Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please

Back in 1980, when I was a little kid, the English punk rock band the Splodgenessabounds released the classic hit single “Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please”. 

 And now in 2009, some 29 years on and feeling a little peckish with a Bintang in one hand, I head for the kitchen seeking something to munch on. And there nestled among the packets of Indonesian peanuts – some coated in a hard white substance resembling white Portland cement, but all sickly saccharine sweet (even the chili ones funnily enough) – there is a solitary packet of Lay’s crisps. I pick it up and this is what I see:

Salmon Terriyaki flavor!! Just wtf is going on?!!! Yeah. I can just imagine it now. This scene playing out in some London pub: 

- Two pints of lager and a packet of Salmon Teriyaki crisps please, mate. 

- HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!  Cos crisps, or as incorrectly called by the Yanks potato chips, should only ever come in three flavours: plain, Cheese and Onion, and, of course, my favourite, Salt and Vinegar. 

 In fact, when I was a little kid I had a theory about crisps. And it was this: plain crisps are for the boring people, the OAPs & the pram pushing Mums; the Cheese and Onion crisps are for the plonkers; and the good and interesting people of this world choose Salt and Vinegar. 

But with the advent of Salmon Teriyaki crisps where does my theory lie now? Salt and vinegar crisps are a bastion of British good taste, of course, reminding us of what we should sprinkle on our fish and chips (yep – those are chips); so eye-wateringly sour that they sting our lips and, after eating ‘em, make Carlsberg Special Brew taste like plain old aqua. 

And even then we can’t get enough – licking the flavourings off our fingers when the packet of crisps is finished like junkies lapping up cocaine. 

Well, now it’s time for me to drink that Bintang. So thank God the crisps aren’t Salt and Vinegar!