Food to Go During a Global Pandemic

We'd accepted that some things were going to have to be done differently - no more French kissing complete strangers in the local park for example. My wife and I are creatures of habit and tend to dine out twice a week, Thursday and Saturday because it gives me a break from cooking and it's easy to do in America, or at least in Texas where it's not hard to find a decent place to eat and usually pretty cheap; but we accepted that if we were going to continue with date night, it was going to have to be takeaways for the foreseeable future, at least until the end of either the coronavirus or civilisation, whichever came first. So here's what we ate, or at least what I ate.

Jim's Diner: burger, fries, onion rings, apple pie. We reasoned that it's hard to go wrong with Jim's, conveniently forgetting a recent unfortunate trend towards a slightly chewier chicken fried steak brought to your table by someone with distracting personality flaws - such as that weird little guy who kept trying to engage us in conversation about how much he enjoyed watching vehicular collisions occurring opposite the diner along Broadway. Anyway, my wife ordered a chicken salad which looked as though it had been thrown together first thing that morning, perhaps even the previous evening, and both my order of fries and apple pie were absent, which we didn't discover until we got home. The burger was kind of sad too. Jim's is a great place to eat, but I guess takeaway was never really their thing. The entire chain went into suspended animation about a week later - no take out or anything - so I guess at least someone realised Jim's wasn't playing to its strengths. There was a time when I came fairly close to having the Jim's logo tattooed upon my person, so it causes me great pain to admit that this may well have been the worst take out food I've ever begrudgingly stuffed into my face.

LA Crawfish: shrimp po boy, fries, chicken nuggets. The LA prefix refers to the state of Louisiana, and this is a chain which serves Louisiana style stuff, of which the po boy is one example. It's actually just a baguette filled with, in this case, shrimp, but somebody apparently decided to call it a po boy so as to reduce Louisiana's surfeit of things which sound a bit French. I don't really get it. I assume the rebranding refers to the sort of person who might eat a shrimp baguette, specifically a young economically impoverished gentleman. What annoys me about the name is that it obliges me to either assume the identity of a comedy English person by asking for a poor boy, or to impersonate a black man from New Orleans simply by pronouncing it correctly. Anyway, the last shrimp po boy I had from LA Crawfish was pretty good. This one was probably the same, but it turned out that I wasn't so hungry as I'd thought, and I struggled with what is essentially a loaf of bread cut in half length-ways and filled with shrimp, lettuce, mayonnaise, and peppers. It's the sort of thing you would more logically eat with a knife and fork, but no-one does, so it feels weird even to attempt to do so. Also, being a fucking idiot, I forgot just how massive the LA Crawfish po boy tends to be and ordered chicken nuggets as well as fries; so there was way too much of it and it was all too dry.

Hung Fong: sweet and sour chicken, spring roll. The problem with committing oneself to a course of takeaway food is that something which might be enjoyed in a diner or eating place doesn't always work as takeaway - as I learned the hard way with Jim's, or, I suppose, the slightly soggy way. That said, I've regarded Chinese food as primarily takeaway for a long time, at least since I was a teenager, even if I'm sat eating it at a table inside a restaurant. Happily this means that Hung Fong's fare translates to styrofoam conveyance without so much as a hiccup, and makes just as much sense consumed at home while watching Wheel of Fortune. This is nice because, perhaps ironically, Hung Fong's fare tastes like proper food more than it tastes like what I've traditionally come to think of as Chinese takeaway, which is probably the difference between English and American variations upon what Chinese people actually eat. Hung Fong is the oldest Chinese restaurant in San Antonio, having been established back in 1939, and they're friends of the family - or at least Jeff is - so we feel it's sort of our duty to keep the place going until normal service is resumed.

Los Dos Laredos: migas plate, coffee. My wife and myself have regarded Los Dos Laredos as more or less the greatest Mexican diner in the universe for at least the last couple of years. It's one of those little orange buildings you might not immediately notice on the Austin Highway, one of many, a happy cartoon chili pepper wearing a sombrero enthusiastically hand-painted on the window and at least one waitresses with a reassuringly slender grasp of English, and the food is wonderful. Amazingly, it works just as well in takeaway form - which has come as a massive relief - and such is the culinary excellence of the establishment that I even ordered a takeaway coffee where I wouldn't ordinarily bother, because even their coffee is amazing and somehow unlike that served by anyone else. The migas plate, for those unfamiliar with the term, is essentially an omelet made with crushed up corn chips, salsa, and a ton of cheese, so it's basically a crunchy omelet and is absurdly fortifying; and happily it works just as well at home following conveyance by means of styrofoam container.

Shake Shack: chicken burger, fries, salted caramel shake. We were heading for Good Time Charlie's but became fearful that their ordinary fare was of such excellence that the mobile version could only come as a disappointment, so instead we went across the road to Shake Shack, which is part of a chain, and about which we'd been wondering ever since they set up shop on that corner where the Kiddie Park used to be. The chicken was crispy and delicious, and the shake may actually have been the greatest thing I've ever sucked through a straw, not least because I actually could suck it through a straw unlike the usual multicoloured nightmares in flavoured sugar with the consistency of peanut butter. We ate in the car, in the parking lot of Half Price Books so as to watch all the pussy cats which congregate in the area, so it felt like a bit of an occasion.

Popeye's: chicken burger. Having once ordered a Popeye's poor boy, or rather a po boy, at least as cumbersome as the thing I had from LA Crawfish, I wisely limited myself to just the chicken burger, which was actually decent. As the restaurant - if we're now going to call fast food joints restaurants - was fully closed (rather than open but with the seating area cordoned off), I was obliged to sit in the drive-through lane on my bike behind a massive truck like some kind of lunatic. Thankfully my order came through pretty quickly. I think the last time I went inside a branch of Popeye's it took about twenty minutes, which I assumed to be a deliberate delay intended to reinforce the illusion of our being in Louisiana where sitting around on your arse and not giving a fuck actively counts as an undertaking.

Shake Shack: chicken burger, cheese burger, fries, salted caramel shake. We went back but somehow it wasn't as good. I had an extra burger in the belief that just one wouldn't be enough, but it was too much and the chicken wasn't as crispy, plus it was pissing down with rain and I realised I needed new shoes as I crossed the forecourt to place the order. I realised this because my feet were damp.

Shake Shack: chicken burger, fries, salted caramel shake. Yet the third time was just as good as the first, so I have no idea what happened there given that it was still pissing with rain. Perhaps a pall was cast across the previous occasion by the passing of Eddie from Little & Large.

El Jibarazo: carne asada tacos. El Jibarazo is a semi-stationary taco truck parked next to a raised porch built on the side an automotive place owned by the same people. I seem to recall Trump warning us about taco trucks, which really says more about him than anything else. El Jibarazo's food is kind of basic, I suppose, but pisses over pretty much everything else in San Antonio. Their carne asada tacos - or Mexican street tacos if you live in Portland, tend to screech a lot and your fave band is Ha Ha Tonka - may conceivably be the greatest tacos on the planet and are no less amazing eaten at home given that they're already takeaway.

Los Dos Laredos: migas plate, coffee. Still good during the second weekend of the lockdown and made us both feel better after another encounter with a certain passive-aggressive relative who should really have been staying the fuck home rather than worrying about hire cars given that she doesn't actually have any friends to visit.

Guajillo's: mole poblano. Guajillo's was the last place we ate before everything shut down, and their mole poblano is amazing and the best version of this dish I've eaten outside Mexico. It's that chocolate and chilli thing everyone's heard about, and I've tried to cook it myself but have never got the balance right. The key seems to be that it should be just a little more spicy than you like, which is something I find difficult to judge, but whoever rules the frying pan at Guajillo's is clearly a master of the art. Anyway, we didn't even realise Guajillo's was doing take out during the shut down, and hadn't even wondered, assuming their food to be one of those things which wouldn't really work in mobile form. Happily we were wrong and being able to eat Guajillo's mole poblano at home came fairly close to a religious experience.

McDonalds: cheeseburgers, fries, soda. I was ill, but thankfully with diverticulitis rather than coronavirus. This is an occasionally recurring condition which manifests as stomach cramps and an inability to poo, which I usually get around with Milk of Magnesia and a liquid only diet for as long as it takes - usually just a day; and at the end of this particular day I began to experience hunger and so opted for something fairly bland just to be on the safe side. I only seem to eat at McDonald's when I'm ill, and on this occasion it was nevertheless welcome

Sabor Cocinabar: enchiladas Aztecas. Along with Good Time Charlie's, Guajillo's, Los Dos Laredos, and El Jibarazo, Sabor Cocinabar is one of those places which I'd consider top shelf - Mexican food with an unusual gourmet angle, but gourmet Mexican rather than the usual Mexican food for people who don't actually like Mexican food thing which one encounters around this parish from time to time. I'm not even sure what the hell enchiladas Aztecas actually is, but it's gorgeous, seemingly a relative of mole poblano but as an enchilada and involving fried potatoes amongst other things, and with a bewildering suggestion of caramel, or something like caramel. I had doubts it would translate into a takeaway version, and regrettably it kind of didn't, although I couldn't really work out why. There was nothing obviously wrong or lacking except that somehow it lacked spirit, so maybe the ingredient I've yet to identify is witchcraft.

