Lai See

Desert sands with fries

Politics, as they say, makes for odd bed-fellows. It also makes for odd fast-food chains.

Lai See recently caught up with a friend - a Northern Irish credit markets researcher turned English teacher turned gentleman apple farmer - who was passing through Hong Kong.

Our friend's transcontinental wanderings had taken him through Iran's capital, Tehran, where Lai See lived for three years in the mid-1970s.

One of our fondest childhood memories from Tehran was family lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken after Sunday services.

That, of course, was in the Shah's days. After the Islamic Revolution, KFC, the golden arches of McDonald's and other icons of American culture became inducements to riot.