*if you're not from the UK look it's further south than you are imagining.\n\n[[aside over|intro6]]

"28 1/2 of your most pretenous pennies please boy"\n\n[[more|pay]]

You sense the conversation is at an end. You're good at that sort of thing. To make the perfect girls days a little easier you hand over exactly 28 and one half penny and a bit of pocket fluff with a smile.\n\nShe takes the cash and picks the fluff out dropping it with a flourish. You notice it floats away and gets caught in a draft before sticking to her perfectley messy hair.\n\nShe looks at you right in the eyes and your heart jumps.\n\n"I'm at work again tomorrow night if you want to get something after your gig?"\n\nYou smile, nod and almost fall over your feet as you head out of the door.\n\nSee, she likes you and tomorrow you're going to ask her out or at least find out when she's at work again until I do get the courage up to ask her out again. Perhaps she doesn't like The Mightly Lemon Drops or perhaps she doesn't like me. Perhaps I'm batting so far out of my league I'm wearing football boots and a Boris Becker wig to the crease.\n\nTomorrow I'll use the money I would have spent on the gig and her cider on a battered sausage that'll show her I'm a man of taste with the money to show her a good time at least once a fortnight. Maybe twice if I don't buy a record or a pint on Saturday. Or perhaps I'll order the Corona and try the Fizzical line. \n\nPerhaps.\n\n[[I wonder what Elvira is thinking now|wonder]]\n

"You really are aren't you. Now is there any other reason you came here tonight? Perhaps for food just a little idea I plucked out of thin air and normally why people take up that part of the planet and ask me stupid questions."\n\nI get the impression she's expecting me to order something to eat. Perhaps that's something I should consider.\n\nInstead I've just managed to stand here and gaze at her perfect skin and say nothing.\n\nDon't panic [[try saying hello again and forget this horror|hi]]

"Salt and this, what I'm legally allowed to call vinegar even if the manufacturers can't put that on the bottle that would strip paint if I ever forgot to water it down are not, to the best of my knowledge, tested on animals unless you count the time I forgot to wash my hands before I put on my makeup."\n\nShe swiftly wraps the chips in white paper and adds an extra layer of newsprint to keep in the heat.\n\nI notice again she wears a little silver ring on her right ring finger but still nothing on he left. Still on the market and I'm still window shopping.\n\nDid she just catch me looking at her hands and smile?\n\n<<if $smiled eq "yes">>\nThat's two maybe smiles!!!\n<<else>>\nShe smiled at me. I melt a little.\n<<endif>>\n\n"28 1/2 p please Sir"\n\n[[more|pay]]

What's your sign??!?!?!?!?!?!\n\nWhat's your sign? What was I thinking.\n\nNow, why I said this I have no idea. I don't even know what it means I just know that blokes who look like those in aftershave adverts do it in American films and get all the girls. \n\nIt might work.\n\nEven before the words leave my mouth I know it's not going to work.\n\nIt's not going to work.\n\nIs it?\n\nNo, of course the answers no. I don't even look like a bloke in an aftershave advert for a start. I could probabably put on the lager bear walk if I had the suit but not with quite as much swagger that bears got balls.\n\n"The Pentagram, stuffed where the sun don't shine, sideways as a special treat for any customers who are slightly hard of understanding. Now can I have 28 and one half penny in return for this bag of chips going soggy in my hands as we speak."\n\nI love her hands. They are small and one has a mole. I smile.\n\n[[next|pay]]\n\n\n<<set $asked_sign = "yes">>\n

<<silently>>\n\n<<set $asked_name = "no">>\n<<set $what_do_you_do = "no">>\n<<set $asked_out = "no">>\n<<set $asked_sign = "no">>\n<<set $asked_hang = "no">>\n<<set $smiled = "no">>\n\n<<endsilently>>\nThere's a girl works down the chipshop[[*|chippy]] swears she's Elvira[[*|title]].\n[[next|intro2]]\n

