What your lunch says about your job
Mealtime has always provided abundant material for wildlife documentary makers. All that footage of wildebeest being shaken into steaks by sneaky crocodiles and sharks carving scarlet chomps out of lame dolphins makes for great television. As long as species keep eating one another, there'll be someone crouching in the pampas catching it all on camera. David Attenborough and co are really onto something here - to know the nature of the beast you have to make directly for the feeding ground and see what's on the menu.
Look at any business district, industrial estate or retail park and you'll see a variety of lunchtime behaviours and preferences. What a person chooses to eat (and where they eat it) is defined by their work and who they think they are.
Unfortunately, I-resign.com lacks the resources, expertise or inclination to carry out a thorough study into the working nation's eating habits. No, we've simply resorted to a set of dog-eared stereotypes. But, as we're here to entertain you, it doesn't matter too much.
So, what sort of animal is to be found on the nation's streets between noon and 2pm? We've narrowed it down to six lunchtime species. See if you can recognise any of them yourself...
The Carbohydrone
Every public place will boast at least a couple of carbohydrones filling their hungry faces with the sort of food that you, no doubt a distinguished and discerning person, would not ever consider eating (except perhaps when drunkenness corners and then incapacitates your better judgement with a headlock, while hunger steps out of the melée and orders a lamb shawarma).
The gruesome kebab, the noble burger, the big greasy bags of chips, the regal saveloy, the no-nonsense meat pie. This is all delicious stuff and all the more so when washed down with a gloopy cocktail of Kit Kat munched together with great belchsome gulps of coke. These people, this happy crowd, couldn't give a toss about appearances, food fashion or the sort of arteries where blood has to battle for space with lard. If a meal hasn't spent at least part of its existence being extruded out of a stainless steel machine somewhere in the industrial Midlands, then it's probably not fit for the carbohydrone's consumption.
Where
Anywhere
Look like
Normal blokes and birds in their work wear
Buy from
Fast food outlets, newsagents, fish and chip shops, proper English caffs
On the menu
All the top brands - anything from McDonalds, KFC, Burger King; Sugary stuff from newsagents; Ginster's pasties, pork pies and sausage rolls. If it's fatty, starchy or sweet, it'll do.
Venue
Carbohydrones aren't fussy. They'll eat where they work - on the building site, in the cab of a white van, shoehorned onto plastic seats in motorway service stations, on the operating table, at the top of tower cranes. If the sun's out, look for them sitting on steps - sometimes they gather in flocks of up to two-dozen.
Overheard saying
"Fackin' 'ell, Dave, not many of them to the pound"
The Sloane Manger
They drift over the urban streetscape like gangs of hungry ghosts in search of the complete lunchtime lifestyle package. Here we have a group of people who strive to push out the boundaries of food possibility; a clique who like their sandwiches, salad boxes and sushi served the right way and at a price which excludes less discerning, swinish punters such as the carbohydrones. They have long discarded the traditional menu for a refreshingly globalised, culturally diverse yet nutritionally correct régime of precision grub.
Where
Swanky districts - wherever there are media firms, universities, hip retailers. Self-consciously fashionable cities replete with younger than average workers
Look like
They've just walked out of an advert for Sony MiniDisc or clever new Tampons. Lo-slung denim, thick-rimmed specs, mobile phone glued to ear, post-shoe footwear.
Buys from
Prêt à Manger, pricey sandwich shops, gastro pubs, juice bars, coffee houses
Venue
Eats with perfect arse parked on a Scandinavian chrome stool. Watches a faintly contemptible world go by through stylish brown glass, secretly checking out everybody else trainers, breasts and trousers.
On the menu
Any combination of ciabatta, focaccia, bresoala, bergamot olive oil, sashimi, san pellegrino chinotto, tuna carpaccio, couscous, greve, rocket, frisée, guacamole, gruyère . If there's the possibility that one can display enough class to walk the tightrope of correct pronuciation, to order as if one were really Tuscan, Puglian, Andalucian or sourced in the Ganges, then it's on one's menu.
Overheard saying
Sure, Danny is a great guy but I don't think he's ever really understood Laotian culture"
The Fat-cat
My God, these people know how to eat. In fact, many of them only bother to turn up to work at all at the prospect of a fine, hearty lunch with their old friends and clients. Proceed through the streets of Mayfair or the City and you'll see them by the dozen, rolling down the pavements as if they were ruddy walruses. Perhaps most closely related to the carbohydrones in their tastes, they too seek out the meaty, filling meal options. However, they eschew mass produced swill for the subtler temptations of rich, hand-carved, freshly prepared, gamey offerings.
Where
Financial districts, Mayfair, Gentlemen's' Clubs, in the vicinity of Courts of Law
Look like
Money. Pin stripe suits, lived-in complexion, more hair on the face than on the top of the head. Portly.