Good Time Charlie's: cilantro jack steak, fries, house salad. We put off the inevitable sampling of Charlie's takeaway service for fear of it failing to live up to the standard of their food as served in house. Charlie's probably qualifies as our all-time favourite diner. We chalked up thirty-one separate visits in 2019, beating Los Dos Laredos by two; of course we should have known better and trusted in Charlie's where even the fucking salad is amazing; and the aforementioned fucking salad was, against all reason, still amazing as takeaway in a styrofoam punnet, contrary to expectations lowered by that weird limp thing we brought home from Jim's the other week. Jim's, to briefly backtrack, is usually great but has been occasionally prone to lackluster intervals depending, I suppose, on who they have working for them at the time, and whilst an actual poor meal at Jim's is a truly rare thing, when they screw up, the food tends to remind you that you're eating at a chain restaurant. Charlie's by comparison is like the very best of Jim's done right to the point of tasting like home cooking, so it's probably significant that they're not a chain. Cilantro jack steak, in case you were wondering, is a hamburger steak grilled with fresh cilantro - or coriander if you prefer - inside, topped with cheese, and I could die happy eating it. It's the sort of food you anticipate eating at the end of a tough day. You can actually feel your soul healing as you dine. The cheese was a little dryer than usual as takeaway, but it was still lush.

Los Dos Laredos: migas plate, coffee. Third visit and still delivering the goods.

Shake Shack: chicken burger, fries, cookies and cream shake. I was going to cook that evening but a power outtage curtailed my plans, obliging us all - even the kid - to go out for a drive because the car has air conditioning, what with this being Texas and all. They were out of salted caramel shake, but the cookies and cream was good. Once again we ate in the car in the parking lot at Half Price, and this time we saw more of the local cats, including the black fluffy one, due to the weather being warm and sunny.

There followed further visits to Los Dos Laredos, Good Time Charlie's and El Jibarazo for the same orders as listed above for a further couple of weeks until the restaurants opened up again, albeit at 25% seating capacity; but writing about every last meal gets repetitive, and I'm sure you get the general idea.

Doctor, No

Six months before I moved to Texas I had a blood test. The results came back confirming my being in possession of so much cholesterol that I could have caught fire at any moment, and that my blood pressure was so high as to facilitate my fighting crime as a sort of blood-gusher-based superhero by opening a vein and blasting criminals with a high-pressure geyser of claret.

'It's winter and everywhere is frozen,' I explained to my doctor, 'I've been sat on my arse for the last six weeks, but okay - I'll make the effort to get out and about a bit more.'

She wasn't having it and prescribed Simvastatin, which struck me as a little premature seeing as I felt fine. I had the feeling she was just really into writing out prescriptions.

After three days of taking the drug, I hadn't slept for so much as five minutes, hadn't even felt drowsy, and I wanted to kill myself. By suggesting that I wanted to kill myself, I don't mean to imply that I felt a little bit glum and went around with a frowny face. I mean that I wanted to kill myself. I therefore stopped taking the pills and immediately felt better.

My doctor told me off, saying that I should have consulted her before quitting the prescribed medication and that I'd been very irresponsible.

'It's because I couldn't sleep and wanted to kill myself,' I explained.

'Of course, there are sometimes minor problems of that nature,' she admitted, 'but side effects usually pass after the first couple of weeks.'

'I would have killed myself by then.'

I refused further medication, instead knuckling down to riding my bike fifteen miles each day regardless of ice and snow. Six months later I underwent another medical examination at a Harley Street practice, as required by the immigration people. My cholesterol was fine and my blood pressure was normal.

Gosh.

More recently I underwent a medical examination at the Oakwell Farms medical center, something required by my medical insurance. I came close to weighing 210lbs before Christmas and had therefore been trying to get my weight down, mainly just through increased exercise and less snacking. It seemed to be working, and I was down to about 194lbs when I went for the medical.

'Shouldn't I take off my clothes or something?' I asked.

'No. Just get on the scale,' said the nurse. 'Do you know how much you weigh?'

'I was 194lbs this morning.'

'Well, you're 205lbs now.'

'That would probably be the boots and the three layers of clothing.'

The examination was over in minutes and struck me as lacking attention to detail. The results came back confirming I had more cholesterol than anyone who had ever lived in the entire history of triglycerides, and my blood pressure was so high that I could have severed my feet at the ankles and blasted myself off into outer space like a human rocket.

The results pissed me off so I ignored them. For one thing, my blood pressure was usually normal when I had it checked at the periodontist's office three or four times a year.

Another couple of months later I decided to have yet another medical examination. It seemed like high time I should have a doctor stick his finger up my arse in search of prostate cancer, and I figured I might as well have a proper check up on the same ticket. I was exercising every day, losing weight and doing well, so I wanted to know just how well because the previous examination had been a bit of a joke.

The nurse weighed me, stood me next to a tape measure, filled five big Cumberland sausage sized test tubes with blood, and asked a string of questions.

Do you smoke?

How much do you drink?

How many fingers am I holding up?

Can you tell me the name of the president?

I pulled a face answering the last one, and so did she.

The doctor came in.

'Are you going to stick a finger up my arse?' I enquired.

'No. No. There's no need. Cancer screening is all part of the blood test these days.'

'Okay.'

'I see that you smoke,' he said happily.

'No.'

'You don't smoke?'

'No, I don't.'

He seemed disappointed. 'Well, your blood pressure is a little high.'

'Is it really?'

'Yes, if I could—'

'I can tell you now, I'm not taking statins.'

'Statins are used to treat cholesterol, not high blood pressure.'

'Oh okay.'

'Well, perhaps we'd better wait until the results of this latest blood test come back.'

We waited, but I'd already knew I didn't like the guy. He was younger and fatter than myself, and I was somehow the wheezing porker in the equation. I could already sense him angling to prescribe something. He seemed to be fishing around in my medical history for anything he could work with. That was the impression I received, and the phone call came a few weeks later.

'The doctor urgently needs to discuss the results of your blood test. You have so much cholesterol that we've had to invent a new number by which to quantify it, and your blood pressure is such that at first we thought it was simply that Hulk Hogan was somehow living inside you.'

'Oh fuck off,' I didn't say, not actually slamming the phone down. I made an appointment, then cancelled it and made another for a day on which my wife would be able to come along, because she works in healthcare and is fairly adept at bullshit detection.

We were bang on time because they charge twenty-five dollars for missed appointments, a fine imposed because they could have spent those minutes curing someone, and healing the sick is the only thing with which they are concerned. Forty minutes later we were at last ushered into the presence of my doctor.

'You have a 13% chance of contracting heart disease before you reach seventy,' he smiled.

'Well, no-one lasts forever,' I said, 'and 13% - aren't those about the same odds as I have of being hit by a meteorite?'

My wife pointed out something statistical regarding the hereditary aspect of heart conditions such as the one which had an alleged 13% chance of killing me. I didn't really understand all of what she was saying, but the doctor did, and didn't really seem to have an answer for it, not directly.

'So, is there any history of heart disease in your family?'

'It isn't really a disease though, is it? I mean you can't have a stroke because you ate a sandwich with heart disease germs on it, or have I failed to understand some aspect of my impending doom?'

'It's a very real condition,' he said, apparently not having grasped my point. 'Do you know if anyone in your family has suffered with heart trouble?'

'No-one whatsoever, although significantly more or less all of them have had cancer, which was the actual reason I came here seeing as that seems a more pressing concern from where I'm sat.'

'Well, you're fine on that score.'

'That's good to know.'

'Everything is looking good aside from the cholesterol and the blood pressure.'

'Well, I'm not taking statins as I already told you.'

'Statins have come a long way and have been greatly improved over the last couple of years.'

'I don't care. I'm still not taking them.' I reiterated the account given in the first nine paragraphs above, mainly because it seemed as though he'd forgotten our having met on the occasion of the examination which had yielded the results now under discussion.

'Yes, I've heard all about your NHS,' - he curled off a wry smile, almost a sneer - 'no diagnosis, just chucking a handful of pills at you and sending you on your—'

'There's nothing wrong with the NHS,' I said, noticing I'd used that tone of voice which expresses openness to the possibility of finishing the conversation outside in the parking lot. I wasn't having this fucking tosser running the NHS down.

'Well, for now we can consider other options, healthier eating and so on.'

'I eat healthy,' I said. 'I suppose you're going to tell me I should cut my McDonald's intake down to just four visits a day, or something of the sort.'

