Turning Japanese

This day was coming, it was writ large in the skies, but it was still unexpected when it happened. Let me explain.

I had plainly made a bad decision to go and have a meeting with a client in London at lunchtime without taking any kind of sustenance with me. I just feel it would look a little unprofessional to rock up with my own picnic hamper and start munching on Quails Eggs and Caviar, because of course that is what I usually eat. Doesn’t everyone? Well that and a bag of Hula Hoops.

It meant that by the time I got out mid-afternoon I was Hank Marvin as they would say in cockney rhyming slang, and this was apt as I was in East London at the time. Seriously, I could have eaten a horse but the little shop by the tube station didn’t have any. They did have a Curried Egg sandwich mind you but even in my famished state that didn’t look appealing.

So I headed back towards Kings Cross with a rumbling stomach that echoed all the way up through the tunnels of the Northern Line. I checked the time and realised that when I got back to civilisation I had to stop off for a conference call. I concluded that Kings Cross may not be the ideal place for this as, at the moment, it’s noisy and crowded due to the fact that they are re-building the place and, just for fun, penning everyone in with ticket barriers.

I decided to wander across to St Pancras to grab a sandwich and maybe sit down for the call. I staggered in clutching my stomach surprised that people couldn’t see that I was visibly wasting away. I wandered deliriously past Costa Coffee as I could see that it was rammed full of exchange students and pensioners, and then past a place called Paul, which I didn’t trust as it was too empty.

I could see a branch of Boots in the distance and for a moment I could almost taste a meal deal but by now I was almost on my knees dragging my empty husk of a body along the floor. Then I saw it, bright orange and shiny, with little plates of food which appeared to be gliding magnificently amongst the diners within. I was drawn in by this neon nirvana and I staggered closer for a better view, and then through my bleary eyes I could see that a young smiling woman had approached me. “Have you been to Yo! Sushi before?” she asked.

I hadn’t, and through my tears of hunger I explained how I, to my eternal shame, was a sushi virgin. You see I’ve seen them before, there’s one in Selfridges in Birmingham that’s always caught my eye, but I’ve never quite had the courage to join the young and hip punters in case I didn’t like what was on offer and ended up embarrassing myself by choking on a squid’s tentacle. That and the fact that the present Mrs Hayward believes that eating raw fish is “dirty”.

The young lady escorted me to a seat and explained to me how it all worked. I could just make out what she was saying above the increasingly deafening growls from my stomach but I understood that you took what you fancied, that the colour of the bowls the food was in indicated the price of the dish, and there was water available which I could drink until it was coming out of my ears. She handed me some type of catalogue that was supposed to identify the food that was shimmying around in front of me like prizes on The Generation Game and she left me alone to ponder.

I poured some water and contemplated the manual but gave up with this approach as once I’d seen something and worked out what it was the plate was half a mile away. So I used the more direct approach of choosing with my eyes and when I saw something that looked like chicken and salad I grabbed it. I glanced around for cutlery and found the idiot’s chopsticks, joined together at one end so that cack handed morons like me didn’t keep dropping either them or the food on the floor.

The cuisine was excellent and brought me back to life just in time for me to join the conference call. At this time of day it seemed to be a good venue for suited souls like me, a red faced man with a posher laptop than mine was calling another red faced man on his phone, insisting he joined him there for a meeting.

I participated in the call with ease and aplomb and hopefully no-one on the other end heard me tucking in to a Spicy Crab Cake. Once I’d finished the call I decided that I would grab one last thing before I headed off, this time a proper sushi looking thing, all rice and seaweed and raw fish, although it turned out to be crab again, but this one was sweet and lovely.

As working lunches go this one was marvellous. I was only there about half an hour but even with a call in the middle I felt really relaxed afterwards, the environment was really chilled out.

When I paid I explained to the guy at the till that I had just popped my sushi cherry. He asked if I was from London. I said I wasn’t, that I lived just north of Peterborough and we don’t have a Yo! Sushi there. He looked sad for me and said wistfully, “Maybe you will have one day”.

