M&S I hate you.

There‘s part of an old stand up routine by Alexei Sayle that goes like this. Alexei tells us that he would invite friends round for dinner, spend several days preparing the meal and then claim that he had bought everything from Marks and Spencers, at which point everyone round the table would exclaim, “Oooh, what would we do without Marks & Spencers...” in a high pitched middle class squeak. A typical slightly surreal moment from my doppelganger Mr Sayle, but, given the ubiquity of M&S Food Halls on motorways, high streets on the southern section of the Northern Line and refurbished railway stations he’s still got a point. I trust Alexei, he once wrote a song about the Revolutionary Biscuits of Italy.

My point, then. Dear old Marks and Sparks. I hate you. Hate is a strong word but dislike doesn’t cut it in this instance. Simple pure malice against a supermarket isn’t generally a good idea, there’s just too much to hate. Also, what are you going to do when you need loo paper and milk at 11.30pm and the Tescos Express round the corner has sucked the life from every convenience store in a half mile radius? The stark realisation of my absolute hatred of that middle class bastion of carrot batons and pre-prepared ham sandwiches only happened about an hour ago. I was eating the pictured pesto chicken and bacon salad thingy and it slowly dawned on me. EVERYTHING TASTES THE SAME. It had never really occurred to me. Everything I’ve bought in the damnable place tastes exactly the same. The desserts included. Everything tastes smug. And self satisfied. And mostly of mayonnaise. Even something that's meant to be spicy is primly hot, nothing too offensive, it's not bland, it's limp and well meaning. Like the Church of England.

So Mark's and Spencers, I hate you. I hate you for all the meals I've eaten on trains and in cars where I've thought, "Ah, I'll get something nice from M&S" and have been fooled into thinking that eight pieces of pineapple and a ham and cheese sarnie should cost eight quid only to find no discernible difference between the two in terms of the way the food makes me feel. Fuck you, M&S and your flat food.