I saw the sign. And it said “NO KEBABS.”
Sign makers, hear me now.
YOU ARE ALL INSANE!
A couple weeks ago, after a very embarrassing incident involving staying on a London bus for too long and ending up at the garage and receiving the strangest of strange glares from the driver, and while waiting for another bus to come and take me home, I was in the general vicinity of two kebab restaurants, one across the street and one immediately to my right. Both had large signs (presumably with backlighting capabilities) which featured a store name and a slogan. To protect the identities of these stores, we will call the across-the-street store “Across the Street Kebabs” and the to-the-right store “Next to Me Kebabs.”
Across the Street Kebabs featured a slogan which read:
“BEST KEBABS ON THE PLANET!” All caps. Exclamation point. A color scheme with the ability to induce seizures. Clearly, these kebabs are not to be trifled with.
Next to Me Kebabs’ slogan read as follows:
“Probably the best kebabs in UK.” Sentence structure. Period. White background, blue letters and a picture, for reasons that remain unclear, of a soft drink glass.
Now, tell me. Given the choice, which would YOU pick? On one hand we have overconfidence and flashiness – Let’s face facts, friends; the best kebabs on the planet are probably not in Archway, Greater London. They are probably in Turkey somewhere. It’s like ATSK is ignorant to the outside world and the simple facts of life. Should I go there, I expect heaven in kebab form. I expect thin streaks of light to pour out from behind the clouds to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus. I expect rapture and utter bliss; we’re talking the world’s perfect first date meets heroin.
And on the other hand we have clear insecurity and a smaller claim and market audience. The slogan might as well be “Probably won’t be your favorite, so don’t even bother” or “Meh.” The only way I would visit this place is if I were on a quest for a Holy Grail made entirely of mediocrity and blandness.
I have a lucrative business plan. Perhaps you would like to get in on the ground floor, in which case you better jump ALL OVER this: I propose that a restaurant be created called “The Worst Kebabs Ever.” Here’s how it will work: Everyone will see it and it will appear to be a classy joint. Napkin holders, wine glasses, the whole kitten caboodle. They will think, “Yeah, right! These cannot possibly be the worst kebabs ever! Let’s go here and see!” (It would be packed all the time with these curious cityfolk.) They would order their drinks, eat an array of delicious appetizers, all the while skeptical… and then the kebabs would arrive. And here’s the brilliant part: They actually would be the worst kebabs in the world. During R&D we would invite kebab experts from all over the world who would school us in the way of creating the worst kebabs known to man. After they were finished, they would say, “You know… those actually WERE pretty crappy kebabs.” But they would return and bring their friends because it’s a classy joint, and their friends wouldn’t believe that these are the worst kebabs ever. But they WOULD BE.
Living in London has really opened my eyes to the world of kebabs. NEVER in the U.S. would we have kebab take-out restaurants. Instead, we have places that produce big, juicy pizzas. Which is great. But kebabs provide that worldly variety that Papa John’s just doesn’t provide, and they seem to have a magical effect on culture.
For example, as I was walking into a shop the other day, I noticed a sign (again with the signs) taped to the door. It read:
NO FOOD.
NO DRINK.
NO KEBABS.
Apparently kebabs don’t count as food and require their own category. I wonder if someone entered the shop with food and drink and had the following conversation:
CUSTOMER is sucking down a Coke and eating a burger.
CLERK approaches.
CLERK: Excuse me, sir… you can’t have that in the store.
CUSTOMER: I’m not spilling it!
CLERK: I realize that, sir, but if we let YOU have it, then we have to let everyone have it. This isn’t a restaurant.
CUSTOMER: What’s the problem? I’m the only one in here right now. I’m not making a mess, and I’m hungry.
CLERK: I don’t make the rules. I just work here. And if you spill this all over the place, I have to clean it up.
CUSTOMER: So it would be different if I had something else that wasn’t as messy?
CLERK: Our policy is no food or drink.
CUSTOMER: Well… well, what about kebabs?
CLERK: NO! NO KEBABS!
I’m wondering if kebabs need their own classification because they are not ENTIRELY food. My understanding of a kebab is that it would no longer be a kebab with no stick (just as a popsicle would no longer be a popsicle). But no one confuses popsicles for being not entirely food. If you can explain this phenomenon, you win a soda.
And – just for kicks! – a kebab. Just don’t eat it in the shop.
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Living in a soceity as we do, where self deprecation in the face of mediocraty is valued much higher than arrogance in the face of greatness, it is highly unsurprising that there is the ability for a kabab house who’s advertising material is essentially - “we’re not as good as them, but at least we’re honest about it” to be sucessful.
Maybe more companies should try negative advertising.
Waterstones: - ” not as personal as a real bookshop, not as big as Amazon!”
