Analyse This!

I’ve been analysed - I guess it had to happen sooner rather than later. But rather than spend hours lying on a couch pondering my navel and blaming everything on my parents, I took the fast track to being categorised as a total loony and handed several back issues of Venue, my food diaries (what, you don’t keep one …?) and access to my blog archives to an analyst of a very zeroes persuasion.

Lurking shamelessly amongst my eclectic gaggle of eccentric friends, there’s a ‘trend forecaster’ in our midst. As he’s widening his circle of clients (mobile phone companies, interior designers and trustafarians with a plan for world domination) to include restaurateurs and food producers, he needs to ‘assess my blueprint’ as a prospective source of insider information. As a result, my overall synopsis goes something like this: I’m an archetypal LOAFer – a foodie who’s shopping list is dictated by local, organic, animal-friendly and fairly-traded ethics. Well, I’m not ashamed to say that he’s got that right. However, I’m also a bit of a snob, seriously seduced by ‘premiumisation’ (own-label ‘value’ brands? You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding) and using food as a fast-track to superiority; ole Crystal Balls cites references to Cavelo Nero, Jamón Serrano and Kobi beef as the food writer’s equivalent of Coleen McLoughlin desperately toting the latest Anya Hindmarch shopping bag in an attempt to hide the fact that she and Wayne live on Happy Meals. Blimey!

But the worst is yet to come: I am, apparently, exactly the kind of person that the new-look McDonalds – think, Studio 54 for the Wi-Fi generation – has geared it’s transformation towards. “You know”, says the hoity-toity TF, just as I’m about to slash my wrists; “A bit like Nigella Lawson”. What a waste of time! I could have told him that in the first place …