SUBWAY IS BIGGER THAN MCDONALDS

How did we let this happen? Subway - the purveyors of unlovable, damp breadfoods - now has more restaurants than McDonald's. That's right, McDonald's. The wholesome hamburger chain that our mothers and fathers grew up with. Apparently Subway now boasts 33,749 eateries worldwide while Mickey D can only muster 32,737.

This is disappointing. And not because I eat at McDonald's. It's disappointing because at least in its own fetid, lardy way a Big Mac is a thing. A queasy, shiny thing, but a thing nonetheless. The same can not be said for a Subway Chicken Temptation. No one wants the Chicken Temptation. It exists only in the most basic, mundane sense, like a plastic bag lining the inside of a tramp's boot or a Kinder Egg toy lying in a puddle.

This is the future we bequeath to our children? High streets from Burnley to Beijing, lined with empty, terracotta-tiled bread dispensaries? Tiny, miserable huts in which there is usually a man - one poor man who must wear plastic gloves and stand behind a plastic wall - who's sole job is to preside over the sauces and mustards. That's not a future I want to live in.