Squab’s Journal: 9th December
1982: Al Dente, American Iron chef; upends the world of the beef
patty sandwich with the Buford T Justice, Fearless Law of Texas
Burger. America’s culinary heartland never the same again. True
vision on a plate, Dente would later speak of the umbridge felt when his artistic freedom ended tethered to an uncompromising mathematical pattern.
That mathematical pattern was: Timing. .
Dente said; “Dare to disrespect it and timing will steal your mise en place, will double cross your cooking process and will tear your face from your skull with it’s bare hands in service if you fuck it up”.
“But without timing, we cannot be artists,”
”without timing we are just twats making lunch.”
Night befalls my seat of contemplation and all my melodramatic musing...
is lost. The day is at an end and darkness is a swift and prompt onset.
Petrol stations illuminate, public houses entice and the streets infest with all the hidden faces of deliquency and lawless mopeds carting pizza excuses to the chronically lethargic.
Like an out of body experience, the fake orange, urban glow looks down, upon itself and all its gluttonous, self-righteous natives. Saffron tints the dirty underbelly of the thick winter cloud with something that could be forgiven as being calming. But its attempt to cloak the shit-ridden, limp North London skyline with a warm, sympathetic blanket of comfort...
Fails.
The beast’s shriek rasps across the sky.
High-pitched, venomous and deluded.
Un-tethered from its guttural origin, it wakes and rises into view.
Subterranean and glorious, its profile silhouettes majesty and menace
against the lurid neon backdrop of Eastern Haringey;
“Haringey: the children’s borough”.
It is I who is witness to the pure, prehistoric awakening that beholds.
An immense vertebrae uncurls, exposing itself with controlled, precise, deadliness.
A second wail follows, slicing the early winter air. Shrill, unearthly and chilling.
This time I know it’s for me.
Their blood will curdle tonight. When they know what hunts above them. When they hear it prowl and cry aloud.
A painful message to all that lie alone.
A simple fate awaits, and no belated and insincere atonement can change:
1. Finalise your arrangements.
2. Order those things that require ordering.
3. Destroy your pornography.
For tonight my lad,
You
Die.
Dark, angelic and moving loosely - clumsy from the day’s slumber, it alights on a church tower platform. (How fitting a cliché.) A slow, un-violent, almost lazy flap of its appendages and an eerie creek of muscle give way to a sudden and disturbing crack of sinew. Where there was flesh, there is now bone. Where there was skin there is now layered, dark, leathery hide. With strength, power and infinite purpose it spreads out.
And it flies. Encircling first.
A gruesome ballerina in her opening act... she draws closer.
“Delia?"
“Botham!”
Transient, poetic and vertical, her flight-path is a perfect arc, a terrifying
dance, a gravity-defying posture. A heart suspended. This beautiful, beautiful
beast can no longer be welcome in the homes of all that covet her simple kitchen
teachings. Now a foul, fuck-munching and vile killer, she is no longer demure.
She is no longer informative of culinary basics in easy to follow, simple
statements of instruction. Now she is much, much more. I crave her
villainous whisper, her sensuous touch upon my brow. She knows, oh my god, she
knows it well.
Hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you.
Time signals finality and the hideous, slobbering mouth of the viscous predator leans in close. My cheek quivers... and then freezes. A cold pungent breath condenses the air around my face.
It reaches out.
“I am your father Botham!”
“Let’s be ‘aving you now son…”
....
One half of the Glaswegian couple has popped the hot chicken pie out of its cellophane wrapper with a surprising amount of speed and dexterity for a broken alcoholic in a Father Christmas hat.
Note: men who combine trainers with ill-fitting suits and move in brusque, inaccurate movements should always be approached with a certain degree of caution.
With warrior like vision, he has cocked a simple, confident squeeze of the palm and released the pastry-based weapon from its two-tone, tinfoil casement.
Note: Chaz Brown (of Chaz n’ Dave: sadly divorced) and his iconic ‘paedo chic’ look of the past 20 years
should not be included in aforementioned note.
Time: Friday 12th December
Location: ‘Assault and Battery’ fish and chip shop.
The leaseholder, proprietor and principal fryer at the Assault and Battery has the dead-eyed look of defeat about him. His collar stretches toward me, imprisoned under my aggressive grasp. We are way past a fucking discussion here and I heave this bloated oak of sloth over the formica counter. This cunt of lard is wedged between the two heated display cabinets that flank him. To the left: deep fried, bread-coated chicken hacked into indiscernible portions cast an apathetic eye over the scene. To the right: heinous battered beef burgers, jumbo saveloy and stacks of unwanted, dried-up cod fillets watch on similarly.
