- by Owen Morton
The world is, as we all know, going to hell in a handbasket. I don’t know the origin of the phrase “going to hell in a handbasket”, or even if I’ve quoted it properly, but I know that that’s what’s happening. In Portsmouth, where I now live, when I risk my life by popping into town, I see men wandering round with scary expressions, clearly willing to shoot me or at least say something unkind (such as “nice bag”, for example). I see kids by the sorry excuse for a central fountain, laughing at someone’s misfortune, or sawing someone’s head off with an iPhone KnifeApp or some other symbol of the modern age. Society is clearly crumbling around our ears.
But, if you’ll believe it, that’s not what scares me. I feel that these are merely symptoms, not the cause, of the demise of human civilisation. I can here reveal the true insidious menace that lurks in the background of the human psyche, creating misery and spreading evil. And the name of this malign entity is ... Subway.
I mean, let’s be honest, you can smell it a mile off. Something that smelly can’t be good. It smells like someone’s taken the smell of a Pizza Hut pizza, amplified it by several thousand percent, and then left it to go over-ripe. I have only once ever walked into a Subway shop, and I fell to the ground and could only be revived with smelling salts. It took up to a week for my nose to be clear of Subway’s stench.
I think that the Chief Executive of Subway has deliberately commissioned a shop that makes sandwiches that stink to high heaven, so that he can slip something into the olfactory waves which subdues all men and women to his will. Thus far, the influence the smell exudes merely seems to make people go into Subway and buy a sandwich, but trust me, things will go further. Soon enough, the smell of Subway sandwiches will make people go instantly mad on the spot, or make their brain burst out through their ears. We have to be prepared for this.
Another thing that winds me up about Subway is how the devoted disciples of the place will try to force their sandwich opinions on you. Subway sandwiches taste at least as unpleasant as they smell, which is quite an achievement. They’re either utterly bland, managing to be a great huge dripping mass of tastelessness, or they’re genuinely revolting, as if they’ve been made of ingredients that have been rotting under a sofa for a few months. And yet people who have been subordinated by the stench will tell you at length about how delicious they are, and how much you’d love it if you only tried it. I did try one once. It was the one on the corner of Market Square in Nottingham and it took them fifteen fucking minutes to make a cheese and pepperoni sandwich. When the thing finally appeared, I discovered to my chagrin that I might as well have licked the pavement outside if I’d wanted to achieve the same pleasure at a fraction of the cost. I actually asked for my money back on the grounds that they couldn’t possibly have made it properly, and when they insisted they had, I went to hospital and insisted they check my taste buds were still there, because I couldn’t taste anything.
And another thing: why do they call sandwiches “subs”? A sub is an underwater vessel, and much as I would like to put every Subway “sub” underwater and let them sink to the bottom of the Marinas Trench, it would still be an inaccurate name. Someone high up in the Subway hierarchy probably doesn’t have the ability to pronounce or spell “sandwich” so had to come up with something more easy for morons. At least now I know that if someone says, “Let’s go and get a sandwich,” they’re safe, and if they say, “Hey, man, let’s grab a sub!” I have full licence in the eyes of the law to shoot them.
And also, why do people who like Subway always make out that Subway is a little secret known only to them? Many’s the time I’ve said to someone, “Do you know anywhere I can get a nice sandwich for lunch?” (note the words, “nice” and “sandwich”, not “vile” and “sub”, which would rule Subway out), and they’ve responded, “Oh yes, I do actually. I found this great little place which has loads of lovely fillings and a variety of different breads. The only problems are it smells like a dead horse, you have to wait fifteen minutes for them to make the simplest sandwich, and take out a second mortgage if you want to afford it, and also you have to call it a “sub”, and to top it all off, you have to be out of your mind before you go in.” All right, that’s not really what they say – but they do all claim that they’ve found this delightful sandwich shop which is lovely and they imply that it’s independent and family-run and genuinely tasty or something, and you get all excited and ask what it’s called, and they say Subway, so you have to poke them in the eyes with a pencil.
And guess what Subway employees are called? They’re not “cafe attendants”, or “sub maker”, or “mindless automaton”, or anything like that. They’re “sandwich artists”. This phrase makes me want to vomit. I hate them. I hate them all.
And Subway shops are bloody everywhere, aren’t they? Portsmouth High Street (Commercial Road, I believe it’s called) is about half a kilometre long, at the most, and yet it has one Subway at the bottom end by a takeaway called Ken’s Fried Chicken, and another at the top by a ridiculous shop called Mr Cheap Is The Cheapest which stocks stuff that Poundland would be ashamed to sell. Why do we need two Subways on a stretch of road half a kilometre long? Obviously, I don’t think we need one Subway, but even given the fact that there are some hopeless headcases in the world who might require Subway’s services, we certainly don’t need two. You know how they say in this country you’re never more than six feet away from a rat? I think it’s only because rats are the only creatures that would willingly eat “subs”, and you’re never more than six feet away from a Subway.
There are at least three in Nottingham town centre, within a mile radius of each other. There’s about a million in Birmingham. There are districts of London that are nothing but row upon hideous row of Subway shops. They haunt my dreams. When recently I was taken ill – probably swine flu – I lay in bed, thrashing and screaming, hallucinating vividly about Subway shops walking up to me. I hate them more than anything else, ever. They are proof that Satan exists and walks among us. And I call upon each of you as your moral duty to go and destroy each and every shop of them.
I do quite like their Cheesie Toasties though.