Mailings

The letterbox rattles. Something drops to the mat. What could it be? An evocative postcard from faraway? One of those nice envelopes from "ERNIE" that tell you you have won £50 on the Premium Bonds? Or perhaps one of those regular official letters you have to deal with - car insurance up for renewal, water rates break down for the year, "Student Finance England"? No my friend - none of these - it's yet another mailing from a food takeaway establishment somewhere in the darkest depths of this city.

Recently, it's been happening almost every day. It's as if some machiavellian expert in psychological torture is sitting in a high rise turret planning my downfall by sending out menu after menu, mailing after mailing - expecting my blood pressure to rise to bursting point. How many more times do I have to trot out to our paper recycling bin with these things? And in a world where we should all be striving to cherish the planet's natural resources why should we be bombarded by these unwanted pieces of folded shiny paper? It's such a waste.

Then you turn to the content of the damned things. I mean, who in their right mind would want to buy this "family meal" for £13.95 - "Any 2 x 12inch pizzas, any 12inch garlic bread, a portion of coleslaw, a large portion of chips, a large bottle of fizzy drink" ? Can you imagine? "Children! It's dinner time. Come and get it!" In my humble opinion, anyone providing their families with such crap should be arrested and charge with cruelty. For £13.95 you could prepare a truly delicious and nutritionally worthy meal from scratch using fresh ingredients and still have change for a nice bottle of wine.

Regarding pizzas, I have never seen the point of them. Lumps of flabby dough with gunge smeared on them. Doner kebabs are a well-known health hazard. Those huge meaty cones that turn for weeks on end maximising the salmonella bug count. As well as announcing the "express" delivery service, leaflets should provide directions to the closest Accident and Emergency facility!

I'm planning to form an urban retaliation group. We will inundate all the takeaway establishments of Sheffield with our own irritating leaflets about nutrition, food poisoning and legal services for failing takeaway businesses so desperate to stay afloat in a time of economic recession that they think it is perfectly acceptable to invade our homes with "Mega Deals", "Sunday Specials", "10% Student Discount", "Tubs of Chilli or Garlic Mayo", "Potato Wedges" and "Mediterranean Delight" pizzas. It's time to fight back before we are all suffocated under vast piles of takeaway mailings.