Cluck cluck!

Mr Loverman has turned traitor. I feed him smoked goose risotto, slow roasted lamb in mascarpone sauce and real roast dinners on a regular basis – ho hum. But if I softly whisper ‘The Colonel’ in the middle of the night, I guarantee that passions will quickly rise. If we pass a roadside billboard advertising a Family Bucket™, he almost crashes the car. He’s not that faithful in his fixation - after five pints, any old McChicken will do. But if he were to nominate his favourite food, I have a feeling that the Colonel’s menu would win over my humble offerings any day. It was time, then, to confront my nemesis, one tough old bird to another.

Plastic furniture, harsh lights, the smell of hot fat, sugar and cleaning fluid wafting throughout – yup, you’re in KFC. In the Bath branch, the staff are friendly in that ‘corporate script’ way and the service efficient in a similar fashion. The Traitor knew exactly what he wanted, and a Colonel’s Meal™ (3 pieces of famous ‘secret recipe’ chicken, a Hot Wing™, a Crispy Strip™, fries and barbecue beans, £3.99) was swiftly dispatched. I, however, don’t speak KFC so fluently, and eventually had to have a Wicked Zinger meal™ (also £3.99) translated for me: a spicy chicken burger, two Hot Wings™, more fries and some coleslaw. We were asked if we wanted to ‘Tower up’™, ‘go large’, and so on, but declined. We did, however, get Diet Cokes as part of the deal (hey, we’re healthy!).

In a way, the fried chicken is actually (whisper it) quite nice … if you just have one bite; any more than that and you start craving a Gaviscon chaser. Still, the pieces were definitely more ‘chickeny’ than my burger, which was floppy, strangely damp and tasted of nothing at all. The ‘Crispy Strip’™ tasted like lukewarm, deep fried skin, the ‘Hot Wings’™ – well, no chicken had ever flown on these sad, scrawny appendages. I was reduced to dipping fries into my coleslaw (again, both quite nice, if a tad synthetic) while reading a nutritional information leaflet (all credit to KFC: they don’t attempt to hide the facts) because I couldn’t watch the inelegant carnage going on on the other side of the table. But then, digesting those facts in the literal sense of the word brought on yet another attack of biliousness. Our meals each contained over 1200 calories and around 60 grams of fat - if you want to scoff your entire recommended daily amount of both in one go, this is the place to do it. But despite not feeling full of anything after I’d eaten, I was ready to throw up. A strangely textured substance coated the back of my teeth, I reeked of Eau de KFC, and next morning’s poo was a Gillian McKeith special: ragged, pale and buoyant, it looked like – well, it like I’d dumped a Zinger meal™ straight into the pan (which in a way, I had).

Westlife, ‘Deal or No Deal’ and Jackie Collins’ novels: these are a few of my favourite things. When confronted with somebody else’s guilty pleasure, mine feel innocent, wholesome and far more tasteful. And my rival? Baby, the gloves are off: