Reply to post: It is universally known by even people who have not had your bacon,

It is universally known by even people who have not had your bacon,

My bacon? I don't farm, butcher or sell the product, but I do know where to get it. Listening to English people rant about American bacon is often as risible an experience as listening to some CS grad reading chapter and verse about Cobol "not working" on the strength of his (it is almost always a "he") one three month course in it. If you want decent bacon you have to look for it in a proper venue.

And I simply pulled the most famous THF atrocity-in-eating out of my long-distance driving scarred memory, though I'd argue that a place that was so bad for so long it became an iconic metaphor for the industry is a right and proper example to use. Watford Gap was also a paragon of the inedible served by the unsociable. Indeed, I'll bet that when I lived in the UK I could drive the length of the M1 without finding a single edible meal. Since I drove the M1 twice a week between Coventry and London I usually packed sandwiches.

And I seem to remember British Rail getting into the act when a customer was served a hamburger so old and stale it was blue-green all the way through with mould. Kings Cross? Victoria? Can't remember the station. Would it be fair to use this as the yardstick for the British Hamburger? Actually, that's a lost cause too. So many visitors have experienced the unique British Boiled Hamburger as to taint the opinion pool in perpetuity.

Seriously, if you want a food fight you are in big trouble if you start it while standing in the UK. I've lived in both the UK and the USA for several decades and as far as the casual dining experience is concerned the UK lost the race on so many fronts before the new century turned it has about as much chance of regaining credibility as it has of re-asserting its territorial claims on Injah.