Joshua Parfitt
So, what has been going on these last weeks with the happy ‘connectors’ on my Facebook group?
What makes people talk to each other? What are the subjects that people want to discuss?
Well, it may come as a surprise – or maybe not – that the singular hot topic recently was the huge sign gone up near our shopping centre in Ondara, proudly announcing that the famous ‘finger-lickingly good’ restaurant franchise, KFC, is embarking upon a new clucking restaurant and that soon those succulent breasts, thighs and nuggets will be available with a bag of limp patatas fritas RIGHT ON OUR DOORSTEP!
Right now, consumers of the secretly coated poultry have had to pack a lunchbox and head to Benidorm, Calpe or Gandia to get their fix – and so this breaking news was greeted with delight from hoards of addicts.
But it didn’t take long before fowl warfare started!
Skin and hair flew about, while Javea connectors argued about just how unhealthy KFC is, about whether they would sell both beans and gravy, about when it would open and, indeed, was it all fake news?
My post announcing this earth-shattering news was shared left, right and centre and reached more people that day than other posts would in a week.
People were both drooling over it and demonising it, but, at the end of the day, after all the votes were cast in 24 hours, I counted them.
(Unfortunately, both John Bercow and Sir Lindsay Hoyle are busy at the moment dealing with a little problem called London Fried Brexit so, I shall announce that the ‘ayes’ to the right were 660 and the ‘nos’ to the left were just 37, so the ayes have it – the ayes have it!)
And my opinion of this gastronomic feast in a bucket?
Well, I have to be honest and say that I am not a big meat or poultry fan.
Gravy going anywhere near chips or the crispy bits is a big no-no – soggy chips have forever been banned from my plate!
There is only one place that I will put myself out to go and get KFC, and that is Indonesia, where there must be many others like me who relish the chicken skin coated in those eleven herbs and spices and sell by the bucketful (I read it in the Sun so it must be true!).
Finally, as I do like to delve a bit in finger lickin’ history, you may not know that, until his death in 1980, Col. Sanders always wore his white suit and black string bow-tie and worked as a spokesperson for the company he founded.
But he wasn’t pleased with the taste of his famous chicken and gravy.
In interviews, he was so upset by the quality of the food that he would tell reporters that the gravy ‘ain’t fit for my dogs’.
In fact, he was so open about his disdain for the alterations made to his recipes, that KFC sued him for libel in 1978.
The Colonel stuck two of his good lickin’ fingers up at the prosecution, and the case was thrown out of court!
