could have it with chips. Yes, chips; and you put the salt on them yourself. It did not come with a bit of lettuce. There was no tomato. The onions were charred. There was a chocolate milkshake in a thick moulded glass. The first three inches was pure sugar froth. It froze the gums. The last inch was pure sugar syrup. My fillings ached. Golden days, Boyo, golden days.

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  22. No I swear, like Pat, I had to Google her. Why is she news? Nobody made a fuss about Dawn French or Jo Brand. Is it because the fat lady sings? Wouldn't be the first time for that either. I don't get it.

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  23. Inky, you are little short of spiteful, and also ill-informed. I invite you to sit at my groaning board, at which you will be served Balkanische Chlodnik, gefullte Gans with Erdapfelknodel, kopfsalat and hot beets, and a great shuddering helping of Arenberg Birnen. Yummers.

    And Scarlet, I think I will go ahead with my virtual Come Dine With Me. I will be inviting my 5 guests tomorrow. I will present my menu, and also topics of conversation. Exciting.

    Gadjo, on that subject, you will be one of my guests. I will let you know the rules quicksticks. I like the word Tartrazine. It conjures up an image of a Scotsman with marzipan in his breeks. I don't know why. It is possible I am hallucinating.

    Dear The Drinker. Your cheerful and comprehensive comment is an antidote to Inky's bile, for which I thank you. There is a charming saying "A house without matzos is an unlucky house". I think it might've been dreamt up by the marketing men at Rakusen's, but no matter. Salt beef sandwiches - food of the Gods, to be sure! But a heaving pile of gefilte fish is the best hangover cure in the world.

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  24. Dear Mr Jekand, a delight as ever. However, your humour has taken a low turn and, as such, is more suited to the seasoned palates of Miss Scarlet, and even Miss Jessop, who I don't believe you've met. Miss Jessop, Mr Jekand. Mr Jekand, Miss Jessop. I believe you have a shared interest in entendres, both double and single.

    Miss Jessop, Kingsley School could learn a lot from Mallory Towers. But, you are wrong. Men only think they like lesbianism: they don't. What they like is lesbian display, a different thing entirely. They like 17 year old twins in shower scenes. What they don't like is 50 year old dykes in matching tuxedos or Andrea Dworkin.

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  25. Daphne, you are mistaken. Everyone made a fuss of D. French and J. Brand, as they always do of fat funnies. Think of Two Ton Tessie O'Shea, if you must. The current fuss being made of B. Ditto concerns her new clothing range: gigantic sailor dresses and huge besequined mumus.

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  26. I try to remain on the sunny side of the street Mrs P.

    With your proverbiage in mind I shall keep that packet of Mazhos going slowly soft in the bread bin in order to please the gods - expect lottery wins and heroic sottery to follow!

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  27. I assume The Drinker means Matzos, Mrs P.

    Anyway, thanks for the post, amusing as ever, but I just feel a bit of an outsider reading it, as I'm fat. And I don't even have the excuse of being young or patronising MacDonalds. I just like food too much.

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  28. Dear DT, he is using the Welsh spelling, actually. Please do not think that my featured friends are all sylphs: far from it! Maroon is known as the Perthshire Pavarotti, and not because of his voice; Auty is the Aldgate Arbuckle and Miss Scarlet Blue, for all her protestations, is the Bunterette of Bromley-by-Bow. Gadj once appeared as half a hundredweight of Hickory ham in the Cluj Cooked Meats Pageant, so you are amongst friends.

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  29. Since you didn't ask I have been to R Scotts - with my hairdresser - sixties or seventies. Very noisy.

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  30. Bunterette!!!
    Pfffffttt....
    I have small bones.
    Sx

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  31. Scarlet: where do you have small bones? Don't they rattle when you walk?

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  32. I am thinking of setting up a small craft business. I will be making earrings and necklaces from chicken bones. After being carved, polished and decorated with sequins they will look exquisite. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about.
    Sx

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  33. Oh dear Mrs P, I wish I were ill-informed, I still have a stomach-ache from that knish 25 years later. It hasn't been eased by Mrs Inkspot-in-law's cooking, she can't even make a decent reservation. Mind you, my own mother is also a singularity in the kitchen, it wasn't until I was sent to boarding school that I discovered fried eggs didn't have to be black. It was a real shock, I tell you.

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  34. You English women. Fat, thin, is not matter. Strong is good, arms and legs that can work. Forget diet stupidity - if you become welders, you will have good shape.

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  35. I am yearning for a Bender Burger and a Brown Derby now , there is no Wimpy Bar within miles of Bournemouth :-(

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  36. I did mean Matzos - my spelling is poor, my Jewish spelling even worse.

    In Gloucester we sang and truly believed the super-duper Severn Sound advert, "Burger Star is best by far," and indeed it had a grain of truth to it.

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  37. Hello, the Drinker! Poor spelling is usually streng verboten chez Pouncer, but I make exceptions. But only because I laike you.

    Beast, you are mistaken. This very weekend I am en route to Corfe Castle to deliver the Harridan to her cousin's cottage. Not 5 miles away, in Swanage, there is a Wimpy. I suggest you schlep across the chain ferry at Sandbanks and reserve a table at Purbeck's finest.

    Alice, I despair. I do have strong arms, and legs that work in a wondrous way. I did not get in this enviable shape from spot-welding. I am have a handspan waist because I am far too busy to eat; unlike some sluggards.

    Inky, as I have made abundantly clear, I am a stranger to the kitchen. I keep the opulent old drudge, Mrs Rumteigh, for that sort of caper. Currently, she is working her way through a dogeared old tome that belonged to my dear old Oma. It is called Vienna On A Plate. The pug now feasts on leftover Aschenbrodeleier. This morning, I ate cold Lachsbeignets for brekky.

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  38. Sorry, Alice. ...I have a handspan waist ...

    Kev, do not bring up Scarlet's bones. It will only result in boastful claims.

    Scarlet, your new business venture sounds vile. Who on earth will want to wear such noisome trinkets, apart from witchdoctors and Pixie Geldof? Do not attempt to sell your wares through these sumptuous pages. My readership favour a more traditional accessory, and single-use cockrings.

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