I can only dream as Yo Sushi has now become my new favourite place but given that Peterborough is only just getting a Nando’s, and I’m fairly giddy about that as I’ve not been there either, I think it’ll be a long time before the good people of Peterborough can enjoy the magical conveyor belt of delicious sweet and savoury treats of Yo! Sushi, and that’s a shame.

 

Genius

I have finally realised what my ideal job would be after many years of trying different ones including a spell as a dinner lady, which was good for a free meal at the end of the shift, and as a regular in police line ups (I was the one that hadn’t done it) which was easy money really. The rozzers rang me one Friday evening and asked if I could grow a beard by Monday. I’d just shaved but said “yes, no problem”. Hell, you got £20 just for showing up. 

What I should be doing (apart from what I do now of course – “Hello” to anyone from work!!) is to be shut in a room on my own staring into space. I’m serious, because in between the long periods of time when nothing appears to be happening I will suddenly get an amazing, life changing idea that will make my employers richer than Avarice. As I am also an altruistic person by nature, which has now been scientifically proven, I share my ideas so that people with a bit of commercial nous can go and take my idea and develop it into a money making reality. All I ask for is a bit of cash from the profits so that I can go and get myself the occasional pint and a packet of salted peanuts.

Today I had two, yes two, amazing money making ideas which I am happy to share with you. Prepare yourselves, this could tear up all your preconceptions about society and change the world. Your life will never be the same again. Ready? OK, then I will begin.

Let me give you three words – Drive Thru Chippie. No? Bear with me.

I was driving down the A14 this morning and my journey took me past an abandoned pub called the Trinity Foot, which in itself is a great name. I intend to poach the name ‘Trinity Foot’ and use that as my pen name if I ever start writing crime novels.

As sad a sight as this once former public house is I could see why it wasn’t going to succeed selling intoxicating liquor next to a busy A-road and nowhere near any conurbations. While I was thinking about what else this unassuming building could transform itself in to, it came to me. A Drive Thru Fish n’ Chip Shop.

It stands to reason and I can’t believe that no-one’s thought of it before. Simple, quick, and popular fayre, by the side of the road. I know that Harry Ramsden has spread his empire out a little but he’s not yet tried to take on the big boys of drive thru, like McDonalds and KFC. Of course my new venture needs a memorable name, ‘Chips Ahoy’ being my favourite, with a large, bright sign drawing in weary, hungry travellers.

As I travelled on I saw disused ‘Little Chef’ sites, more prime locations for your favourite fish n’ chip drive thru experience. ‘Chips Ahoy’ can even break out into the breakfast market with proper bacon butties, not that fake stuff you get in McDonalds (a flat sausage – that’s witchcraft I tell you). Drinks would have to come in canned and bottled form, as you would expect, and include the favourites like Coke and Lemonade but also more left field beverages like Cream Soda and Dandelion & Burdock.

I’m telling you now, this is a guaranteed copper bottomed winner, and you’re welcome to it. All yours. Go and make some cash but don’t forget who gave you the idea. I’ll accept a free meal as payment.

You’d think that was enough and my work was done for the day but no, it doesn’t stop there. Second brilliant idea of the day came when it occurred to me that the Royal Family don’t do what all celebrities do. They don’t write autobiographies. Well, Edward VIII did but he’d gone rogue by that point.

Now I’m unaware of any law banning Royal Autobiographies so maybe they’ve just never been asked. So there we have it. ‘The Queen: In Her Own Words’, or ‘Reigning in my Heart’, or ‘Elizabeth II, Rest of the World 0’. something like that.

Imagine the stories she has to tell. Seriously, if Kerry Katona can knock out an autobiography about her pointless existence then so can Her Majesty, and it’ll have more interesting stories in it to boot, although probably not so many about drug binges, winning ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ or quitting ‘Atomic Kitten’ before they got famous.

That aside, can you imagine what a best seller Liz’s book would be? Absolutely hugely massive, another guaranteed money-spinner. Now, I don’t have a publishing company at the present time and, in any case, given my comments about the Windsors in my last post I suspect I’m not the person to approach her until she’s cooled her jets a little, but I’ll happily take 10% of the profits, as I came up with the idea.

So there you go, give me a room and a pad of paper and I will make you millions. Any takers? Lord Sugar? Peter Jones? Duncan Bannatyne? Anyone….?