Friday, September 5th, 2008

Fast food. Get 'em in quick, and get 'em out quicker appeared to be the Fast Food Franchise Philosophy. The scary Uncle of fast food, McDonald's, was a clear follower of the FFFP. Although it was the only place to hang out as a kid when all the youth clubs shut down and brownie-guides just wasn't cool anymore, it subjected you to such torturous lighting (worse than the underground's fluorescent tubes for adolescent spot highlighter), mind-numbing muzak and bum-numbing plastic seating, that in the end you actually decided to invite your mates round to your house even though your parents were in.

But us kids in the early 90s had it good. Because far worse was yet to come, when McDonald's tried to shake off its scary Uncle-who-wants-to-Supersize-me image and turned into Maccy D, your Uncle-at-the-disco, attempting Justin Timberlake moves by the patties. In its ruthless health drive, it took the extra cheese out of the burgers and put it straight into the muzak. That catchy little ditty that they pumped out into the 'restaurants', 'I'm lovin' it', was as infectious as mad cow's disease. No wonder most people fled with their burgers to the relatively safer haven of the urban bench, in between the local nutter and last night's kebab.

In Brixton though, it appeared that the FFFP had gone too far, when in 2006, 2 teenagers were shot in Brixton's McDonald's. This particular 'restaurant' had been the flashpoint of FFFP resistance for years, the place where the customers against the FFFP would deploy all their tactics. It had been engineered to be the scummiest of all the franchises, so no one could possibly want to be in there for longer than a few minutes. What with the tables that were never cleaned, skid-marked seats and toilets that'd make even a Starbucks' customer gag. But it was here that the resistance fighters of eye-watering tramps and zombie clubbers from The Fridge and Mass came together. As soon as the 'restaurant' opened, the tramps would exchange their beggings for a BOGOF (they ignored that propaganda) burger deal and coffee, before proceeding to occupy a table by the window until closing time, along with the clubbers who'd nurse a couple of cold cups of tea between 8 of them for 8 hours.

Now though it seems that the FFFP has been abandoned. There's been a ceasefire. No more bum-numbing plastic seating, 'I'm lovin' it' remixes or indeed, Ronald McDonald. I walked past the McDonald's in Brixton the other day and saw people lounging. Lounging in a fast food joint! Families, friends, women after a shopping trip, all relaxing in huge comfortable chairs and soft-looking, sinkable sofas, chatting and laughing over coffees, baguettes and burgers. So fast food has become cook shit fast, eat it slowly? I can't help feeling that somewhere along the way, everyone's forgotten what they've been fighting for.