Smell The Sausage

I stood outside a chip shop today.
Purring.

It was lunchtime, and I happend to be walking through the town, when I caught the whiff of vinegar and grease that is the unique olfactory signature of a British fish and chip shop. You have to be trained, pretty much from birth, to find this aroma even remotely attractive, because it is composed mainly of those two ingredients - hot, often slightly old, repeatedly re-used oil (animal fat for tradition, though more and more often in the last few decades, corn oil), with lashings of vinegar on the poor defenceless ingredients that are dunked in them, and a sprinkling of dancing, likely industrial-grade salt.

And I toyed with the idea of going in, of having what I think of as an 'Aristotelian Lunch' - which essentially means a pleasurable one I shouldn't have. But, with my heart almost breaking with want, I turned away and went home for beans on toast.

At which point, I'd like to say I hate you all, and the freedom you have to fill your faces. It's not a deep or meaningful loathing of course, it's pure undiluted envy.

Right now, I'm even managing to hate the food-sluttery of Nigella Lawson, who's making a Grasshopper Pie, lustily, breathing in my right lughole as I sit here, grinding my teeth.

Of course, I'm bitching from a base of pure hypocrisy - I went for a Chinese last night, and did the typical Valleys thing (as plate 3!) - of having rice, curry...and chips. I should say there's a distinct difference between Chinese chips and chip shop chips, but they're both glorious in their own way.

This is the kind of thing that helps explain a moment of terror from today. Before jumping on the bike, I caved, and jumped on the Nazis. That was a huuuuuuge mistake, and I'm now convinced that - even given last night - the Nazis are horribly, horribly playing with me.

I'm going away now to kick next door's cat. Or possibly deep-fry it.
One saviour tonight is Lee, who has invited me to go and see the Avengers Assemble movie at 8.30. Plenty of fried stuff at the movies of course, but none of it afforable without getting at least a first mortgage...

Here, kitty kitty...