The girl liberally applies salt and vinegar to your chips.\n\nShe looks seductively over to you. Ok she glances up probably wondering why you're staring at her.\n\n<<if $smiled eq "yes">>\nThen she smiles and glances back up. This time it was a smile and it was for me I know it!!!\n<<else>>\nWas that a smile? A smile for me. Well there was a flicker in the corner of her lips when she looked up but I'm claiming it as a smile.\n<<endif>>\n\nI almost burst with pride.\n\nYou notice that as she wraps the chips her left hand is still ringless in contrast to the right hand.\n\nShe catches you looking and gives a little smile again.\n\n"28 1/2p please"\n\n[[more|pay]]\n\n\n

I wonder if he'll ever ask me out again?\n\nWhy did I have to be working tomorrow.\n\nHe has to be the most cutest man in town and I just blew it because I have the rent to pay. Got to keep a roof over my babies head.\n\nI hope he likes babies.\n\nTomorrow after he sees The Mightly Lemon Drops I'll ask him his name.\n\nI'll be nice to him for a change. Why am I trying to drive him away? I promise I won't do that again. I'd like a boyfriend again it's been a long time since it wasn't just me and the baby.\n\nI hope he likes babies.\n\nI'll drop a pickled onion in with his chips. The boss will never notice and then he'll get the hint I like him.\n\nOr I could just try telling him.\n\nNo, the picked onion should do the trick.\n\n"Sorry, what was that. Fish and Chips twice, hold the salt and make sure there aren't any green manky ones. Sure thing Madam"\n\nI hate this job. I hope he comes in tomorrow.\n\n

That's right it's 1987. It just feels like the 50's as it does in every provinical town but it's almost the 1990s and that's science fiction territory. \n\nMy jeans are skintight, my quiff bigger than Morriseys and my jumper baggy with holes in it by choice. Ok my wardrobe is probably [[Thatchers choice|hobson]] as much as my own but I did play a part in it's inception.\n\nNow as my tummy rumbles am I ever going to [[enter the chipshop|chipshop]]

Angry Greek Man - the authors notes.\nIn the late 80's it became fashionable for chipshops to replace the old guy smoking a fag over the peeling potatos with an angry Greek man. Nobody remembers if the old guy smoking was angry at being upsurped because nobody remembers him communicating in anything other than grunts.\n\nAt some point in the 90's he was replaced by either a young man of southern European decent who you are convinced should be sitting on a motorscooter wolf whistling at passing ladies or the smiling Asian man. History may have forgotten the angry Greek man in the chipshop but one author of interactive fiction hasn't.\n\nI miss angry Greek man partly because of the 'tash but also because sometimes he was angry Turkish Cypriot and was angry that you thought he was Greek and would replay, if you're unlucky, 500 years of history and war. If you're really unlucky the story would start with an empire named after a blanket box and end with why there isn't pork in the savaloy.\n\nMy personal favourite angry Greek man was called Steve. He became Surly and sometimes drunk Greek man after his wife left him and shortly sold his chipshop to a local Indian family who installed a smiling Asian man to fill the role and stop the world imploding into a chip shop continuum. A random south European youth chatting or installation of an old guy with a fag in the gob would have had the same effect but I suppose being British Indians they had a smiling Asian man on hand or at least knew where to procure one.\n\n[[aside over|passed]]\n

A place where you buy chips. That's Fries for colonials who get confused and think crisps are chips and are confused right now about the fact there is a special shop to buy them.\n\n[[aside over|intro2]]

It's now or never.\n<<if $asked_out eq "no">>\n[[ask her out|askout]]\n<<endif>>\n[[Pay for your chips|realpay]]\n<<if $asked_hang eq "no">>\n[["Where do you hang out?"|hangout]]\n<<endif>>\n<<if $asked_sign eq "no">>\n[["What's your sign?"|sign]]\n<<endif>>

And there she is.\n\nSkin like the finest china. The finest china that's been used to serve Fish and Chips 20 times already tonight but china still. China so fine you can see the tea leaves through it. But without the tea leaves. Forget I ever bought up tea leaves and remember fine China. China with what some people might call too much make up. Some people but not me. She is the love of my life and I don't even know her real name.\n\nAt least I don't think I know her real name but maybe I do.\n\nA friend asked and she said Elvria. They laughed but I didn't. Then when we left the mate told me Elvria is a goth chick in a film. I didn't know that. At 50p a ticket I don't go to the cinema very often and she wasn't in Ghostbusters. The women in that was in Alien and aparently Aliens which is the far too cleverly titled sequel but at 50p a ticket I didn't see that either. I'd probably go more often if you could take your own pop and crisps. Maybe I should invest in a jacket with an large inner pocket. It would probably improve my knowledge of pop culture no end.\n\nShe looks at me and I remember to save my day dreams of taking her to the cinema and wowing her with my pop culture references at least until I'm not standing right infront of her and at the head of queue of hungry people.\n\n[[say hi|hi]]\n[[say hello|hi]]\n[[mumble something|hi]]\n

