Where sheeple may safely graze
I have no interest in McDonald's.
I think their buildings are garish and their sign ugly and I do not like what they serve in the guise of food, but all that is a personal thing, and I just don't give them my custom. By the same token I don't like jazz or opera so I avoid them too. In all cases though, while I might not like 'em I recognise they have a perfect right to exist for those who do like 'em.
But apparently some people don't share my tolerant view of life.
A while ago I saw a news item where some people were complaining that McDonald's had obtained planning permission for a new store within reach of three schools. My first reaction was that if McDonald's had already obtained planning permission then it was hard fucking cheese – objections should have been lodged during the planning process.
Their objections were purely on the grounds that their little darlings were going to stuff themselves with greasy burgers because said burgers were going to all but trot in the school doors.
Now I see they are launching a legal challenge!
I would love to know what their legal argument is. As far as I am aware, McDonald's can build where the fuck they like provided they have planning permission, which they have.
But the parents have been sucked in by the hype. They have been suckered by all the hysteria over obesity and they reckon that little Seán is going to turn into Billy Bunter overnight just because there is a burger joint beside his school. They overlook the fact that little Seán will have to walk to the place which is probably the most exercise he gets in a day. I would dearly love to know how many of those yummy-mummys drive their little precious to school thereby saving him a healthy dose of exercise?
Somehow they reckon that the granting of planning permission contravenes the gumbint strategy on obesity. I wasn't aware that this strategy had somehow crept into planning legislation, but if it has, then someone in the planning department would surely have noticed?
I notice that part of the proposed development is a health & fitness studio. Maybe the kids' parents should sign their precious sprogs in for a grand course of weight lifting?
Maybe there isn't a problem?
Maybe if you place a plus-obesity facility and a minus-obesity facility side by side they will react like matter and anti-matter and will mutually annihilate in a glorious multi-megaton explosion?
I like that idea.
In fact, I'm lovin' it.
Maybe they shouldn't give their kids money to buy McDonalds if they don't want them eating it.
(I have to declare an interest. I love McDonalds)
Or maybe they should just tell their kids not to go? Of course either solution would require parental responsibility but we all know that parents these days prefer the state to take control.
Do you like opera and jazz too?
Parental responsibility is just too damn hard for the breeders of today.
No I don't like Opera and Jazz. I like Garth Brooks
Two out of three isn't too bad. 😀
I like opera and jazz. And blues and soul and rock'n'roll.
I don't much care for McDonalds fare, though. It tastes kind of ok at the time, if somewhat bland, but always leaves me feeling a bit queasy afterwards. Each to his own. My only real gripe with McD is that they have a habit of opening their stores, yellow arches, garish furniture and all in historical buildings where it seems utterly inappropriate. I was in Heidelberg years ago visiting a German friend of mine, and he showed me what was apparently the oldest pharmacy in Europe. Only it had been turned into a McD. They even opened one in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, which is an architectural and aesthetic travesty. Apparently they applied to the Milan council to open some outlets there, and were turned down on the basis that Milan had plenty of hamburger shops. So they bought up a hamburger chain that was already operating there and turned them into McDs.
Their catchphrase is one of the things that gets in my craw ["I'm lovin' it"] which really makes no sense whatsoever when you think about it?
I have noticed a few opening in lovely old buildings all right. A blight on the landscape. Here's one from North Wicklow. At least the council had the balls to tell 'em to tone down their fucking signs
Grandad,
What you need over there is a Health Minister like wot they've got in Belgium as shown over at A Tangled Web. The aptly named Ms Block. Block wot? Light?
http://www.atangledweb.org/?p=60836
Holy FUCK!! They certainly believe in getting more bang for their buck in Belgium?
[*Damn! Shouldn't have used the word "bang" – brings terrible images to mind that will probably cause nightmares for weeks*]
Ms Block and Diane Abbot could make an interesting movie together, if you like that kind of film. The mind boggles.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee?
