So, Euro 2016 has been and gone, and along with the departing heroes of Portugal have gone the swathes of advertisements for a certain fast food chain that seemed to adorn the advertising screens of just about every single football stadium in France.
Why on earth this actually HAS anything to do with football other than plugging tinkly piano versions of old songs by The Jam (I really didn't think Paul Weller needed the money … and why is it EVERY single song in adverts theses days is a tinkly piano-led version of a classic 80's or 90's anthem with wispy female vocals ??) is beyond me.
This got me thinking about my relationship with the fabled 'golden arches''. I last had a McDonald hamburger about 15 months ago and thought it was quite probably the second most revolting thing that had ever been in my mouth … (stop snickering, yes, you there at the back !!).
And whilst we're on the subject, does anyone else here think that all of the salads or healthier options that you see in their football ads are completely ridiculous? I mean this chain is for burgers etc, and yes there are some unintelligent Americans who have sued for becoming obese on account of eating there 300 times a day but really, the overwhelming majority of people would actually realise that they aren't at all healthy and (if they must) will just go occasionally.
It's also not exactly intelligent marketing - no one will ever think of going there for a low calorie option, that's a bit like watching a WWE wrestling match purely for the homo-erotic sub-text. And anyway, we've got Five Guys now … ironically there's now a Five Guys in Five Ways, but anyway.
Nevertheless, I think their establishments are actually pretty great, because they provide a bug-zapper-esque light for all the local chavs and riff-raff, and so keep them and their equally ghastly children out of the few remaining decent restaurants, tea-rooms, pubs, and coffee houses. One of my favourite eating houses is the Hopwood Hotel in Alvechurch. It's a tranquil oasis of civilised behaviour. Where one is actually served at the table by well-spoken, suitably obsequious waitresses. There's a cute little Lindsay Lohan look-alike who I'm pretty sure doesn't wear any knic... sorry, I digress.
Anyway, around about this time last year, disaster struck; the place was suddenly invaded by unwashed, burberry-swathed, loud-mouthed hordes of Sun-reading family horrors wearing made in China tracksuits with white stripes down zippered trouser seams, waving lottery tickets like they were TUC strike banners like the scene in the new Star Trek movie where the USS Enterprise is torn to shreds and sent screaming to a fiery death on the planet below by a swarm of insectoid-like aliens.
Had an exploded WWII bomb recently been discovered on the local council house estate? I wondered. Had a rare PokemonGo creature been lurking in the ladies? Was it someone attempting to initiate the world's most low-rent flash mob? Had they all just come out of seeing the new Ghostbusters movie? No, it was worse, far worse: the local high street Maccy D's had closed down.
Has anyone experienced the true horror of having a McDonalds close down on them? For a small town like Alvechurch it's a disaster, like having a main sewer collapse. The streets and gutters immediately back up and are overflowing with chav-crement in no time. Floods in Bangladesh or Mozambique are nothing in comparison.
Relief and RAF helicopters borrowed from Russia pour in in such cases, but a little town like Alvechurch losing its McDonalds is ignored by the world community and in no time disease, famine, and terror are stalking the streets as ruthless, power-crazed burger barons move in to fill the vacuum.
So why, I heard no-one ask, did the local McDonalds emporium close?
As is the case with most football teams these days, the great unwashed in their infinite wisdom blamed the manager. Apparently he was knobbled by the new smoking laws and had abolish the smoking area. Seeing as most of his customers are trained from the age of about two to get through at least 40 ciggies a day, particularly girls who discover that they're cheaper than slimming pills and contraceptives, this left him up diarrhoea creek without so much of a sheet of Andrex to his name.
The result of this thoughtless action being the ultimate loss of his cor` blimey business, which struggled on for a few weeks and finally collapsed in such a swift a way that it would have left even BHS's chairman wincing. However, this time there is some good news to end on. The state of emergency finally ended with the opening of a new McDonalds outlet in a shopping precinct. I presume it has a smoking area because, thankfully, the streets have seemingly been swept clear of the social dregs and comparative normality has been restored.
Call me a foodie or a gastronomic snob if you much, but for me, there has never been much romance attatched to the Big M. I know that they've refitted many of their eateries theses days so it now looks less like a northern childcare centre and more like someone from Apple has been let loose with an angle grinder to try and get rid of every single corner and edge known to man, but even then nostalgia is some thing I simply cannot equate with McDonalds …
Yes, I am more partial to a Beefeater or a Hungry Horse or one of those kind of establishments because what you ingest is actually vaguely edible and you don't get bombarded by the cast of Benefits Street, but ironically the people I can't stand are the ones who pre-emptively dismiss them in favour of Ronald the Clown's Burger Emporium, largely because its fans can be a bit weird, or because they regard upmarket eateries as 'hipster bait', whatever the hell that means.
And as much as I've been bashing them over the course of this blog post, it's worth remembering how fortunate we that McDonald's are not licenced … at least that is until the customers get out into the car park and start mixing White Ace into their iced frappachinos …
And of course, I'm certainly NOT dismissing those who are employed there. As much as I complain about my own employment, I freely admit I would be too much of a coward to change it for a McJob, for those who ply their trade at least get regular shifts and the living wage … and for dealing with the kind of clientele they have to put up with, especially on a Friday or Saturday night, I believe they are truly the unsung heroes of our generation …
So as it's been such a beautiful week, it's back to the peace and quiet of the Hopwood with some of the shine in my smile applied to my shoes to see if my theory about the little Lohan-alike waitress is correct …
I for one, hope it is.