Macdonalds: - “none of the taste or nutrition of food, none of the interesting diseases of a burger van”
Volvic:- “Its the stuff you get in taps.. in a bottle!”
“If you want to read the news, buy a real paper.. If you want to look at half naked women, buy a mens mag… THE SUN - Only someone who can’t read this advert would buy our paper!”
I think it could catch on!
Comment left on July 8, 2006 @ 9:05 pm
Incredible.
Is your work in print? Where can I buy the book?
Comment left on July 9, 2006 @ 11:10 am
I suspect the seperate classification of Kebabs is due to their being the food of choice for most drunk English men on-the-go. Drunk men hold near-unique inertial properties - once they start in a certain direction they cannot and will not stop. Consider the following scenario, in which ‘Bob’ (the brains of the outfit) and ‘Dave’ (his mate) enter a shop where the sign merely reads ‘no food or drink’:
Bob: I’m plastered. Let’s get a Kebab.
Dave: Yeah!!
*five minutes later*
Bob: Now we’ve got our kebabs what I could REALLY use is another beer.
Dave: Yeah!!
Bob: Let’s go into this shop and buy one.
Dave: But it says no food!
Bob: Yeah but surely they don’t mean KEBABS. I mean, it’s a Kebab innit.
Dave: Yeah!!
*ding*
Bob: Good evening sirrah! Two cans of Steaming Matron XXXXX Lager please!
Assistant: I’m sorry sir, you can’t eat in here.
Bob: Well I’m not eating, I just want some beer.
Assistant: I really can’t let you in here with those Kebabs.
Bob: C’mon mate they’re only Kebabs. I mean, what’s a Kebab between mates? Now sell us a beer?
Dave: Yeah!!
Assistant: Look, the sign on the door says ‘No Food’.
Bob: Just a couple of Steaming Matrons?
Assistant: No Food!
Bob: But it doesn’t say ‘No Kebabs’ does it eh?
Dave: Yeah!!
Assistant: IT DOESN’T HAVE TO, KEBABS ARE FOOD!
Bob: Bloody hell mate, there’s no need to shout. Oh shit, now you’ve made me spilled my kebab!
Dave: Yeah!!
After running through this scenario just one time, most shopkeepers would add ‘No Kebabs’ onto the sign in the vain hope of discouraging the unstoppable force of drunken male intellect.
Comment left on July 10, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
I actually finished reading it… so give me Kudos with cream.
Kebabs, you know, can be made to taste good or bad by mental manipulation. If you tell someone the kebab they’re eating is bad they’re agree with you, just as if you tell them how good they are. Hence, your plan wouldn’t really require much training in the art of destroying kebabery. Merely by telling people they’re bad would be enough to make them taste it as bad.
Je suis tres fatigue, bon nuit!
Comment left on July 13, 2006 @ 6:01 pm
Was that sign meant to indicate they don’t sell kebabs, if so you should have asked them for pizzas cause you were hungry obviously ?
Only start to worry when the entrance sign reads “no shoes”
Comment left on July 16, 2006 @ 8:29 am
I’d go with Next To Me Kebabs in a flash. My reasoning is as follows:
1) Across The Street Kebabs (hereafter ATSK) are clearly lying. Like yourself, I refuse to believe that they serve the actual honest-to-God best kebabs on the face of the Earth. If they did, the queue would be longer for a start. Next To Me Kebabs (hereafter NTMK), on the other hand, might not be lying. Their claim isn’t so far outside the realms of possibility that I discount it out of hand, even though I had previously believed the best kebabs in the UK to be made in a small kebab shop just outside Warwick. If you’re going to lie, at least make the lie something which looks like it could possibly be true.
2) The sentence structure at NTMK appeals to me. It is my firmly held belief that the person who makes the best kebabs in the country (or ON THE PLANET) will not be a native speaker of English, and will be more obsessed with creating the perfect kebab than proofreading their advertising.
3) NTMK knows their market. ATSK does not. This is clear from the fact that NTMK are smart enough to go with a beer-related slogan (clearly a variation on the Carling ‘probably the best lager in the world’ line) and a picture that brings to mind beer rather than greasy dead animal with lank salad and a chilli sauce that doesn’t conform to a single health and safety standard. Most people don’t want the best kebab on the planet. They want a kebab that’s good enough to class as food at their current level of inebriation, and cheap enough to buy with the change they have left over after reaching that level.
4) NTMK has self-deprecating advertising opposite a bright and flashy shop offering the best kebabs on the planet. You’d think this would be a recipe for commercial suicide. Heck, you might even blog about it. And yet they’re still in business - what do their repeat customers know that you don’t?
5) NTMK is closer, and there are few or no visible rats (customers notwithstanding) in the shop.
