The world's campest chicken shop signage

OOOOOO Spicy!

Stone Willy's, Clapham

Take-aways in Clapham are off the chain.

Just check this place out. It's insane.First of all, you might as well call it Concrete Penis Pizza. My next concern would be the offer of 'Chicken and Jacs'. What the name of Adam West are Jacs? I googled 'chicken jacs' and all that came up was bleeding dog food!

The fact it also seems to be a joint venture between Stone Willy's and late-70's disco group Shalamar is also rather mystifying. It's hardly a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell now, is it? You can't really have a novelty pop-rap crossover hit about the 'Combination Stone Willy's and Shalamar'. But if by chance Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris do and make it the anthem of the summer, I want 15% of the royalties.Then, on the left, is this sign. A design classic I think you'll agree, even if there is an erroneous hyphen in 'TO-GO'. I also like the guy sticking his head out the door doing a John Cena impression. (And yes I did go back to this at night to take another photo).

And then it gets weird.This is the sign on the right hand side. WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY? He looks like an Iraqi Colonel Sanders. As played by the love child of Christopher Lee, Borat and Salvador Dali. And what has he been doing since 1972? Secretly infiltrating the world's government's with his concrete penis, I mean, Stone Willy?
It's so hypnotic. The more you stare at hi, the worse it gets.ALL HAIL IRAQI SANDERS! ALL HAIL IRAQI SANDERS! o/ (That's an emoticon for a salute, by the way)

This isn't just fried chicken. It's Nagina fried chicken...

This place is Nagina in Southall. And it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the classiest chicken venue I have ever laid eyes upon. It's miles from your bog standard grubby Chicken Cottage. Sleek white marble effect decor. Classy gold writing. Spacious open plan-style windows that have a complete lack of duct tape holding them together after a bit of a scuffle last Friday night. It is a chicken shop for people who shop at Waitrose and eat Walkers Sensations.

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Shame from the wrong angle 'Nagina' can look like 'Vagina' though.

This is what Boris Johnson looks like on a KFC Bucket

Have you ever wondered what the bumbling mayor of London looks like dressed as Colonel Sanders on a KFC bucket? No? Well, now you know:
Surprisingly, he looks even more like the goateed dick from The Matrix Reloaded than the father of KFC himself. You can have a go at KFC's silly marketing ploy here, which just about makes up for the grilled chicken debacle, but not quite.

Yet another chicken shop named after a rapper

We've had Cypress Hill, we've had Coolio, and now:

Fig a) Critically acclaimed New York rapper Nas:
Fig b) Nass Fast Food, Hounslow

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Ok, there is an extra 'S'. But their burgers are Grillmatic.

Takeaways unofficially endorsed by South Korean consumer electronic giants #1: Samsun Steak & Kebab Restaurant

Terrorists, politicians, cartoon characters, they've all had takeaways named after them, but Samsung, we honestly weren't expecting. Spelt wrong too. The food here comes with a two year warranty, you know.

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Unless someone finds an LG Fried Chicken, we suspect this may be a very occasional feature.

Mockney phrases make for the best pub names

This is where you go to drink when you're in trouble with the ol' ball and chain. You'll have a pint or nine with the boys, all have a big bitch about respective strifes, then go crawling back. Cos it's the dog'owse.

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Man mugged for kebab, sign of times

Time was, you'd get mugged for your phone. You might get stopped walking through a subway at 8 in the evening by a gentleman in a hooded sweatshirt:"Oi blad, you got the time on your phone?". Now though, a young rapscallion doesn't have any respect without a doner of his very own: Cambridge Evening News reports a man was mugged at knife point for his kebab.

If it was us? We'd "jack" someone's iPhone, flog it on eBay and buy several mixed grills instead. But then maybe that sort of outside the box thinking is why we don't hide in bushes for food.

How do you name a chicken shop today? Crowdsource it, bitch

Not all takeaways have grasped how the internet works, but a few entrepreneurial sorts are taking a few, shaky steps into the world of web 2.0. First we had the chicken shack with its own MySpace profile, and now we've got another place getting in on the latest web buzzword, crowdsourcing, which is another way of saying fuck it off, let's get some chat room flies to do our work for us.
One Yahoo forums peep turned to the message boards to come up with a name for their potential new chicken shop, and the suggestions make for interesting reading:
Naturally you've got the naively earnest type who fails to grasp the innate comedy value in chicken shops (A woman, I might add).
Then you've got the "joker". They're only in their teens now, but later in life they'll wear novelty ties to work and buy a singing fish trophy off eBay for the nostalgia value. Then they'll put it on the wall of their cubicle at work, but without the battery, because the boss wouldn't want it going off in the middle of a meeting about the best way to market fire alarms to the consumer.

