THE HAPPY EATER

THE HAPPYEATER was a chain of motorway and roadside restaurants popular in Britain in the 80s and early 90s. The logo depicted a spherical, red alien pointing down its mouth towards its spherical bowels, indicating consumption of food. In the restaurant, one could buy the usual English fare: sausages, chips and beans, eggs, chips and beans, bacon, chips and beans, bacon, egg, chips and beans etc.

Outside, as one ate, THE HAPPYEATER would be imprisoned there on the sign, pointing eternally down his red throat, like an evil alien from a distant planet who has come to eat Everything. He would not rest until the entire World of Things had been consumed, would not tarry until this beautiful world had been digested in his huge, red, spherical stomach. Then, one presumed, he would, for dessert, eat Himself. And then there would be Nothing.

Sadly, THE HAPPYEATER was himself eaten when Granada PLC bought up all his restaurants and turned them into The Little Chef.

How pathetic the Little Chef looks beside his forerunner. A tiny man in a risible white hat beside the paradigm of Consumption itself.

This is the victory of the Little Man. The victory of the Anodine over the Grotesque. The victory of Surface over Shameless Consumption. The victory of the 90s over the 80s. And so now all the truck drivers eat the their sausage, chips and beans under the banner of the Little Man, where once they had feasted under the sign of the gourmet Apocalypse, the Happy Eater.

But now the ghost of THE HAPPYEATER roams the A-roads and motorways.

And he wants revenge.