Plague of the sandwich staff

THIS column was going to be about why everyone hates the French, but the topic already seems to have been covered in detail. Anyway, there is nothing really to hate about a people who gave us the croissant. It is Jacques Chirac we dislike, with his bowling ball head and a nose that looks capable of producing significant fallout. He can consider himself off my Christmas card list, along with anyone who ever wrote a How To Use Your Computer manual.

The French cannot and should not be held responsible for the fact that their country is governed by Margaret Thatcher in pinstripes. They voted for him, but we all make mistakes, as Mr Chirac's mother must now realise.

They can, however, through their love of the baguette, be held directly responsible for something far worse. I speak of the insidious rise to prominence in Hong Kong of the sandwich shop. They are spreading with Ebola-like ferocity and are just as dangerous.

You must have visited these places. They are staffed by young people for whom the territory's educational system did not meet its brief. Every member of staff is employed only on the proviso that he or she is incapable of understanding that butter must be spread to the edges of the bread and not left struggling for a foothold on a small patch in the middle.

They are schooled in the fine art of being parsimonious with a sandwich's most important elements (namely the meat) but free and easy with that stuff they laughingly call mayonnaise. Another great French invention, but one which has not travelled well. Somewhere between the Dordogne and Kai Tak it mutated into something resembling pus.

If you are eating a sandwich while reading this I apologise, but sometimes a man has got to make a stand.