As for the signage, I feel it’s time for kebab shops to strike back. If bookshops refuse to allow kebabs into their establishment, these fine restauranteurs should retaliate in kind.
NO NEWSPAPERS.
NO BOOKS.
If they’re upset at the kebabs-as-non-food jabs, they could always add:
NO DA VINCI CODE.
Incidentally, kebabs and signs reminds me of a story that was often told when I was at university in Durham. How much is truth and how much exaggeration I don’t know, but it bears re-telling.
In Durham (and this much I know to be true) there is a kebab shop that goes by the name of Beni’s. They have a large sign with the shop’s name above the front window.
One night, after the shop had closed, someone broke off the lower loop of the B and removed the apostrophe, leaving a slightly more scatological message. The local newspaper seized on this, and printed a scathing article about the effects of student vandalism on the town.
Unsurprisingly, the student union took offence at this and demanded to know why the paper had assumed it was a student who had defaced the sign rather than a local. That, replied the journalist responsible for the article, was simple - they knew it was a student because a local wouldn’t have removed the apostrophe.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Comment left on July 16, 2006 @ 9:02 am
I am definitely of the mind set that the best kebabs in the world ever type of bravado should be seen as what it is - a shop which does not really claim to be the world’s best kebab retailer which has risen/succumbed to using bravado and braggadocio to flog it to the masses. However, the ad slogan stealing gimmicry of the “Probably the best kebabs in the UK” makes me cringe a little. I mean, should Carlsberg ever get wind of this, then perhaps they may not be too happy to have their slogan associated with such food/non-food stuffs.
As for akebabs as an entirely separate entity from food as we know it…well, that isn’t necessarily that difficult to appreciate!!
Comment left on July 16, 2006 @ 10:16 am
I think iapetus is on to a good idea with “NO DA VINCI CODE”. As long as we can lump Harry Potter in there as well, a shop bearing those signs would be one I visited frequently!
Comment left on July 18, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
I’m afraid you have ENTIRELY missed the point, my little American friend…
The beauty of “probably the best kebabs in the world” relates to the great advertising campaign of the late 80’s… Carlsberg, the best beer in the world, probably. Thus subtly alluding to the fact these kebabs are actually a 4th of July multiple oragasm of chilli sauce and “sal-ad” in your mouth, with meaty chunks of goodness worthy of flying across the atlantic for…
Obviously your American status resulted in the subtle undertones of irony slipping above your head like a well oiled underwear model at the controls of a low flying aircraft, but no one can blame you for your lack of knowledge in historic lager advertising media…
For that reason alone, you are forgiven…
Comment left on July 27, 2006 @ 4:38 am
I have to ask, because it’s been on my mind since the middle of July. What exactly *is* a kitten caboodle? And if they have one at a kebab shop, shouldn’t someone inform the health and safety people?
Comment left on August 6, 2006 @ 7:52 pm
“….these kebabs are actually a 4th of July multiple oragasm of chilli sauce and “sal-ad” in your mouth, with meaty chunks of goodness worthy of flying across the atlantic for.”
Wow….I really wish I had a kebab right now. It is no wonder that they do not allow kebabs in some places in the UK. As for the two shops…I would probably go for the underdog, “Next to Me.” In fact, to solve the problem of choosing, I would probably just take you along and make you buy me a kebab from each place to do a blind taste test.
As for the “Worst Kebabs Ever,” I would be happy to design your shop. Think of the possibilities for birthdays…corporate events…reunions…you’d bring the world together…one god awful kebab at a time. Cheers…I miss u!
Comment left on August 13, 2006 @ 11:10 pm
you must be nice girl,but too be fair, these articles are sometimes too long for an ingnorant like me(..short attention span)….I had a similar experience in London bus. I fell in sleep and actually the driver left me there.Then, when I opened my eyes I was confused , didn’t know where I was…bus was closed, no driver…I was embarrassed …it happened me few times..actually many times…sleeping in buses, trains, stations…a hour in a bus,then 30 minutes in a different one..and so on…
until the night was over… then I stole a bike and spent my nights on it…less boring, but more tired at the end…
but when one doesn’t have a conventionak place to sleep in London….
Comment left on August 17, 2006 @ 5:34 am
This will not be so humorously told I’m sure but I too have a kebab sign conundrum to put to you.
In my home town of Southend-ON-SEA there has recently been a development in a local kebab outlet. Until recently called “the American burger bar” now strangely re-titled “kebabs-on-sea”. What exactly is being suggested about their kebabs? Perhaps theirs are the saltiest kebabs available, or maybe like the Sea that Southend sits beside, if you were to swim in the kebabs you are likely to become ill. But, saying that who would swim in kebabs? That would be like bathing in onion rings….. Which is downright silly.
Comment left on October 25, 2006 @ 11:53 am