'We eat very healthily,' my wife confirmed. 'He does all the cooking and it's all fresh. We don't eat salty things.'

'You may not think you do, but even when you open up a can of Campbell's soup because it's in the recipe, well, the salt content—'

'That isn't,' I cut him off with just a hint of Margaret Rutherford in my voice, 'the sort of cooking in which I engage.'

My wife has a recipe book typed out by an ageing relative during the great depression. I barely recognise any of the recipes, which truly belong to a culture to which I am alien. Many of them seem to combine ingredients which are already recognisably food, a tin of mushroom soup poured over battered onion rings, then baked as a casserole - and the recipe concluded with a bewildering comment of sooooooo good or similar. It seems like the sort of cooking I tried when I was fifteen, baked beans plus a teaspoon of every herb or spice on the rack because if one is good, then twenty-six will surely be amazing. I like to think I've evolved beyond the culinary level of a bewildered teenager left to his own devices.

'I apologise if it seems like I'm on the defensive,' I said without feeling even remotely sorry, 'but you have to appreciate that I eat pretty well, I don't smoke, hardly drink, and I cycle one hundred miles a week, and you're telling me that it isn't enough. I may as well be sat on my arse scoffing pies and cakes all day for all the difference it makes. That's what you're telling me.'

'Well, I'd like you to imagine the effects of a stroke, being unable to speak, maybe one side of your body paralysed—'

Now he was trying to scare me, somehow imagining I had no idea what a stroke could be or how it might affect a person. 'Sure, but if you don't mind I'll just keep on as I am. I've lost a stone since Christmas and a little bit more drops off every week, so I'm not even sure what I'm doing here.'

'Well, we can see how you're getting on in another six months.'

'Fine.'

We left with no real intention of coming back. It seems I put on weight when I first moved to America, because the government forces us all to eat a cheeseburger whilst saluting the flag every morning; I have about a stone to go before I get back to what is supposedly my ideal weight for my age and height. I will get there, and if my blood pressure and cholesterol remain high then I'll just have to assume that's how it's going to be.

Don't Eat Here

On Saturday the 21st of September, 2002, I wrote the following in my diary.

I'm thinking of cashing in on this TV chef fad. I had an idea for my own show, all done on shaky camcorder with me in my own kitchen cooking up my version of Mexican food - lots of close ups of the bin as I mutter I don't believe in food hygiene - it's all bollocks in the background. It's all bollocks, would become my catchphrase just like Jamie Oliver's Dick Van Dykisms. My face would be on tins of Sainsbury's produce captioned go ahead, eat it; what's the fucking worst that could happen? A second idea along these lines would be my book Don't Eat Here, a guide to all the misleading eateries into which I have stumbled.

Seventeen years later, it seems like my cookery show isn't going to happen; and Don't Eat Here is probably a bit of a non-starter given that I try to avoid eating at crap restaurants and diners, so the list is thus far hardly of length sufficient to justify an entire book; nevertheless and for what it may be worth, should you, gentle reader, happen to find yourself in San Antonio, I'd recommend giving the following a wide berth. A couple of these have actually shut up shop, but the advice should still be heeded if you're a time traveller.

Chili's Grill & Bar. Someone described this sort of joint as Chuck-E-Cheese for adults, although it wasn't Wikipedia because they describe it as a casual dining restaurant chain. There are a fucking million of these places dotted along every single highway, each parking lot heaving with trucks spilling gurgling knuckleheads out across the asphalt. Once inside you will find a lively environment, as I'm sure they call it, with a thousand flat screens just above head height and every single one showing a ball game of some description. The deafening soundtrack will comprise either football commentary and associated amiable horseshit or hair metal hits of the eighties. The food is brightly coloured and highly reflective due to some weird glaze, even the burger buns. Everything drips with a bright yellow goop approximating cheese, and if you so choose, it's actually possible to order a side of fries with your burger and fries burger, which comes with fries; and coke; or children's fizzy beer if your name is Josh or Greg or Hunter or one of those.

There's a guy with a dog who lives in one of the houses at the back of our own. Every once in a while I hear him calling to the dog as I work in the back garden. The dog's name is Bear, and the man has a deep, slow voice. He enunciates each word as though someone has hit him around the side of the head with a baseball bat only a moment before. One evening I heard him calling to his dog, variations on the same sentence over and over. 'Come on, Bear… don't you be a coward now, Bear…'

I have no idea what was going on, but I'll bet he eats at Chili's.

Chili's proves that the free market economy does not work.

Flair. Everybody in Alamo Heights seemed to think Flair was amazing, but then I never cease to be amazed by what people in Alamo Heights consider amazing. Mexican street food, they screeched all across our local bit of internet. The term refers to what is simply known as food in Mexico itself and, practically speaking, means tacos but nothing else typically served on a Mexican street. We therefore ordered tacos. The waitress was of the kind who endeavours to involve herself in the diner's existence by commenting awesome in response to one's order, as though surprised and impressed by our choices, perhaps not having realised that tacos were on the menu at her place of work. There were ten or twelve other members of staff watching, having nothing else to do because we were the only customers. Our tacos came and they were nice enough - although pathetic compared to the standard of those served at the mighty Cocina el Jibarazo on Austin Highway - and they cost about three times what they should have cost, presumably because that's what the dingbats of Alamo Heights expect to pay. As we left, the waitress informed us that we might like to keep Sunday free because they would be having a DJ, meaning we could eat average but grossly overpriced tacos while a young man with a beard tickled the decks with a crucial selection of proper nang tunes. We didn't go back on Sunday, or indeed ever again.

The Granary. Admittedly this was a few years ago, and Bess had told me that lunchtime at the Granary was amazing. Unfortunately we went in the evening which is characterised by a different menu and, seemingly, a different approach to the dining experience. I don't remember what I had, and I don't remember it being bad, but I distinctly recall that the waiter spent at least five minutes telling me what the chef was going to do, and liquid nitrogen may have been involved. This delayed my waiter's return to the kitchen with my order by at least five minutes, which was annoying because I was hungry and didn't really give a shit how the chef was planning to prepare whatever it was that I'd ordered. For all I cared, he could have eaten the ingredients, shat them directly onto the street outside, and then driven a steam roller backwards and forwards over the resulting fecal patty, providing it tasted good. I suspect this gastronomic prologue formed part of an holistic dining experience, at least judging by the drinks being served in fucking jam jars.

J. Alexander's, which I can't quite keep myself from thinking of as J. Arthur's, is another of those casual dining things, but without the million flat screen tellies. The food seems initially promising, providing you're not put off by all the toadying, congratulations on your choice and so on. The main problem is that when the food arrives, it's not great, and worse is that it's almost great yet isn't, presenting a culinary analogy of that truism about androids and how the closer they come to appearing human without actually quite getting there, the weirder and more upsetting they seem. I ate at this place quite a few times due to the preference of a family member, and even food which tasted decent left me feeling as though I'd gorged a bucket of salted lard for the rest of the afternoon. The very last time I ate there I had some pasta thing which was so salty it made my mouth sore as I was trying to eat it.

Jack in the Box. My word probably isn't worth much here as I've only eaten at Jack in the Box once, and it was nearly a decade ago. Jack in the Box is a burger chain in the McDonald's mode distinguished mainly by a greater emphasis on irony in their advertising. I was in one of those moods where you just want to eat something cheap and crappy, and so I ordered what I believe may have been a burrito. I'm not wild about burritos anyway, so it wasn't a great choice, but I only discovered that I wasn't wild about burritos after I ate this one which was essentially a tube of dense, endless meat. It was wrapped in a tortilla and was hot and heavy. It felt like a cosh, something which could be used in a fight, and was additionally so salty that it made me cry. I doubt there's enough irony in the world to get me eating another one of those things, and if it helps illustrate my thesis, I might draw your attention to the fact of McDonald's having failed to make this list.

Lupe Tortilla. It seemed like a bit of an event when the Lupe Tortilla chain opened a restaurant in San Antonio, but as we realised once we ate there, whilst the place might seem a big deal in Houston, we have actual Mexican food in San Antonio and therefore no real reason to eat what is essentially Mexican food for white people. Fancifying and generally pissing about with what is on the plate doesn't fool anyone. Additionally irritating was being asked whether we had eaten at Lupe Tortilla before as we were shown a table, the implication being that we might need to prepare ourselves for having our collective and figurative gastronomic nuts blown off. This would have been fine had they served us something amazing, but instead we got Mexican food for white people and a waitress zipping back to ask how we were enjoying it every three fucking minutes. Admittedly, the second time we went - invited by a friend to celebrate her daughter's graduation - the food was significantly better but, you know, first impressions and everything...