Oh my god. Did I just say that? "Did I just say that?", "oh my god".\n\n"You did, I doubt it's true and you're still talking.\nnow can we move along and get to the part where you order some food before I insert this vinegar bottle somewhere you might find uncomfortable and start to squeeze?"\n\nYou breath out, and in again. That's what this situation needed a little more oxygen. Now you feel it would be possible to continue with a little dignaty. Well without police involvement at least or vinegar enema anyway. [[Start again by saying hello|hi]]

"I like a man with no sence of self preservation. No wait the other one. Pride. 28 and a half pence please."\n\n[[pay now?|pay]]\n[["Pride, like Bono?|bono]]\n[["I have pride"|pride]]\n[["What's pride?"|whatspride]]\n

"You sure did"\n\nand then it happened. She smiled at me. Well she smiled in my presence and her face was pointed in my direction and what a face it is. A smile at me. I'm claiming that as a victory.\n<<set $smiled = "yes">>\n\n[[I'd better order something|chips]] before she calls the angry Greek man from the back room[[*|angryman]].\n

Authors Note.\n\nAround these parts at that time everybody would have walked to school unless you went to a special school.\n\nSpecial schools came in a few different flavours. \n\nThere was a school a few of my primary school friends ended up at because, well, they ate lots of crayons at primary school when the rest of us read books and did maths.\n\nThere was a special school for kids that didn't like to go to school. One that had high fences, kept the gate locked all day and night and kids only came home from at the weekend. For our town that school was in the same forest that the oak King Charles hid from Cromwells army so it was historic as well as potentially barbaric.\n\nThe third and scariest of the special schools was the ones you went to if your parents caught religion. If that happened you got branded with an oddly coloured blazer and caught a bus to school.\n\nFinally there was the kid who for some reason ended up going to a school the other side of the town for some odd reason like moving house and parents didn't want to mess up your schooling. I pitied those kids they had a hard life.\n\nSo if you caught the bus to school either you were special or your parents hated you and wanted to mark you for life.\n\n[[aside over|askout]]

There's a girl who works down the chipshop swears her name is Elvira.

"Fancy tinkling 28 1/2p this way to pay for your chips?"\n\n<<if $smiled eq "yes">>\nAnother smile. I'm going to close the deal tonight\n<<else>>\nWas that a smile, for me. I think it was. I'm claiming it\n<<endif>>\n\n[[next|pay]]\n<<set $smiled = "yes">>

"A little bit of Mothers Pride wouldn't go amiss to look of you. Now for the small price of 28 and a half new pence we can end this pleasent exchange."\n\nI start to wish I'd got enough money for a slice of bread and butter to turn this meal into a banquet but I dont' get my giro until tomorrow and to be honest it was finding 20p outside the offlicence and scrabbling down the sofa that stopped me scrapping the mold off some bread and the half a can of beans in the fridge tonight.\n\n[[more|pay]]\n

"I spend most of my time dealing with morons in a provincial chipshop."\n"Thankfully you're not going to be one of those morons are you?"\n\nI get the impression she thinks I am one of those morons already. I catch myself looking at the top of her coveral wondering what it's covering and my mouth falls slightly open.\n\n"Anything Else?"\n\nWow, that broke the spell. She think's I'm a moron and I think she just may be right.\n\n[[Mmmm, try saying hello again|hi]]. A fresh start.\n\n<<set $what_do_you_do = "yes">>

"Like your mother says you do on the toilet seat?"\n\nNow is this a good sign. She's aware that I have a penis at least. Perhaps not shaving today was a good move. She can see I'm a viral young man who sprays urine around me patch and lays down a claim on his property.\n\nWait did she just say I piss on the floor sometimes? How on earth could she know that?\n\nTalk, talk quickly before she notices I'm thinking a bit too hard about this.\n\n[["Errrm, yes?"|isprinkle]]\n[["No, I'm fully house trained. Now."|housetrained]]\n

