When home-cooked turkey roasted Reformed chicken.
I’ve developed a whole new respect for the WI.
I’ll never unsee its indestructible president, Virginia Austen, using her WI pinny like a matador’s cape while Ralph (our white van delivery driver) and his Reform rabble charged about like bargain-basement bulls.
Our ex-Conservative MP (now Reform hopeful), Rupert Fitzwell, has pivoted into fast-fried chicken with his venture-capital pals. Robeena — our resident clairvoyant and, inconveniently for Rupert, his aunt — announced he’s up to his eyebrows in debt, largely because he found the MP’s salary tragically incompatible with his lifestyle.
The chicken scheme came via Rupert’s wife, who went to the Amazon for “spiritual refreshment,” lost half her body weight through aggressive vomiting resulting from the traditional potions she received, and was eventually rescued by fried chicken from a shack in Belém (now climate-conference Disneyland). She brought home a terrifyingly moreish recipe and Fried Chicken Shack UK (FCSUK) was born.
To market it, they offered free buckets for our residential complex’s Christmas lunch. Douglas, our manager, snapped them up and used the savings to hire “Mista Kipling”, a man who looks like Father Christmas and sounds like a slightly haunted jukebox. Robeena intervened: absolutely not. The WI stepped in with a traditional Christmas food — on one condition: we back its campaign to stop an FCSUK opening next to the primary school.
So we all turned up in the cold with the WI, facing an angry mob led by FCSUK’s mascot, Chick Chick, a giant yellow chicken demanding “freedom” to eat what they want to eat. Ralph was there too, ready to share his views on immigrants with anyone unfortunate enough to have ears. Behind them: people livestreaming for YouTube and GB News.
Then someone yelled, “Get Jamie Oliver!” The crowd spotted the only well-dressed middle-aged man — Rupert — and drenched him in chicken grease, convinced he was the TV chef who “killed turkey Twizzlers”. Rupert protested. The grease did not listen.
Thankfully, Mista Kipling arrived, struck up “Food Glorious Food,” and everyone — yes, including Chick Chick — started singing. We all shuffled home. Peace restored. Sort of. We still can’t agree what “glorious” food is, but we all agreed that we didn’t want unwelcome additives.