Olive Garden. This is yet another chain, but a notionally Italian one, Italian here mostly translating into a large garden spade's worth of pasta dripping with cheese sauce; which presents a genuinely mouth-watering prospect when you're in one of those moods where you yearn to be pumped full of the saltiest carbohydrates money can buy, but every decision I've ever made at Olive Garden has inevitably turned to regret somewhere around the third or fourth mouthful. Further regret is encountered when the bill arrives, along with generous helpings of incredulity.

Southside Chinese. It wasn't called Southside Chinese, but it was on the southside and neither Bess nor myself can remember what the place was called. The one thing Bess does remember is being seated upon the lavatory when an elderly gentleman entered the cubicle and already had his pants down with the words, 'I really need to go,' before she was able to fully assess the situation, dress herself, or even finish her own business. It probably wouldn't have mattered quite so much had the food been great, but unfortunately it was mostly a sort of warm, faintly spicy grease to which soft, tasteless matter had been added apparently so we could tell that it wasn't soup. Amazingly, the place has since closed.

Alamo Fish 'n' Chips. There's another fish place more deserving of inclusion in this list, but they're supposedly something to do with the perfectly legitimate business operations of a local group of legitimate Mexican-American businessmen, if you know what I'm saying. The food was lousy, took ages to arrive, and the staff seemed puzzled by our order. Other customers seemed to pay much more for their own orders, and I'm guessing in used notes, but the packages they received in return didn't look a whole lot like anything they were likely to be tucking into once they got back to their trucks. However, I'm absolutely certain that these transactions were all entirely above board and legal, with no suspicious dimension whatsoever, and I don't want any trouble, so Alamo Fish 'n' Chips it is. There's a big old Union Jack painted on the sign outside, and although the crinkle cut chips served are just like those my grandmother used to bring back from Tesco and then fry in her chip pan, the fish is frozen and therefore not really anything special. Furthermore, the ceviche promised by the menu seems to be there only so as to lure my wife, who has thus far always arrived just as some other customer has allegedly scoffed the last dollop; and the guy kept asking me how it was every two bleeding minutes seeing as how I'm from England and all, which was annoying. The invitation on their facebook page reads Please come joy us many items on Specials, fresh & tasty Seafood, lightly on batter, home made tartar sauce and coleslaw you not going disappointed but I'm afraid I prefer Long John Silver's. 

Wing Zone. I still don't understand how it's possible to get fried chicken wrong, but America found a way. The best fried chicken seems to be the cheapest and crappiest, for some reason, usually the kind served with the faintest suggestion that whoever prepared it has spent the morning changing the oil in their car and hasn't bothered to wash their hands. Being situated at over five thousand miles distance from south-east London, amongst my less enticing options are Popeyes which specialises in gradually serving the dryest, least succulent, and most mouth-desiccating meals derived from an egg-laying bird; and Wing Zone which is similar but with a bright orange sauce which tastes like what happens when you hold the terminals of a nine volt battery against your tongue.

A Few Turds from Our Sponsor

Does advertising work? asks the billboard at the side of the highway, then answering its own question with it just did! To break this down, the billboard suggests that advertising works because you've just read the message stating that it works, and might therefore consider paying the owners of the billboard a load of money to slap up a few images promoting your suppository franchise, or whatever it is you do. Of course, although the billboard suggests that advertising works because you've just read the message stating that it works, the only people who will have read the message are those who read the message because anyone who didn't bother to read the message won't have read it, making this the advertising equivalent of the anthropic principle, namely the philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. The message is additionally weakened by the presumption of its own cognitive impact, resting on the premise that mere awareness of a product or service is the same as paying for it; which it isn't, as the billboard itself demonstrates, because I've seen it fucking hundreds of times and I'm still not absolutely certain of the six words cited here being the right ones.

Likewise, the following television commercials have sent me flying across the room to hit the mute button on the remote probably hundreds of occasions in some cases, and yet I'm still unable to remember what half of the fuckers are advertising, because all I can see in my minds eye is a parade of gormless grinning faces suffused with halos of how much I loathe everyone involved, which if anything only ensures that I'll go out of my way to avoid purchase of whatever shit they're selling in the event of my ever needing it or even being able to remember what it is. Marketing departments might suggest otherwise, but marketing departments are explicitly in the business of just making shit up and so their testimony is worthless. The civilisation of ancient Egypt endured for around three-thousand years, give or take a few periods of unrest. Isn't it fucking funny how you never hear anything about their marketing department?

AARP. I think this stands for the American Association of Retired People, but I can't be bothered to check. I'm sure it's a worthy organisation, dedicated as it is to involving those over a certain age with theatre visits, wine tasting, salsa classes and so on, but publicising the organisation with weird wobbly-headed older people grinning in your face seems ill-advised. So far there have been two major advertising campaigns, both starring Hispanic oldsters, first a woman and then a man. Each has this weirdly over-familiar grin like they're trying to get you involved in something your parents don't need to know about, and they grin and they wobble their heads side to side as though either pissed or ripped to the tits on prescription painkillers, and they slur something like if you don' think real possibilities when you hear the name AARP, then you don' know AARP, which sounds almost as though it should have my frien' at the end as an unwelcome hand finds its way round to your ass. Considering it all happens on a telly screen, there's something weirdly intrusive about Señor and Señora Real Possibilities, as though television has now found a way to invade your personal space with what nevertheless remains a two-dimensional image.

Contemplative Hillbillies Impressed by Impact of Heavy Object. I can't remember if this is Ford, Chevrolet, or General Motors, but it probably doesn't matter. As our tableau commences we see a group of guys in stetsons and jeans stood around looking at massive trucks, the kind of trucks only ever driven by men with enormous penises, so it's a safe bet that all of these hillbillies probably have penises of at least a foot in length, possibly two foot in the case of a couple of the more stoically rugged ones. None of these men are strangers to big heavy tools, not just the kind presently at rest within their own trousers, but also wrenches and items with rubber-grip handles which they squeeze and twist when engaging in their manly labours, grunting and occasionally pausing to quaff a refreshing beer-style beverage. When these men have finished utilising their big heavy tools out in the wilderness at the mercy of lions, bears and probably Injuns, they toss their big heavy tools in the back of their trucks and head home, and of course being just regular guys, they toss their tools roughly rather than daintily, like some homosexual carefully arranging wildflowers upon a gingham cushion; but in tossing their tools, sometimes they damage their trucks. So here the hillbillies stand in contemplation as heavy metal boxes of tools are cast into the back of trucks with a thud thud thud. One brand of truck sustains denting, but the other doesn't because it is rugged like the men. This makes the men happy and so we see them smile and nod with approval.

Grandpa the Asthmatic Wolf. This commercial riffs - probably unintentionally - on a cartoon I once saw in Punch magazine wherein an old man, having just announced how delightful he finds the unalloyed directness of the young, is asked Grandpa, how come you're so fat, grey, bald, and wrinkled? Here he's reading them the story of the Three Little Pigs, and has just reached the point at which the wolf is huffing and puffing when one of his own grandchildren points out that he too does quite a lot of huffing and puffing . 'It's my asthma,' he explains, digressing off into a long and unnecessarily detailed account of his condition, apparently having missed the point that his girls were simply engaging in banter and hadn't actually requested for this droning summary of his medical history. The advert then enters an animated segment wherein a cartoon wolf consults the advice of his doctor regarding asthma, correct usage of inhalers and so on, prior to tackling those three pigs. One sequence shows the wolf, breathing quite easily whilst engaged in rigorous activity, dancing with his wolf granddaughters, here identified by dresses and tiaras, making it quite clear that the wolf is also Grandpa. Personally I think this sends out a slightly dubious message, and - as with all medical adverts - this one spends five inevitable minutes listing all of the potentially deadly side effects of using this particular form of relief for asthma symptoms, whatever it is. I know they probably have to do it for legal reasons, but when two of the potentially deadly side effects are an increase in severity of asthma symptoms and death by asthma, the whole enterprise is rendered seemingly ludicrous; and Grandpa waving a cuddly toy wolf at the girls and making them scream with delight at the end doesn't really help a whole lot.

Grinning Fool Plays Air Drums. This is a locally made advertisement, possibly filmed on some cunt's phone by the look of it and starring the actual people who own the car dealership and who will probably try to flog you a motor should you find that their advertising has worked for you. My guess would be that neither of them ever took any sort of acting course and are thus banking on the raw, unpolished honesty of their performance, such as it is, to win you over. She is small and Hispanic, and he physically suggests a scenario in which aliens discovered the ruined body of Hoss from NBC's Bonanza on some distant asteroid and attempted to surgically restore him but, lacking any understanding of human physiology, found themselves obliged to use an Alfred E. Neuman heavy issue of Mad magazine for reference. Released back into the wild in the general vicinity of San Antonio, he was cruelly incapacitated by a thorn which became embedded in his mighty paw, but luckily the Latina woman happened to be passing and they've been faithful friends ever since. The part which really gets me is where she prefixes the announcement of some boring special offer by asking for a drum roll, whereupon he hunkers down and does the honours upon an imaginary snare; and whilst it's impressive that he's managed to suspend that stupid grin for a whole two seconds, it's hard not to notice his tongue pop from the corner of his mouth with all the strain of concentration. The guy resembles Gary from the thick kids class at my school, itself not an institution which was ever going to give Oxford or Cambridge much competition. I'm sure Gary was lovely but - Lordy was he stupid! He once gave me the nickname of Funny Eater, inspired by the difficulty I experienced with a particular sandwich. He saw me in trouble, he pointed, he laughed, and his imagination suggested Funny Eater might be a fitting nickname by which to forever associate me with the incident - a nickname which actually leaves the one who came up with it seeming more fucking pitiful than the person to whom it is applied, regardless of how poorly it went for me and that sandwich.

