What we are up to

Liverpool, 8002

by Nick Holloway

Getting in the spirit of FACT's latest exhibition Climate For Change (which is asking, among other things, what residents hope Liverpool will be like in 2050), I'm turning my attention back to something I started dreaming over when Mercy's Future-themed event took place in November. Like the FACT project, it deals with a Liverpool that has yet to come into being, but one much farther forward in time than 41 years. 6,000 years in fact, at the dawn of the 81st century...

#1: Fast food

The good news in 8002 is that there is still fast food in Britain, and not, as he'd probably like, statues of Jamie Oliver everywhere dispensing salad. Nor are the idle masses being controlled by the evil world government's rationing of synthetic food, as prophesied by Albert Döblin in his 1924 novel Berge, Meere Und Giganten. Phew.

The face of fast food is rather different than how we know it now, however. Gone are the McDonalds and KFCs of the world, and Burger King is now the Social Democratic Burger Republic. Many Subways were used as bomb shelters during wartime, after which they never re-opened. In Liverpool, the following food outlets have instead become popular.*

1. The Brothel
A string of boiling street corner cauldrons ladelling out broth into polystyrene mugs, favoured by the chucking out time crowd for the broth's ability to stave off a hangover. Hospital admissions of people with soup-related injuries are up 2000 per cent up on 8001, soup most commonly being used by assailants to blind a victim before they bang them out and rifle through their pockets.

2. The Flying Scotsman
The Flying Scotsman is a sole trader who has won permission to operate his tartan dirigible in Liverpool airspace. He descends on parks and squares announcing his presence with a Scottish ayr (usually Ca' The Yows) blasted through a P.A. system. Delicacies include 'Bagpies', meat and potato pies with penny whistles stuck in them to resemble bagpipes, slogan: "The Meat You Can Tweet".

3. Chip Van Tastic
The Flying Scotsman's bitter rival in the aerial food business. Famed for its legion of flying chip vans painted with Royal Air Force roundels and bearing the image of it's mascot and fictional founder, World War One flying ace Chip Van Tastic, the company's slogan "They're Chip Van Tasty" was narrowly beaten in a poll for the best foody catchphrase of all time by "Ahhh, Bisto" and (at number one) "Waffly Versatile".

4. Late Night Sayers
Why Sayers The Bakers took so long to figure out it could make a killing selling pasties to drunks and casualties, no one knows. A bit like Hollyoaks: In The City, with added sausage rolls.

5. Hands On A Hard Boiled Egg
Less a fast food restaurant than an endurance test. Customers (more accurately, 'contestants') must stand with at least one hand on a hard boiled egg for as long as possible to win the oval-bodied object in question. Contestants must remain upright: Crouching, sitting, leaning and falling asleep are considered grounds for disqualification. Breaks can be taken 5 minutes every hour and 15 minutes every 6 hours. The last person left standing wins.

Next time: Future Myths & Legends.

*FOOTNOTE: Thanks to Dave Owen for point 1. And bagpies.


  1. Can I recommend the Mike Judge film Idiocracy?