Or Tweedledum and Tweedle even dumber
I like classical, folk and jazz occasionally, but I'm not keen on aged Lyric FM presenter Gay Byrne introducing jazz on Sunday afternoons, so I switch over to snotty BBC 3 instead. I only go into a McDonalds place to escape the rain and cold and sip coffee.Sometimes I smuggle in a sandwich bought elsewhere and munch it when staff members aren't watching. I think pizza is more nutritious than hamburgers. Garth Brooks, country and western, and rock music are things I only listen to passively when cooking sausages, rashers and eggs in the morning. If McDonalds cooked breakfast fries just like momma used to do I'd be prepared to revise my low opinion of the fast food empire. And if they served Bewleys or Barrys breakfast tea it would be very heaven.
I finally trained Herself to listen to a drop of classical. She started listening to Lyric FM but like yourself, got pissed off with Gay Byrne's jazz. She now happily listens to Classic FM [as do I].
The one good thing about McD's is they usually have free wifi which I confess has lured me over the doorstep once or twice. I think I have entered their portals twice in France and twice here in Ireland, and on all occasions just had coffee.
Here's a neat one from Edinburgh where a stack of yobs were being thoroughly obnoxious during the summer holidays at a Big Mac in Corstorphine (where there really isn't a great deal to do unless you have a car).
Anyway they adopted a policy:
Police have had to be called out to deal with the troublemakers and a bouncer has now been installed at the restaurant's doors from 7pm every evening.
Youngsters are asked for ID on the door and under 16s barred from entering unless supervised by an adult.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mcdonalds-hires-bouncers-id-youths-6037452
So the irate Mom's can simply ask Big Mac to bar any sprog in school uniform in school hours. Problem solved.
That sounds like a sensible enough plan, except I can't see McD's being too happy!
Just as an aside, I have been to a McD's a couple of times on the way to Cork. Each time was around lunchtime and the place had quite a few schoolkids around. Not one of them looked even slightly overweight. Just sayin'.
I was under the impression that McDonald's meat was piss-poor.
However, a colleague from my last job is a part-time beef farmer and insisted that McDonald's beef was top-class.
A current work colleague runs a butcher's shop and used to quarter beef carcasses in an abbatoir (where else?) He says McDonald's buy top-notch beef.
The problem is that these fat wee glipes are being driven to and from school and then play computer games when they're at home. That's why they're fat. How many fat kids were in your school, Grandad, when people walked everywhere or cycled? I'll bet it was one in the whole school, if even that, same as in mine, and we ate plenty of sweets and stuff.
In fact if a child is fat it's because the parents are useless. It's easy enough to keep a dog thin, you feed it the amount it says on the bag based on the dog's size and if it starts to look fat you give it less. You don't – unless your'e stupid – blame the petfood shop for being too near the fucking dog .
In my days, I don't ever remember seeing a car dropping any kid off to school. We all walked, cycled or got the bus. And in those days there weren't half as many bus stops so even bussing it meant a fair bit of walking.
Parents these days are abrogating all responsibility to the state. It's the state's fault if the kids are fat, poorly educated or ill. They have completely lost sight of the fact that it's their moral duty to look after their own spawn.
I hate MacFodders too. So much of the world is being destroyed because of pointless meat farming.
BUT HOW CAN YOU SAY YOU DON'T LIKE JAZZ?!?
Jazz is wonderful. It's all about nonsense and walking around with nowhere to go. My favourite is Bobby McFerrin:
https://youtu.be/Hodp2esSV9E
That video is brilliant!!
There seems to me two kinds of jazz – there is the melodic jazz-band style [New Orleans comes to mind] and there is that sleazy nightclub type with no real melody where everyone does their own shit and it comes out as a cacophony of horrible noises. The former is grand but the latter is a right pain.
Sadly all the fun has gone out of this item.
The Nannies have won this round and McDonalds isn't going to be built.
Another step down the road to mind control.