So, it’s the swimming technique of the physically retarded he’s adopting as his humpty legs waggle and
It’s all very embarrassing for everyone concerned.
With an un-sober aim to guide it the chicken pie’s projectile is flimsy, misguided and, despite its intent, pathetic. My wingman; Star Wars Gary with a full Star Wars leg, and my two status dogs; Jay-Zee and Yakusa, watch closely as it slams onto the white tiled wall, exploding above our highland assailant’s screaming, hyperventilating girlfriend.
It’s a tarte flambé to be true.
Drunken panic takes hold with rapid intensity in the career alcoholic. Screams and hollers accompany
gyrating arms, legs, and the swollen hands of drunken goalkeepers as two portions of cod and chips are
needlessly abandoned. Two bulbous, pock-marked red noses scramble in hysteria out through the
doorway and down the hill to the safety of the Curry Club.
A greasy film of grey, viscous matter and limp fragments of pastry decorate the wall, leaving a stark reminder of why we are here. We had witnessed this pie at its point of sale. It was ordered, by our temporary combatant, as what seemed to be, a late addition to the two cod and chips the proprietor was seasoning with salt and vinegar at the time.
Only a Scotsman could add a last minute chicken pie to his main order as an after-thought.
Star Wars Gary with a full Star Wars leg suggests it may well have been intended as a condiment.
Maybe Star Wars Gary with a full star wars leg. Maybe.
We had come in search of a known food crime of such magnificent proportions. An offence to gastronomy
that would soil our public and infest our underclass with its fearless disregard for appropriately sourced
foodstuffs and discernable farming ethics. We came in search of the ‘chicken chunk’ boldly advertised in
With politeness I make an enquiry to the proprietor.
From whence did the chicken chunk, if chickens were indeed involved, come? Are you personally acquainted with he who farms and produces this ‘chicken chunk’? Have you been to the ‘chicken chunk’ farmer’s farm? Inspected his methods? Witnessed, with your own eyes, the chicken chunk’s habituate? If I ingest a chicken chunk orally, am I to ingest a happy chicken chunk? Once free to roam and feed on a full organic diet before a sensitive, adequately spaced transportation to humane, unstressed slaughter? Am I to savour the delectable, moist flesh of a superbly bred fowl of notable lineage and breed?
I think not.
Tear the hand-written poster from the window:
Chicken chunks
99p for 5
£1.69 for 10
It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you.
Rubbing it across his sweaty red face.
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
Stuffing it into his sore-ridden mouth.
I bless the rains down in Africa.
As I drag him closer, this dirty chef’s halitosis and repugnant personal hygiene boil my blood black shit. I glance toward the industrial fryer… a level of violence upgrade per chance? Star Wars Gary with a full Star Wars leg gives a nod.
Before I act the chicken chunk cabinet gives way under the immense pressure of his hulk
Gonna take some time…
This bastard and all his chicken chunks crash free.
…..to do the things we never have….
I lose my grip.
Bam bam bam buh bam bam bam,
Damp palms run in my family…
Unfortunately.
He’s loose.
This fight is finally a contest. I smell the smoky notes of advantage in his eyes. He pulls an un-assembled fried
chicken box from behind the counter and there’s no flipping sign of a pause to assemble.
Star Wars Gary fires a warning “HE’S GOING TO USE THEM IN THE FLAT PACK…”
And he’s at me full tilt, right off the bat.
Martial the culinary arts and conjure the horn of plenty mushroom.
A re-focus.
A side step
A leg sweep.
He’s crashing to the floor.
“wing chung. Fish and Bitch”
He’s closed down.
Inform his family: he got wise and lippy and wound up soup.
Job done.
...
Squab’s Journal. December 13th.
What fate now befalls those demonic charlatans and media fellators my queen?
The vulgar despot Ramsay is no longer fit for purpose.
The murdering pervert Harriet has beast-raped himself to death in an under-stair utility room after opening
a South London Sheltered housing scheme.
Worrall Thompson, made of dwarven ginger, found bludgeoned on his own hobbiton lawn. Cut down, ruined and smout at the hands of his ever-expanding range of personally endorsed homewares and lifestyle products.. How fitting it was that the AWT-signature ladies in-flight hand luggage and wallpaper cast the fatal blow Anthony.
Jamie Oliver, the milk monitor – lost his weiner and ran away. Fucking retard.
The age of the celebrity chef is over.
The epoch of Squab has begun.
