I'm a Spice junkie

It.

There you are, I’ve said it. It, and I’ve said it again. ‘What a childish joke,’ you say ‘and what a waste of words when one is limited’.

What I have actually said time and time again is that I love going to ‘The Indian’. I am a spice junkie.

My local Indian restaurant is ‘reassuringly expensive’ and it is always nice to feel reassured especially when your wallet is getting proper exercise and losing weight.

‘Ms Nomates, don’t look at the prices darling, just pick what you fancy’. And you believe that? As if I do! But, and there is a big but.

No I’m not referring to Ms Nomates’ butt, hinting that it looks big in any dress. That would be a cheaper and worse joke than the ‘it’ joke.

Her butt is good enough to eat, but I couldn’t manage seconds. I’ll continue.

But what you do get at The Indian is fantastic food, great service and if you smile you get a little glass of Baileys with your bill.

When you serve quality food you get a reputation and people flock to spend money with you. It may be a surprise to many but would you believe me when I state the obvious?

The Indian is owned by an Indian and has Indians working for him.

If all businesses in the UK were as successful as this we would again rule the world. Is this an advertisement? No, it is an example.

On the other hand, there is a chip shop which will remain anonymous, where scruffily-dressed youths serve soggy fish and chips with lots of attitude but very little salt and vinegar.

Surely this can’t be good for our national dish and is it any wonder chicken tikka masala is taking over?

Worse still, we have junk food restaurants which allegedly are so unhealthy they are helping to put us in to hospital. I watched a TV Channel 4 documentary in which ‘Traction Man’ Mark Sparrow berated hospital food as (quote) ‘inedible and dreadful’.

Is this reflective of the country we live in today? In the bigger picture, if we are to believe what we read, India is full of entrepreneurs with a growth of the economy projected at 8.6 per cent this year while the UK is moving slower than a one-legged snail.

For reasons best known to nobody, we are pledging money to everybody including India when we are ourselves are poorer than church mice and reportedly not feeding our own sick and dying properly and bleeding benefits from those who try not to go in to hospital.

We are taking from our own poor to give to those who are, as nations, better off than we are.

Here’s a better solution.

Let’s ask the owner of ‘The Indian’, to lead an initiative to supply our health service with decent ‘get up and go’ spicy food.

Our patients will get their appetites back and we will be spending money with my Indian friends for the right reasons.

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