Inexplicable Enthusiasm for Cardboard Chicken. Most of us know Popeye as a Sailor Man with a heavy spinach habit, but here in Americaland he's also a fried chicken franchise which attempts to make a virtue out of taking fucking ages to get your order together by means of the presumably ironic strapline Louisiana fast. I think the implication is that they're not actually a massive corporation, but they're just these guys, you know, and like, they care about nourishing your soul as well as your stomach, so maybe give them a fuckin' chance, yeah? I mean if you got some plane to catch maybe you should've gone to Wendy's instead. To be fair, it may just be my presumably understaffed local branch of Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen which takes forever, although it's not actually the leisurely pace of their service which bothers me. The advertising stars an enthusiastic matronly chef lady delivering a jovial testimony to the superiority of her wares invoking good N'awlins home cookin', fresh spices, and Mardi Gras, mon cher. Conversely, the food, when it eventually arrives, leaves you with the sensation of having consumed an entire loaf of bread in one sitting, albeit a vaguely chicken-flavoured loaf of bread. It's not a good feeling, and contrasts with the promise of the advertising in the same way that the Aryan mythology of white supremacy tends to contrast with the lumpy tattooed mutants who subscribe to that sort of drivel. Also, chef lady smiles so hard that it looks like she's doing it at gunpoint, which is troubling.

Lucky Buffoon Hits Jackpot. This is a commercial for the Lucky Eagle casino of Eagle Pass which is somewhere down near the Mexican border so far as I understand. It's part of the Kickapoo reservation and is probably therefore able to operate outside state laws regarding gambling, whatever they may be. I've never really given much of a shit about gambling and tend to regard those who do as losers and arseholes. Everett's dad was supposedly a professional gambler, and he was a fucking shocker. That said, I'm happy to see First Nations people making a living - taking our money back from white people one quarter at a time, as runs the motto of the Wamapoke Casino. The thing I have a problem with is the hair metal theme song with Grace Slick - or someone of her general type - bellowing out lu-huckee eeyooooooowaaaargh over fifty simultaneous guitar solos whilst a buffoon looks happy in slow motion, drunk with the euphoria of having pumped five bucks into the slots and landed himself a sweet, sweet pay out of four dollars and twenty-five cents, the knob.

The Misery of Dry Skin. This is an advert for either moisturiser or some kind of specifically medicinal moisturiser, in which a robust looking woman explains that the very worst aspect of diabetes is undoubtedly the dry skin. Wikipedia on the other hand lists heart disease, stroke, chronic kidney failure, foot ulcers, and damage to the eyes among those attendant complications one might reasonably regard as undesirable, and yet no mention of dry skin. Maybe the whole dry skin aspect is just too horrible to contemplate.

Pretzelphage Resumes Activity. This is a commercial for Aspen Dental, and I'm not sure why I should remember that detail when I remain in the dark about most of the rest discussed here. Anyway, all Aspen Dental commercials seem to be a variation on a theme in which persons with whom I suppose we are expected to identify realises that their teeth are shit and in need of work, and so they go to Aspen Dental, get those choppers sorted out, and behold their teeth are no longer shit because look - there's our man winning the taco eating competition, munching away like it ain't no thing; and in each case this narrative is delivered in the form of a song, complete with dental staff pulling wry faces to the camera as the patient yodels away in the chair. The thing which annoys me most about the worst of these adverts, the one sung by some woman working in a bakery, is the finale in which, still singing, she grins, snatches a large pretzel from the hand of her associate, and croons 'this pretzel's got nothing on me,' before taking a big old bite by way of demonstration. It's the actual phraseology which bothers me. The statement that something or other has nothing on the person making the statement is one of those things people tend to say because they've heard someone else say it and thought it sounded cool. In the case of our dentally enhanced vocalist, this pretzel's got nothing on me is like saying I am superior to this pretzel, or my victory over this pretzel is assured for I am better equipped to achieve victory than this inanimate baked item; which is a fucking stupid thing to say, because no-one is going to put money on the pretzel winning, and in any case it's a false dichotomy. The entire function of the pretzel is to be consumed and in doing so to provide sustenance. Therefore a victory for the pretzel constitutes its being consumed, which is what happens as a result of what the woman qualifies as her triumph, because she's a fucking idiot who tries too hard.

Purple Turd. Have you ever been bunged up, popped a laxative, and subsequently had yourself a really good shit? If so, did you enjoy it so much that you were barely able to contain yourself afterwards? Did you pull on a t-shirt bearing the slogan I ❤ my Lax? Did you rush down to the shore and write I ❤ my Lax in the sand in letters of a size sufficient as to allow the message to be read by the pilots of any aircraft which might be passing overhead? I've honestly never been that happy to have a shit, and I've spent time in Mexico, so to me it just looks like secret signalling for those who take pleasure in the production of fecal matter towards ends other than the purely alimentary, if you know what I'm saying. If you don't know what I'm saying you should probably consider yourself lucky. The animated segment of the advertisement - assuming it's the same one and I haven't just conflated two different laxative adverts - shows a purple turd set free and at last proceeding along a colon towards a bumhole like we're watching that episode of Barbapapa directed by Joan Miró.  I suppose it's purple so as to allow viewers to get to grips with the general concept of having a shit without directly invoking the act whilst we're trying to eat our fucking tea, thank you very much; either that or someone has been on a diet of nothing but sloes for the past week.

Zipline Bore. 'Now that I'm over fifty,' says our helmeted guy as he's about to slide down a zipline attached to the side of the Matterhorn, 'my friends ask me, aren't you scared?' He pushes away, sliding off into empty Alpine space, just a knot of toughened cord preventing him from plummeting thousands of feet to his death, and as he slips off he yelps the rest of the anecdote, such as it is. The only thing he's really scared of, so it transpires, is leaving himself vulnerable to something or other by failing to either renew his health insurance or get himself inoculated against something or other - I can never remember which it is. I've a feeling this may be one of those adverts in which I asked my doctor and he said blah blah blah followed by four minutes listing all the potentially deadly side effects, so it's probably the latter - the inoculation. Personally, I suspect that our boy is somewhat embellishing his story. I expect he was having a drink with what few friends he has left, or he was hanging out at the sauna or something when he happened to mention that he was planning to slide down a mountain on a bit of rope; and the response was probably 'sure thing, Ken - sounds real scary,' before they carried on with whatever they had been talking about. It seems significant that the guy appears to be having this adventure holiday on his own, apart from whoever is holding the camera allowing him to waffle on and on and on, explaining his wearisome home-brewed philosophy to fucking no-one.

Gospel

'There's this church I'd like us to go to,' Bess told me. 'Our security guard preaches there, and I've told him we would go.'

It seemed an unusual suggestion given that I've spent most of my life avoiding churches, or at least avoiding the services taking place within; but on the other hand, I tend to trust my wife's judgement on most things.

I intersected with the Church of England only infrequently whilst growing up, mostly weddings, funerals and baptisms and probably not quite reaching double figures. The Reverend Dilwyn Morgan Davies made regular visits to Ilmington Junior and Infants School, pootling the hundred yards down the road from St. Mary's to deliver unto us a weekly sermon during school assembly. He resembled Spike Milligan's impersonation of a Church of England vicar and all I can recall were his overly dramatic performances stretching out each syllable of his own name, then Mattheeeeeeeeeew, Maaaaaaaaaark, Luke and [pause for breath] Johhhhhnnnnn, none of which left me with any enduring impression of who these people were or why it might concern me. With hindsight, he was good with children in that he made us laugh, and he was a lot more entertaining than the anonymously stuttering pink-faced goons presiding at most services I've witnessed since.