"In graveyards after midnight with creatures of the night apart from days ending in D-A-Y where I stink of rotten fish and grease until I take a bath and then I go to bed... alone... and then I start all over again repeatly asking for 28 and a half pence until I'm blue in the face."\n\n[[more|pay]]\n\n<<set $asked_hang = "yes">>\n

"Well not calling me babe would be a good start swiftly followed by actually ordering some food?"\n\nI may have just blown any chance I might have had with this beautiful creature.\n\nBabe, who outside of television even uses that word to talk to a women. Describe one maybe but in conversation with one. \n\nI AM A FOOL.\n\nErrrm [[quick order something|chips]] to take her mind off my ignorance.\n\n

<<set $asked_out = "yes">>\nI'm going for it. \n\nI'm going to ask her out\n\n"The Mightly Lemon Drops are playing at the university tomorrow. I'm not a student or anything, don't worry, I'm on the dole like all normal blokes. I'm not weird or anything but I've got a mate...."\n\n"Well done. Did he have to catch the bus to school as well?[[*|bus]]"\n\n"Errrm no I think the walked. I walked. Errrm where was I. Do you want to go and see them. With me I mean. I can't afford two tickets but there could be a bottle of cider in it. If you like cider that is. Babycham do you like Babycham?"\n\n"Nobody likes Babycham"\n\n"I do. It's like cider but errrm posher. You could drink it at a dinner party, or a funeral or Christmas nice places. "\n\n"No"\n\n"No what?"\n\n"No it's not, no you can't and no I can't go to the university with you tomorrow."\n\n"Oh, O, errrm, K"\n\n[[more|pay]]

Like Hobsons Choice with fewer options and less horses.\n\n[[aside over|1987]]

"So's the puppy next door and he looks at me the exactly the same way when I give him food but I think he'd understand the requirement to hand over 28 1/2 pence to pay for a bag of chips he'd just ordered"\n\nDoes she think of me as a puppy and is that a good thing? No clue I'm lost but I think I'd better pay so I can get my chips to stop this tummy rumble before she hears it and thinks I'm weird.\n\n[[next|pay]]

This could have been the second reference to Douglas Adams but I resisted the first time around. See if you can find it.\n\n[[aside over|chips]]

"So you even failed the test to be thick?"\n\nA single perfectly plucked eyebrow is raised.\n\nI'd never considered an eyebrow could be perfect or understood why you'd want to pluck one until today.\n\nThe thought just occured that perhaps they aren't naturally black as you notice they look slightly ginger near the root. Maybe strawberry blonde. I wonder if she tastes of strawberries or uses one of those fancy lip balms. That really would be ideal. They make kisses feel a bit greasy but given the choice I'd rather have strawberry than embassy any day of the week.\n\nThe question. There was a question and it's a conversation standard to answer them without quite so many pauses even when you are admiring a beautiful womens eyebrows.\n\nScrub that. Especially when you are admiring a beautiful womens eyebrows.\n\nIs it normal to become so fixated on something as small and apparently insignificant as an eyebrow.\n\nThat's something you'd certainly not considered previously.\n\n<cough>\n\nThe question. Quickly answer the question before she thinks there is something wrong with you.\n\n[["Yes, No, Errrm, I passed!|passed]]\n[["Yes, errrm what was the question?"|passed]]\n[["Anything you want babe"|babe]]

\n<<if $asked_name eq "yes">>And once again you...<<endif>><<if $what_do_you_do eq "yes">>\nSurprisingly this time you...<<endif>><<if $asked_name eq "no">><<if $what_do_you_do eq "no">>\nYou...<<endif>><<endif>>\n...try your hardest to be cool but end up mumbling 'ello at the vision of perfection in front of you with the dried batter mix on the end of her nose delightfully.\n\n"Hi" comes the reply from her perfectly thin lips.\n\nPreviously you'd never even considered lips, thick, thin it didn't matter and now you've considered it they still don't matter what matters and what makes them perfect is the girl they are attached to.\n\nYou suddenly become actutely aware that you are staring at her and she is looking back at you expecting some more interaction.\n\n<<if $asked_name eq "no">>\n[["What's your name?"|name]]\n<<endif>>\n[["A bag of chips please"|chips]]\n<<if $what_do_you_do eq "no">>\n[["What do you do?|do]]\n<<endif>>\n

