No. 1: The Deep Fried Mars Bar
A quintessentially Scottish product that attracts derision and revulsion in equal measure. And yet, unlike the Prime Minister, the deep-fried Mars bar is also regarded with affection. Both have the power to arrest vital organs, but whilst the chocolate-and-batter treat has the same volcanic heart that beats in every devil-may-care Scot, it at least offers the prospect of some pleasure before everything seizes up.
Unlike the Prime Minister, though, the deep-fried Mars bar mostly mortifies victims on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall and doesn’t even pretend to be good for you.
Sadly, instead of smiling at the novel way in which his countrymen block their arteries, Brown is a hatchet-faced, Calvinistic killjoy who can’t look a deep-fried Mars Bar in its battered eye without feeling he must set targets to reduce consumption.
Except in Glasgow East, where even those living lives of crushing poverty in concrete hellholes realise that a slab of cheap fat-drenched confectionary offers them more than Brown’s Labour party ever has. Even there, where a deep-fried Mars bar with a red rosette would normally get elected (and be of a higher calibre than most west of Scotland Labour politicians), the voters are contemplating turning their backs on the PM. Should Labour stave off the advance of the SNP in Glasgow East it will be hailed as a triumph on a par with a Glaswegian getting a job or an Old Firm game passing without trouble; whereas, in fact, it is more akin to Celtic beating Raith Rovers.
Fat and sugar are, as Ian Rankin wisely observed, the very heart of the Scottish diet (alcohol provides the soul). “Fucking”, “Gordon” and “Brown”, however, have been at the heart of every Briton’s vocabulary since 2007, especially when opening fuel bills, wondering why their tax has gone up to give to those who earn more than them, welcoming in the bailiffs to repossess their homes, queuing outside a nationalised bank in a vain hope to reclaim their savings, or simply gazing at Brown’s false, child-frightening grin on the 6 o’clock news.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Battered baby and chips, with a deep fried creme egg, would be more popular than Gordon Brown.