My view of religion is probably too messy and sprawling to be of much use in the context of this particular sermon, but could probably be distilled to if it works for you, then fine. Whilst history is a testament to the many unspeakable crimes perpetrated in the name of one religion or another, I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of these crimes derive from human ambition expressed as power structures within which religion tends to have been co-opted as one of a number of supports. If you're one of those people who genuinely seem to believe that religion must be wiped from the face of the earth in order for a better society to come into being, then I'd suggest you're as bad as any witch hunter, any inquisitional wielder of a burning brand, or any snake oil selling televangelist bleeding money from his flock; and I'd also suggest that you haven't really made an effort to appreciate what religion is, what it does, or why it would mean anything to so many people. If that's too hard to understand, then it's the wiping things from the face of the earth detail which is the problem, not the identity of whoever may be calling for the wiping.

Anyway, Bess had told me that some guy from her work place was a preacher at a church, and she had asked me to come along to a service. I said yes because it would be a new thing for me.

She'd already been to a service a few months earlier when I'd been tied up with something or other. The security guard was actually one Reverend Gregory Harris and it was his church, inherited from his father, the previous incumbent. It was called the White Robe Missionary Baptist Church and was situated over on the eastside - the black neighbourhood, so to speak. I'm still a little phased by large American cities being so clearly racially divided, but then I've only been here five or six years and segregation was a recent thing in this country. The service, so my wife reported back, had been small but powerful. The congregation was just a handful of people gathered in a church resembling what I would think of as a village hall, and which could have stood a few repairs here and there. It was at the opposite end of the scale to the huge evangelical money-hoovering schemes I see at the side of the highway heading to Austin, buildings gleaming as though from the covers of seventies science-fiction paperbacks, places I avoid because I don't want to be either mugged or brainwashed by anyone less intelligent than myself.

My experience of Baptist churches is limited to Helen Martin battling a rival grandmother in Don't Be a Menace to South Central When You Drink Your Juice in the Hood, and skits on southern rap albums, skits mostly using organ swells to emphasise a testimonial condemnation of persons who be playa-hatin' on Master P and that sort of thing. So realistically, I really didn't know what to expect, although I felt anything in the vein of Helen Martin's spontaneous breakdancing was probably unlikely.

The place was small and, as promised, not in a great state of repair, but you could see that they had done what they could with it. There were four rows of pews, and with padded seating which made for a nice change. There were nineteen of us once everyone had arrived, a couple of kids, some Latinas, and just four white people - which I found oddly comforting. You get less bullshit flying around in the absence of white people, and I say that in the awareness of being one myself. A woman introduced as Miss Wells played the piano. The instrument probably could have stood a little tuning, but I have a vague memory of piano-tuning being expensive, so she made do with what she had. She played well, with bluesy passion and a real feeling for the music, and so well that it ceased sounding like an early Residents album after just a few minutes. Miss Wells also led us in song, mostly compositions of just one line repeated over and over, mostly relating to having faith in Jesus as you would expect; and because it was just one line repeated over and over, it was easy enough to join in, so we all did; and of course we clapped our hands. Seen from outside it would have struck me as odd, but I was taken by the moment and it felt pretty good; and - just like on the telly - our song was augmented with random interjections of tell it like it is or amen to that and the like, and all quite natural and heartfelt - none of the showboating or ostentatious piety I've seen elsewhere. The singing brought us all together in such a way as to make it seem ridiculous that anyone should feel self-conscious or awkward in the company of these strangers. I've resentfully muttered along to the hymns in the few church services I've previously attended because I've always felt like an intruder, like I'm required to do time before being given the secret code, but this felt entirely different.

Song alternated with sermon, readings from the New Testament delivered with warmth and in terms of our daily lives, and even with jokes. I still feel that the major problem with many faiths - or at least certain brands of Christianity - has been a tendency to focus on the speaker more than what is said, so it becomes a money-spinning fan club with no real currency in the message of doing unto others as you would have done unto you, because that would interfere with the direction in which the dollars are supposed to flow. Here I realised that the emphasis seemed different, and that the message was heard very well, and that the message was helping some of these people get through the day.

This was underscored by the individual testimonies which followed. Members of the congregation stepped forward and told their stories - personal trials and tribulations, poverty, death, cancer, domestic violence, and more; and in each case thanks were given to the man upstairs for his help in getting them through their troubles, for keeping them straight. My inner Richard Dawkins - thankfully a fairly muted voice these days - rationalised that these people had simply found God in their own strength of character, which may be true but misses all of the important points. If that which serves as your point of focus helps you in times of trouble and isn't hurting anyone else, then maybe what we call it is secondary.

The full service lasted about two hours, never once seeming to drag, and what most impressed me about it was how honest it felt. It was a communal experience. We had two preachers and Miss Wells at the piano, but we were all of us involved in one way or another, and there was nothing which felt forced or like it was going through the motions. It felt like we had been brought together by a message, albeit through the agency of a messenger, and the experience had done all of us good. This was no emptily ritualised worship thrown dutifully in the general direction of the heavens. It was something fundamentally human and real.

Afterwards we had food, barbecued chicken, brisket and beans with cornbread. I found myself sat next to the Reverend Larry Smith who had also spoken that morning. He told me he was born in Louisiana but had spent some time in England, which he mentioned because I'd brought it up, telling him, 'I'm not from around here - I guess you can tell by the accent.' Despite his earlier half hour under the spotlight, he seemed a shy, retiring type, so I figured I might as well do the honours with regard to the jolly old elephant in the drawing room.

'I was at Greenham Common,' he told me. 'That was back in the nineties.'

'You were at Greenham Common!'

'I was in the air force, you know?'

I've known several people who were at Greenham Common, but they'd all been on the other side of the fence; and now here was a guy who'd been paid to load bombs onto the aircraft which had drawn protesters to the base in the first place.

'So how did you find England?' I wasn't even sure I should have asked, given the potential for a seriously uncomfortable answer.

'I liked it, but you know when you're on a military base you don't really get to see too much of the outside world.' He asked me about England and why I wasn't there any more, so I told him about getting married and how much I hated the cold. 'It must have been rough for you if you grew up in Louisiana with the heat.'

'Well yeah, I didn't like the cold too much, and it rained a lot.'

I told him I had been a postman for twenty years. 'Outside in the wind and rain, and you know how sometimes the cold just gets into your bones and there's nothing can shift it...'

'I'm a mailman myself.'

'You deliver the mail too!' I couldn't help laughing. We both laughed.

'I got me a route over on the westside. I been doing that seventeen years.'

At that point we had finished our food, so we said our farewells and left. I still don't feel particularly converted, but we left with that glow you develop in the company of good people, or in this case, great people with whom I feel honoured to have spent time. The world can be a shitty place, but I try to maintain a belief that no-one is deliberately evil and that the majority are generally good, and every so often it's nice to be reminded that this is surely something more than just a belief.

Tits

I've had another sleepless night for no reason I can identify, except possibly that it's uncommonly fucking cold and Bess and I have let Kirby stay in our room. Usually the cats get either the rest of the house or outside when we retire depending on which they prefer, but Kirby often spends the night on the corner of our bed because she's generally well behaved. Last night was the exception to the rule and she spent the hours of darkness walking across my face or otherwise engaging in cat aerobics; although I have a feeling I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway. These days if I can't get to sleep - which admittedly isn't often - I get up and spend a couple of hours writing stuff no-one is ever going to read, then return to bed when I'm properly knackered; but on this occasion it hasn't worked.

So I have a slow day, forcing myself forward through the drudgery of my usual housewifely chores at quarter speed. I make the mistake of having the radio on and tuned to one of the stations which isn't wall to wall Tejano, but it's mostly news about how our President-elect is planning to outlaw rainbows believing they promote homosexuality, or he's appointed Dylann Roof to be the next Minister of Black People. A few weeks ago I made a mental note to avoid the news, but I keep forgetting. Later I go out on the bike, but it's still fucking cold. Frost is infrequent in Texas, but we compensate for the shortfall with icy wind of the kind Alex describes as a cold winter bastard in A Clockwork Orange. The Nahuatl speaking Mexica of Tenochtitlan - Mexico City as it has been since 1521 - associated their land of the dead with the north and divided the mythic realm into nine tiers, and one of these regions was called Itzehecayan roughly translating as Where the Wind Is Like Obsidian Knives, possibly deriving from some ancient fact-finding mission to San Antonio in the middle of January, or Izcalli as it would have been by their calendar.

It's been a long, slow day and by the time evening comes we decide to eat out seeing as the boy is staying with his father. We get in the car and Bess asks, 'Where do you want to eat?'

'Fuck it,' I say. 'Let's go to Hooters.'

Hooters is a sports-fixated restaurant chain seemingly sold on the idea of all the waitresses having great big tits. It was parodied as Bazooms in an episode of King of the Hill, and when I first moved here I was surprised to discover it was real. It seemed like an anachronism, something left over from Benny Hill's little known tenure as governor of Texas, but Bess had told me that despite any other concerns, the food was good, which primed me with the puzzling notion that people go to Hooters for the food.

Sure.

'Isn't it kind of er...'

I didn't need to finish the question for obvious reasons.

'Kind of,' she told me, 'but the food really is good.'