The middle bit of England[[*|england]]. Silly. \n\n[[aside over|intro6]]

You confidently order a bag of chips. Well that's the way it will go when you replay this scene endlessly in your head until you get to do it all over again in real life but in reality you ask for a chip of bags, stumble, correct yourself, twice but Elvira (if that really is her name) chuckles and repeats.\n\n"A bag of chips" to you with a nod of the head before asking the enternal question of life, the universe and everything[[*|adams]]\n\n"Salt and Vinegar?"\n\n[["Yes please"|yes]]\n[["No, I'm against animal testing"|testing]]\n[["Just salt thanks"|salt]]\n[["Just a sprinkle please"|sprinkle]]\n[["Pile it on."|pile]]

"I wish I did"\n\nShe sighed. Perhaps I went too far trying to be cool and blew it or perhaps I melted her heart!\n\n"No, I get it. I just don't care. I just want you to hand over 28 and a half pence so we can all get on with out lives"\n\nPerhaps not. My heart sinks.\n\n[[more|pay]]

"One of the first things I lost when I came to work here and had to stand in a puddle of vinegar and keep asking for 28 and a half pence over and over again until I lost the will to live on this desolate rock anymore. Now 28 and a half pee before I crack and start throwing raw sausage at the customers between you and me I wouldn't even touch the fish in this place if I did go mad."\n\n[[more|pay]]

"It's still Elvira, \nare you a bit thick or something?"\n\nA bit of dried batter mix never looked so inviting. If I was the bravest man alive I'd lick it right off her nose.\n\nI'm acutely aware that I was just asked a question and I'm about to answer in hast when I bite my tongue and carefully select the perfect answer from three choices.\n\n[["No, no, they had me tested|tested]]\n[["errrm, is that something you might be into?"|into]]\n[["Yes, and long, thick and long."|long]]

"And I'm too good for this job and this town but I still have to ask for 28 1/2 pence from all the patrons ordering a bag of chips today at least those that want chips and not a free ride in a police car"\n\n[[more||pay]]

The title relates to Kirsty MacColl's first hit single "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" from 1981. \n\n[[aside over|intro2]]

One day I'm going to tell her\n[[next|intro5]]\n

But not today, good grief not today\n[[next|intro6]]

But someday.\n\nHere we are outside the chipshop. It's an ordinary chipshop in an ordinary town. Like loads of others here in the English Midlands[[*|midlands]] in 1987[[*|1987]].\n\n[[Enter the Chipshop|chipshop]]

"Bono's a dick but I bet he pays for his chips"\n\nSomething about the way she said dick excited me and she hates Bono too! We are made for each other. Unless everyone hates Bono but that can't be true or U2 wouldn't sell so many records.\n\n[[next|pay]]

Although she might be having me on[[*|title]].\n[[next|intro3]]

I'm going to marry her\n[[next|intro4]]\n

Stephen Parkes

"Vingt huit et quelques centimes... errrrm... demi...errrm...non..moitié! merci. Garçon."\n\n[[I understood everything|pay]]\n[["What?"|pardon]]

"Bitter enough. I'm not surprised with hair like that."\n\nShe gives the salt a little shake that makes her backcombed black hair wobble in the evening light looking radiant. When I say the evening light I mean the flickering tube above the fryer.\n\nAs she wraps my dry chips I both wish I'd got another 20p for a can of Tango and notice she still doesn't wear any rings on her left hand. Sometimes I think she makes a point of letting me see that bare hand but right now I'm thinking if I was rich and suarve I might ask for a bottle of the other orange drink and ask about getting 'Fizzical'. Day dreams leave me looking gormless until she snaps me out of it.\n\n<<if $smiled eq "yes">>\nI think she just smiled again as she watched me drift off into my Fizzical fantasies. Two smiles! \n<<else>>\nWas that a smile? I think she smiled as she watched me drift off into a world of my own. A world of our own.\n<<endif>>\n\n\nWait what did she say about bitter?\n\n[["I'm not not bitter I'm sweet <smile>|notbitter]]\n[["Bitter moi?"|pretenous]]\n[["You got it"|bitterman]]