But, as always with the internet, it does come down to one thing though: sex. God bless you, Tim Bernard-Matthews or whatever your name is.
Is it wrong that I'm turned on by women suggesting euphemisms for chicken shops? I think it is.

This chicken shop has a MySpace profile, and it is awesome

I have to fess up: sometimes, I just type "fried chicken" into Google Maps along with a place name and see what comes up. It's sad, yes. It's the web 2.0 version of stamp collecting. But man, look what I found:
Wings N Tingz. Niccceeee. What "tingz" though? And why isn't it on Street View if it's in the country's second city? I don't know, but to make amends for that, the owner has given the shop its own MySpace profile. With a logo that is just fitness:
I've never met the chicken, but you can tell he's the avian equivalent of one of those Iranian expats who greases his hair, drives around in a 1994 Audi with leather upholstery and can generally be found chirpsing all the flyest Persian honeys on the Edgware Road.

It gets better though, check out the comments:
Oh Kiesha. Wings N Tingz can't possibly "roll through your spot" and show you any love BECAUSE IT IS A BUILDING AND CAN'T MOVE. Also note that no-one's said anything for over a year.

Wings N Tingz should totally join FaceBook, MySpace is sooo 2005. Then we can poke each other and play Scrabble over a few virtual spicy wings.

XFC Chicken & Burgers, Southall

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What does the X stand for? XTREME! Dude!! Tony Hawk eats here. And they only serve Pepsi Max.

Chicken: The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast

You know I how was saying that Germany had the best regional variation of any multi-nation fast food chain? Well, McDonalds in Holland is hitting back in style. Snapped in Amsterdam:In Holland McD's do a Chicken McMuffin. That's right: Chicken for Breakfast! My mind is blown. Literally blown. There are literally bits of brain all over the wall behind me. I've taken the red pill. This is how deep the rabbit hole goes, people.

Glastonbury is good for racist Chinese Takeaways and attention-seeking market traders; may also feature live music

I wasn't really expecting Glastonbury to be a hot-bed of disgusting chicken. In my experience, music festivals tend to just be populated by greasy-but-edible burger vans. And, since my culinary highlight of the festival was getting some free vegan risotto by feigning interest in some Hare-Krishnas, I was right. However, there were a few things to point out.

First: Yet another Pizza Hut copyist:Then there was this spectacularly racist Chinese place:"Ah-so! Yoo wan noodles? They weel good noodles! Me love you long time! Sucky sucky! Ten dolla!"

What really made me bother to upload this post though most was this very typical fried chicken joint:I know what you're thinking; it's not not most memorable of places. And true it's not. When I went to take the photo, I was thinking I probably wouldn't get round to uploading it. As I pulled my camera out I was standing next to to a stall selling t-shirts or something. Out of nowhere, the guy running the stall popped up and pleaded with me to be in the photo. Begged me. Slightly scared, I obliged.
That guy made my festival.

Burger King in Germany is Amazing!

OK, so you know the whole 'Royale with cheese' bit from Pulp Fiction? Well Travolta is an idiot. Why was he swanning around Paris when he could have been in Dusseldorf? OK, it may not have the art and culture and cheese, but check this out:In Germany, a Chicken Royale is called a LONG CHICKEN. Wunderbar!

Thanks to pseudonymically name reader 'The Business' for the photo.

The name Kebab Rush is slightly ominous

They're so fast, they don't even cook the meat or nuffink. In fact, your doner will bleet at you when you put chili sauce on it.

Meat in a Roll in sick 'Latching on to tragic recent celeb death in a desperate attempt for attention' Shocker

It takes a certain character to find out about the tragic early death of an era defining mega-star, and to have one your first thoughts be "I wonder want happens when you google 'michael jackson fried chicken'". But that's how I roll, I suppose.

While most of the media suddenly deemed Mariah Carey's twitter feed newsworthy, I came across this piece about Jacko's disturbing KFC habits. It would seem that the King of Pop, that while realising the negative health impacts of fried chicken, believed that removing the skin would somehow make the cheap KFC battery chicken organic!

Forget Neverland, forget Bubbles, forget the oxygen tent, forget the baby dangling, forget the Jesus Juice, that's just plain weird.

Fri-Chiks is unnecessarily hyphenated and a bit freaky

Fri-Chiks in Camden makes an awful lot of assumptions with its catchy slogan, "When Mom's Not Cooking". Never mind the Americanised spelling, who says your mother cooks anyway? This is North London we're talking about, and if we've learned anything from the Baby P scandal in nearby Haringey, it's that the woman who brought you into the world is just as likely to snap your spine as fry you some chicken with a secret recipe of herbs and spices. Were it in the neighbouring borough, it would probably read "When Mom's Not Cooking Which Is Most Of The Time Except When The Social Are Coming Round".

Thanks Doonus!