So along we went. The place is clean, bright, and cheery, but not quite with the depressing efficiency of McDonalds, and there are a million flat screen televisions attached to armatures all around the ceiling. There is a football game in progress, or handegg as it should probably be known. I don't know who is playing because it's not a game I understand - the Washington Racists versus the Fresno Basset Hounds or something. We are seated and tended by a waitress called Meghan who seems nice but is thankfully not my type. Being a happily married man, none of them are really quite my type even without taking the age gap into consideration. Having reached fifty it has come as a great relief to find that I'm not significantly attracted to younger women. I always feared becoming a dirty old man, but most women under thirty now seem physically peculiar to me, somehow nascent and unformed. I suppose the media has spent so much time presenting a certain female type as a physical ideal that I mistook it for how we actually work, and thankfully for the most part we don't. Although were I still in my twenties, I'm sure my nuts would have exploded before Meghan had even brought our drinks.

According to Wikipedia, an older version of the Hooters Employee Handbook reads:

Customers can go to many places for wings and beer, but it is our Hooters Girls who make our concept unique. Hooters offers its customers the look of the All American Cheerleader, Surfer, Girl Next Door.

So actually they're mostly just regular gals, admittedly very presentable regular gals, but far from the megatitted trainee strippers I'd been expecting. One of the team seems to be wearing a vest top which somehow has straps which, buckled tightly, make it appear as though she's transporting a couple of blancmanges - wibble wobble wibble wobble - but she's the only one. It comes as a bit of a relief. Despite the above protestations, and despite my inner Ben Elton, I am nevertheless a man who knows what he likes and who responds in certain ways to certain things even if I sometimes wish I didn't, and I'd probably find breasts above a certain volume something of a distraction whilst trying to navigate a menu, particularly with them hovering mere inches from my face.

Bess describes another branch of Hooters where most of the waitresses seemed to be moonlighting as strippers and had those weird fake boobs which appear solid and overinflated, more like what I expected; so either that's just a different place or Hooters has been reigning it in a bit, going for a more family friendly vibe. The sign outside displays the name Hooters written with the oo as the eyes of an owl, although the oo also resembles tits; and okay, so owls make a hooting noise but the chain knows it's not fooling anyone. I had assumed the owl allusion might be part of some recent self-conscious rebranding, but apparently it's been around more or less from the start. Nevertheless my inner Ben Elton still isn't having it.

Hooters is selling sex, isn't it? Its success is reliant on the objectification of women, on reducing women to objects set on parade for our pleasure. Well yes, and three men sued the company for sex discrimination back in 1997, specifically for denying them employment and presumably because being men, their knockers weren't much to look at; to which Wikipedia responds:

In employment discrimination law in the United States, employers are generally allowed to consider characteristics that would otherwise be discriminatory if they are bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ). For example, a manufacturer of men's clothing may lawfully advertise for male models. Hooters has argued a BFOQ defense, which applies when the essence of the business operation would be undermined if the business eliminated its discriminatory policy.

So it is what it is, as they say. It's a symptom of a condition of society, and if we need to get pissy and start shaking fists, there are probably a million more deserving targets. The waitresses here seem just like waitresses anywhere, only with slightly less clothing and it's hard not to feel a little sorry for them. Even if you're a complete idiot and all you have going for you in this world is breasts, waitress at Hooters was probably never anyone's dream job; and it really doesn't feel like a strip joint. The place is rammed, and about a third of the customers are women, and there are children running around. The men are mostly big, hairy trucker types, paunchy and balding, oily jeans and baseball caps featuring the logos of agricultural feed suppliers. I just hope none of them came in here expecting to score. Surely no-one is that delusional.

Meghan brings our drinks. I order smoked wings and my wife has a burger. When the food arrives it really is delicious, and so delicious that you actually would go out of your way to eat it; so it genuinely isn't just about the boobies, which is a nice surprise.

A place like Hooters will always have its knockers etc. etc.

I, Fatso

I experienced a medical condition during the winter of 2010, a certain itch brought on by a surfeit of the body's natural yeast. It was a condition I recognised as having affected at least two human females of my formerly close acquaintance, but no-one ever told me that a male might also suffer with the same embarrassing condition. I went to see the doctor, specifically asking to see a male doctor just as I would were I a character with a sensitive problem in a seventies situation comedy. He explained that it was common - much to my astonishment - probably resulting from either too much sugar in my system, or not enough exercise of a sort which would ordinarily convert that sugar into the energy by which I might open up a packet of crisps or wobble along to the chippy in Earlsdon High Street. He said that my condition was probably nothing, but recommended that I eat less shite, get more exercise, and have a blood test.

I wasn't aware of my diet being particularly poor, and ignored the associated segments of advice on the grounds of my having reached the age of forty-five without ever having eaten either a deep fried Mars Bar or anything purchased from Taco Bell; although I realised that he probably had a point about the exercise. When employed full-time by Royal Mail I'd never really had to think about exercise as an activity in its own right because the job was physically very demanding. Since leaving Royal Mail I had taken agency work with Parcel Force, but the work was intermittent - three days a week, sometimes two, and sometimes nothing at all. When there was no work to be had I spent my time engaged in selling off many years of accumulated crap on eBay, but would usually try to get in some cycling each morning for the sake of exercise and getting out of the house. Ordinarily I would follow a fifteen mile circuit of rural back roads through Kenilworth, the villages of Leek Wootton and Stoneleigh, and then back into Coventry; but this was winter.

I'd spent twenty years trudging around in the freezing cold and pouring rain of English winter, fingers numb to the bone, and with the midday sun barely risen above the rooftops of the houses on the other side of the street for most of November through to January. Just the thought of outside was bad enough, and with no wage-related incentive to propel me forward each morning, I had fallen to the habit of putting off the daily bike ride for later in the week when it might hopefully be a bit less miserable out there. Following the initial visit to the doctor, I coaxed myself back onto two wheels a couple of times, but it was hard to find the motivation.

I'd had a blood test and was called back to the medical centre now that the results had come though. This time I saw a female doctor but I didn't let it bother me seeing as this visit was not directly concerned with the previously mentioned sensitive problem and it therefore didn't seem likely that I would be required to slap it out on the table. She told me that I was overweight for my height and age, and that my blood pressure was through the roof, as was my cholesterol, and I would probably be dead before the end of the week. Okay, she didn't actually say that I would probably be dead before the end of the week, but given the severity of her report I expect she was thinking it.

'What can I do?' I asked, terrified.

She muttered something about reducing my daily quota of visits to McDonalds, something about exercise, and then wrote out a prescription for a course of simvastatins.

This seemed more shocking than any implied coronary resulting from my chip-scoffing ways. 'Is that really necessary?' I asked.

She seemed to think it was.

'Look,' I said. 'I've been sat on my arse eating crisps for most of the last six weeks, or may as well have been. How about if I get back to my daily routine of fifteen miles? I mean, that should make a difference, shouldn't it?'

'I'm more worried about getting those triglycerides down right now,' she said, whatever the hell that meant. Her face suggested this was a life or death situation.

I argued some more, then relented and picked up a box of the prescribed tablets from the chemist in Earlsdon High Street.

I started taking them, having read about the possible side effects on the side of the packet. As the warning predicted I was unable to sleep and began to feel somewhat depressed. By the third day I had been awake for seventy-two hours, and awake meaning wide awake, and I felt like killing myself. My existence had turned cold and grey and joyless. I hadn't seen the sun in weeks. There was nothing to look forward to. There was no good in the world. My life was pointless and a complete waste of time. I had never felt so profoundly bereft of hope as on that third day. I spoke to the woman at the chemists and she told me that it generally takes a couple of weeks before you get used to simvastatins. The urge to commit suicide would pass.

Fuck that, I said to myself, and stopped taking the things.

I returned to the medical centre. My doctor was seriously pissed off. 'You should have spoken to me. You don't just decide to withdraw from a prescribed course of medicine as you've done. You can't just stop like that. You're very lucky that nothing terrible happened.'

'Well it was either stop,' I explained, 'or hope I could make it another two weeks without slashing my wrists. I'm sure simvastatins are wonderful once they start working properly, but unless I'm actually at death's door, I'd really just like to see how I get on with a bit more regular exercise.'

She wasn't happy, which was too bad. I myself hadn't been particularly delighted by our initial encounter in which she had started on my prescription before I'd even finished speaking. It had felt somewhat as though she'd been considering what course of drugs would be best for me before I'd even walked through the door.

Anyway, as promised I'd been getting out on the bike every day, and accordingly when she took my blood pressure it was normal. Nevertheless she didn't seem convinced, but I refused to take any more drugs when the side effects seemed far worse than whatever good the stuff might be doing.

