Phil…AKA Lostwitness…Le Témoin Perdu as he’s known throughout the backstreets of Paris and Marseilles…recently wrote a very funny and quite irreverent critique of Asda taking as his template the theme: 30 Things I Hate About You.
I read it, grateful for some humour on an otherwise fairly gloomy sort of day, wrote a wee comment in his guestbook (as is my wont) and was rewarded by a direct challenge to write a similar sort of review myself.
Trouble is…I had a hell of a job finding anything in the vast list of products, companies and services, places and programmes that is Ciao that I a) hated enough and b) knew something about. Qu’un dilemme, non?
Until…
I walked down Putney High Street and was attacked by about 450 small children wielding Happy Meals and portly little bellies while carrying with them a collective attitude that would be the pride of the Marines! Yes folks…a kiddies’ party was just ending at our friendly neighbourhood Micky D!
I realised in a flash that I had my victim…er…subject!
I know that many people are very fond of McDonald’s and I risk offending some or all of them with this latest in a long series of vile and vituperative reviews, but please bear in mind that I’m only doing this because Ciao doesn’t have a category for ‘The Whole Human Race’ just yet; if they did, it would have been my topic of choice…trust me! (Don’t get me wrong; I love mankind,,,I just don’t like people much)
Anyway...it’s Phil’s fault really…go and shout at him if you feel hard done by.
So here goes…
1) McDonald’s, I hate you because you have invaded the entire world with your gruesomeness. There is no escape from the putrescence you purvey, and no town or village is safe from the iniquities that you inflict on every urban enclave you encounter in your ever expanding excrescence.
2) I hate you because you have contributed to the myth that fresh food is unnecessary.
3) I hate you because you have brainwashed whole generations into believing that your products constitute a ‘treat’ and these generations have passed the message onto their own offspring.
4) I hate you because somehow you have created the notion that a couple of scant ounces of overproduced and processed meat slapped into a not-quite-fresh bun along with some limp and slimy vegetation and a slice of gherkin that no-one seems to want is a ‘special meal’.
5) I abhor you for your scary and worrying ‘clown’ Ronald, who would be more at home in a straight-to-video horror flick or between the pages of a Stephen King book than dancing across our televisions and High Streets.
6) I detest the fact that you now purport to sell ‘healthier options’ like salad which actually have an even greater fat content than your vile burgers. Please let me know by return how this can be ‘healthy’.
7) I hate you for your shakes. I hate the fact that in one of your ‘shakes’ (note the absence of the word ‘milk’ there) the calorific content is over 500kCals.
8) I detest you for putting massive amounts of salt in, on and over everything you sell barring (I suppose) desserts…but then again…desserts…sugar…read sugar for salt…
9) I am appalled by the two-faced attitude you show in every respect of your dealings with the public. Get them in, take the money then give them seats designed to make a protracted stay unlikely, if not impossible.
10) I hate you for the amount of packaging you use.
11) Following on from #10, I hate how your executives claim that McDonald’s is environmentally friendly. Frankly, having a couple of your staff traipse around picking up branded litter doesn’t make you ‘environmentally friendly’…it just rights a wrong that should never have been inflicted on the environment in the first place.
12) I hate you because, contrary to the statement offered by one of your American executives, Coca-Cola is NOT nutritious. To present it as such is giddy thinking and VERY wrong!
13) How could you insist that staff continue to work with food; preparing and serving it to the public, while the floor of the kitchen was awash with sewage? What did the people of Colchester do to you to deserve this kind of treatment?
14) I hate how up your own corporate wazoo you are. I once caught a glimpse of the handbook franchise owners are obliged to work to in order to keep their franchises…and thereby keep your coffers fat with percentage take…10 pages on how to clean the windows? TEN PAGES ON WINDOW CLEANING???
15) I hate your corporate colours. Red and yellow are nature’s colours for danger and poison. They are the colours that initiate migraines. Even on traffic lights they are WARNING and STOP. Come to think about it…they’re pretty appropriate…keep ‘em by all means!
16) I hate the sight of overweight people with greasy hair stuffing pap into their faces in public. You are a major contributor to the pain I endure in this respect.
17) While I’m on the topic of overweight people, have a look at the young people who make up a large percentage of your clientele. See how many are obese? SEE?
18) And their COMPLEXIONS!!! CAN YOU SEE??? YOU do this. It’s not HORMONES… it’s YOU!
19) What are you thinking about dressing your staff in brown?
20) I hate what cattle ranching does to our fragile planet. McDonald’s are a massive customer for beef, contributing thereby to global warming, soil damage and the disappearance of traditional crop farming across great swathes of the world.
21) I hate and detest the fact that your food is processed to such an extent that a burger requires no chewing. In fact, I suspect a burger could be sucked up through one of your straws just as readily as one of your shakes.
22) How do you get your eggs to look like that? Not very natural is it?
23) I McF***ing Hate the McBastardising of McWords to fit your poxy McCorporate image.
24) Dirty cartons and wrappers, errant gherkin slices, grease, cigarette ends, ketchup containers, grease, semi-chewed ends of buns, grease and finger-smears…seen through a McDonald’s window.
25) If you’re going to treat your staff like slaves, why bother to pay them at all? If you ARE going to pay them, why not pay them a decent wage for good work? It’s not their fault they have to prepare and sell crap.
26) I hate that you call your stores ‘restaurants’. They are not restaurants…they are not cafes, they are not bijou little bistros either. They are outlets. Be brave. Say it like you mean it.
27) I hate all food sellers who insist on putting photographs of their products on their menus. You belong in this category, so I hate you. OK?
28) There is a law in the UK (while we’re on the topic of photographs) that states that the photographs of a product must be genuinely of that product as it is available to the purchaser. I don’t think you’re really trying too hard to comply with this law. I really don’t! I hate that!
29) I hate the fact that I was offered the McDonalds theme (I’m Lovin’It’) as a ringtone for my phone. It may not be directly your doing but I’m going to blame you anyway.
30) I’m NOT lovin’ it. I’m HATING it!
I want to make it clear to everyone that this review is MY opinion, and has no legal standing. I also want to apologise to anyone who might have been offended by any of the foregoing, but frankly, if I make one person think twice before sticking a quarter-pounder in their face my work will not have been in vain.
Any and all legal documents pertaining to this review should be sent to Mrs Gladys Pugh of 46 Seaview Drive, Elgin, Scotland.
More details
Cleanliness
Terrible
Family Friendly
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