Buy from
Brasseries, gourmet sandwich shops
Venue
Fat cats tend to carry a lot of weight, so they try to avoid moving around too much. It's usually a cab to and from wherever they have their lunch; so they're likely to sit down to eat.
On the menu
Roast beef sandwiches, steak and kidney pudding; food that reminds them of their days back at The Estate/in The Regiment/at prep school; eggs gathered in sun-dappled forests by naked girls; Claret, Cigars. No luxury is overlooked.
Overheard saying
My gout? Never better you confounded old bugger!"
The Desk-muncher
There are days when lunch would only be wasted downtime for this, the unluckiest species of lunchtime animal. The demands of info-shuffling slavery mean that every minute must be profit first, scoff it later. Desk-munchers eat tactically, hoping only to quell the queasiness of an empty stomach. To their credit, they do try to dine healthily, well aware that their sedentary, stressful jobs should be balanced by a diet which is low in calories, high in vitamins.
Where
Hunched in cubicles in the offices of hundreds of thousands of companies across the land.
Look like
Office wear - neither smart nor casual, just functional.
Buys from
A vending machine, in-house sandwich seller, someone else who can be bothered to walk to the canteen and back
Venue
His or her desk, by the photocopier, on the toilet, in a meeting, drumming fingers and tutting by the microwave in a poorly equipped communal kitchen.
What's on the menu
A sad selection this - unloved sandwiches mummified inside sarcophagi of corrugated plastic, bags of crisps, maybe a battery-farmed apple or an orange with lots of coffee and water from the cooler. It doesn't matter what the individual items of food look like: the desk-muncher doesn't have time to look down at what is about to be eaten. Consequently, their diet contains more than the recommended daily amount of blue mold, paper clips and slugs.
Overheard saying
"Hi Fiona.oh shit, I just spilt Kenco on my Gantt chart.could you send that attachme.oh JESUS! Is the network down again?"
El Canteenista
You won't find many canteenistas out on the streets, but like the nematodes that squirm by the million in every cubic inch of soil, they do exist. You may see them queuing at cash machines or popping into your local shop to buy some cigarettes, but the actual business of buying lunch and eating it takes place deep within their company's premises. This is where solitary desk-munchers go once they learn to delegate. Theirs is a privileged existence - while it lasts: the vagaries of the corporate employment market can mean dozens of them are laid off at a time. Whole lunchtime ecosystems, slashed and burned.
Where
Wherever there's a company large enough to justify having a canteen or company restaurant, you'll find hundreds of canteenistas gathered together. Depending on the nature of the company, sometimes they can be spotted at any time of the day or night. The canteenista is the only known nocturnal species of luncher.
Looks like
You'll never see them unless you've been invited for an interview or meeting a friend on the inside.
Buys from
The canteen, with everything paid for by means of a little plastic card
Eats at
Tables and benches arranged inside a corporately themed refectory.
On the Menu
A pretty good range of fresh-cooked food may be available in the best places. In less lavish canteens, the choice may be between a dreary sandwiches and sad chips. A company canteen can be a great place to grow fat and complacent without spending much money - part of the cost of each meal is usually subsidised by the company in the largest firms.
Overheard saying
I've heard rumours that a bottle of Oasis can cost up to 89p in The Outside World! Oh, Derek, is one of those sachets of ketchup going spare?"
Bite Young Thins
We've had the oafish multitude who eat what they really like wherever and whenever is convenient; and those who wouldn't be seen dead doing the same; another bunch who act like they own the place (because they often do) and then proceed to eat it; an oppressed class who don't have the time to glance down at what they're eating and are happy not too; and finally, vast herds of beaming, munching lay-offs-in-waiting.
Now we come to a species of street-eater for whom food is not really the main thing at all - in fact food is the enemy. They are happy to spend their lunch break with their friends just talking and talking and talking. They might nibble on a cracker in between delicate swigs of mineral water. The more daring might even draw on a cigarette, but most of the time the their mouthparts are engaged in making the air sing with chitchat. They are the lunchtime equivalent of crickets and cicadas, these bite young thins of both sexes.
Where
Best viewed when the sun comes out, they like to gather around parks and other open spaces. In less clement weather, they'll be found in pairs and larger groups, nesting in whichever café is nearest to where they work.
Look like
Again, appearance is highly seasonal. They seem to disappear, cocooned beneath layers of insulated clothing in winter months, but come spring and summer, the streets throng with BYTs turned out in the latest flesh revealing fashions.
Buys from
Boots sandwich shop
Venue
I told ya, open spaces and outside cafés
What's on the menu
Still mineral water, bag of crisps (preferably lo-fat), a cigarette
Overheard saying
"Naaah, he's hangin."