Six months later I visited a doctor in Knightsbridge for a medical assessment in accordance with the conditions of my applying for the K1 visa by which I would emigrate to the United States. My blood pressure was fine. My cholesterol was fine. I was in perfect health, despite the doom which had been foretold back in Coventry just before Christmas.

Five years later I am subject to another medical examination, this time at my wife's place of work conducted in accordance with the wishes of whoever it is that supplies our medical insurance. I take off my shoes and stand on the scales. I am fourteen stone, which is the heaviest I remember ever having been. A nurse takes blood from my fingertip, and then I sit and await the results. After about five minutes another nurse takes me to a different room. I sit in front of a laptop, and a young woman appears on the screen. She wears a headset and has the results of my blood test in front of her. I am mystified as to why this part of the consultation can't be done right here with another human present just like in the good old days.

The woman speaks. Her voice sounds autotuned, and the words suggest a script with the customary quota of phrases deemed conducive to customer satisfaction by some focus group. She smiles far too much and talks about the two of us like we're a partnership, how we might consider refraining from emptying an entire shaker of salt over our platter every time we sit down to our daily triple-cheese lardburger.

My cholesterol is high.

My blood pressure is high.

What a fat bastard I am, and so on and so forth.

I might like to consider engaging in daily exercise, which I suppose means that the fifteen miles I've been cycling more or less every day, five days a week for the last five or six years isn't actually exercise. I should also cut down on processed food, and I have trouble working out what she even means by this given that I haven't eaten a Dairylea cheese triangle since I lived in England. I need to stop eating all those naughty but nice things which I'm not actually eating anyway, unless you count chicken fried steak at Jim's diner once every couple of months.

Screw you, Lady, I think resentfully whilst smiling and thanking her for her competitively priced time. I'm already looking forward to the online customer satisfaction survey.

It's true that I'm fourteen stone, which is the heaviest I've been; but then I'm fifty and I no longer smoke. I'm no stranger to carbohydrates, it's true; but at the same time I exercise regularly and it's not like I'm chugging Big Macs all day long, or at all for that matter. This annoys me somewhat, although I suppose my own personal call centre healthcare professional failing to suggest a course of simvastatins must count for something. I suppose I could cut down on mashed potato and pasta, but I'm reminded of my mother being advised by her doctor to avoid cheese.

'Then what would be the point in being alive?' she asked.

I could cut down on mashed potato and pasta, but I'm not going to because that's why I cycle fifteen miles a day.

As a concession I've now upped my daily ride to twenty miles, mainly because it's weird being fourteen stone and I have trousers and shirts I would like to wear again before I die; but this is as much as I'm doing because if a daily twenty mile bike ride isn't enough, then maybe I'm simply destined to be fat and there's nothing I can do about it, short of switching to a diet of food I don't want to eat.

Somehow it transpires that fifteen miles a day wasn't exercise, and yet twenty is, because I've already lost a couple of pounds

I suppose that's a good thing.

Activity Tracker

I was a postman for two decades and have therefore done a lot of walking over the years. On average the job entailed somewhere between three or four solid daily hours pounding pavements, garden paths, hallways, steps, stairwells and so on - six days a week for most of the last century, then reduced to a five day week since the millennium. That's a lot of ground covered. I once read an article comparing the distances covered by members of professions who walk for a living. We came in second, just behind policemen on the beat but ahead of traffic wardens. I think our average distance was supposed to be something like eight miles a day, although at the time it was hard to judge the accuracy of this figure what with all of the stopping and starting, standing around rummaging in the pouch for a parcel or whatever.

Whilst delivering to the flats along Lushington Road in Catford I climbed one hell of a lot of steps. Most blocks had three floors with two flats to a floor, and there were at least twelve blocks to a street, and there were four of these streets lined with blocks of flats. One day I took a ruler and a notebook and measured the height of the steps, then multiplied the figure by how many of those steps I had to climb each day. It worked out that I scaled a height equivalent to that of Mount Everest roughly every nine months, assuming I've remembered correctly.

Exercise has never been something with which I have consciously engaged up until recently. Dora the Explorer tried to motivate me in that direction, apparently missing the significance of my usually being so knackered that I could barely stand after work. She required that exercise be specifically framed as active self-improvement, an undertaking which transmitted a message reading look at me engaged in the effort of making myself a better person whilst asking why not be more like me? She was not naturally disposed towards the expenditure of energy so far as I could see and her enthusiasm felt like overcompensation, attempted self-hypnosis, and some showboating - forever banging on about going out for a walk, getting some fresh air, getting out of the house and so on. I guess she liked how these proclamations sounded, because it was difficult to square them with the reality of her daily routine. She was seldom out of bed before eleven in the morning, and was never ready to leave the house earlier than four in the afternoon. We would go out for a walk, and she'd spend some of the time telling me I needed to make the effort to eat healthier, to take more exercise, and was I drinking enough water? We would walk up to the shop at the end of the road, a distance of about a hundred yards, and then we would walk back, myself carrying a bag of cat litter or tins of cat food because they were too heavy.

She acquired a pedometer, an unconvincing plastic dingus containing a ball bearing which rattled around and in doing so measured how far you had walked in a day and how many steps you had taken. It clipped onto a sock, shoe, or the hem of a trouser, and Dora the Explorer spent an evening walking up and down the front room, acclimating the thing to her gait. She took to reporting the statistics of how much walking she had done, generally prefacing a sneering dismissal of my own inferior efforts, which were inferior principally because they were mine and I had no understanding of self-improvement. Her routine had not changed. She was still rising at eleven and leaving the house only on alternate days or when I had failed to anticipate what she needed from the shop, but now her infrequent and unhurried movements were measured by the pedometer and redefined as exercise.

I bought one too from the sports place in Peckham, mainly because I wanted to find out just how far I was walking each day. Unfortunately the thing didn't seem to work all of the time, and each morning would end with a completely different reading.

These days, I am no longer a postman. Nor do I have a pedometer, although I have acquired what is called a Fitbit. No longer being a postman I cycle fifteen miles each day in the hope of staying relatively fit, although of course it isn't simply a matter of exercise. My diet is different, I no longer smoke, and I have succumbed to the inevitability of middle-aged spread.

'Cor!' my friend and former fellow postman Terry Wooster exclaimed with characteristic directness when I last saw him, 'you ain't half got fucking fat!'

My wife was a dedicated runner for much of her life, prior to the birth of her son - my stepson - at which point life became generally more complicated and she found it difficult to keep the running going. She bought a Fitbit, a sort of charm bracelet which tracks how much you have walked each day, how many steps, distance covered, calories burned and so on. The Fitbit seems a little more reliable than the thing with the ball bearing I once bought from a shop in Peckham. It has internet presence so at the end of the day you can go to a website and see how well you've done, and how much better you've done than your friends, the lazy fuckers. It seems to work for Bess in that it at least provides an incentive to engage in a certain amount of exercise each day - which can be difficult when working in an office; and because it's Bess, her motives are honest and refer to no weird social agenda.

She liked the Fitbit so much that she bought a new improved model and gave the old one to the boy, presently twelve, and seemingly inclined to stationary activities in which he shouts to himself whilst tapping the screen of his iPad with a finger, often for hours at a time. Sometimes I like to tell myself that he is playing a game called Outside World™ which involves liberating virtual kids from within a pixellated house, bringing them outside to climb CGI trees and do all the stuff I instinctively feel Junior should be doing. Happily he really took to the Fitbit, contrary to my generally pessimistic expectations. His behaviour at home doesn't seem significantly changed, but I guess the Fitbit appeals to his inherent love of boasting.

'How many steps did you do today?' we ask.

He will tell us, then ask how many steps my wife has done.

If he has done more, he will point out that he has done more just in case we hadn't realised. If he has done less, he'll take the stepmill to his room and just keep going until he's the bestest.

My wife was going to give him a new Fitbit at Christmas, the latest model which is worn like a wristwatch, but he lost the old one, and said he was unable to find it. We decided he would get the new one when he had found the old one on the grounds that his method of looking for things leaves room for improvement.

'Look for it,' one of us will suggest, and so he'll check to see if the mislaid object is directly within his field of vision at that moment. It usually isn't so he goes back to his game of Outside World™, possibly calling out 'I still can't find it,' as the game switches up to the level where you have the kid ride a bike up and down the road.

Nevertheless he eventually found the Fitbit and so now has the new one; and I got the old one because it seemed a shame that it should not enjoy continued use. I wear it around my neck like a pendant.

The first day it recorded that I had walked a little over five-thousand steps. I have recently discovered this to be an average number of steps for someone just doing housework and moving around their own home during the course of a day, so I'm not impressed. I'm even less impressed that my little electronic friend is disinclined to recognise the fifteen mile daily cycle as exercise or even travel. Well done, it tells me, you have walked a mile and a half today. It seems almost like sarcasm, but it's still significantly less annoying than look at me engaged in the effort of making myself a better person and all that went with it, so I shut up and get on with it.