Did somebody mention spam the other week? Well, let me tell you my story, and you can decide for yourselves who’s been spammed by what.

* * *

It happened like this: there I was, in the comfort of my own home, watching something eminently forgettable on local TV as usual, when I heard the sound of indistinct rumbling somewhere in the distance. At first I thought it was Etna erupting again. Or a repeat of last September’s Aero GP. Or who knows? Maybe even a courtesy visit to my locality by the President of the Republic, accompanied by his wife. However, I soon discovered that it was actually my own stomach giving me one final warning to eat something – fast – before it gave up on me altogether, and settled down to digesting itself.

* * *

So, much like a certain Mother Hubbard before me, I hobbled over to the fridge in gleeful anticipation of the bountiful goodies contained therein. But alas! All that met my gaze when I opened the door were the following, uninspiring items:

a) One tub of margarine, (containing one, solitary dollop of the same);

b) One packet of sliced cheese (complete with one picture of a cow, laughing hysterically at me for assuming that the single, solitary slice of yellowy substance inside was actually what the packet claimed it to be); and finally,

c) One corpse of a moth, which had clearly died of hypothermia in the great white void of the second shelf several months earlier.

And I thought to myself: Margarine, cheese; margarine, cheese; margarine, cheese; moth. Something, somewhere is missing; but I can’t figure out what.

* * *

So I opened the freezer, and let’s see now... frozen broccoli, frozen peas, a vast, uncharted expanse of glacial frost, and... Oh look: one packet of frozen sliced bread, open... with two slices still left inside!

Slowly, ever so slowly, the beginnings of a cunning plan were beginning to take shape in my mind. I know, I thought to myself. I’ll toast the two slices of frozen bread, spread the remaining dollop of margarine onto one of them, and then insert the last slice of plastic “cheese” in between the two pieces of toasted bread thereby creating a marvellous new concoction which I shall name... I don’t know. Let’s eat it first and decide what to name it afterwards.

* * *

So I proceeded to remove the two remaining slices of frozen bread from the packet in the freezer, and slip them into my electric toaster, turning the dial to mark “two” (figuring to myself that “one” would be too little, whereas “three” might be too much). I then produced from the kitchen drawer a non-serrated knife for the purpose of spreading the margarine straight onto the toasted bread while it was still hot. Likewise, I took the last remaining slice of plastic “cheese” out of the packet, and slit the wrapping open so that no precious time would be wasted inserting the contents between the two slices of toast.

As a result, the moment the toast popped out of the toaster (note: fortunately for myself, Butch Coolidge was nowhere to be seen at the time), all the ingredients for the preparation of my new, as yet unnamed, culinary invention were already in place and raring to go.

* * *

And now we come to the tragic bit. For lo and behold: just as I was about to sink my teeth into my freshly prepared concoction featuring toasted bread, margarine and sliced plastic “cheese”... Smash! Crash! Tinkle! A number of masked and hooded men in paramilitary uniform abseiled straight through the kitchen window, and in a manoeuvre right out of Who Dares Wins I was simultaneously overpowered and wrestled to the floor, my unbitten toast-margarine-cheese invention snatched from my hands and slipped into a clear plastic bag, to be presented as evidence at my forthcoming trial.

For yes, at that point there could be no mistaking the identity of my captors. It was the dreaded “MacDonalds Police”, immediately identifiable by the “Golden Arches” badge on their sleeves, and the “How Can I Help You, Sir?” motto emblazoned on their Ronald MacDonald truncheons. Before I knew it, both my hands were cuffed behind my back, and a voice could be heard emanating via megaphone from the MacChopper circling overhead: “You have the right to remain hungry. Anything you order can and will be supersized,” etc., etc., etc.

* * *

Now, I ask you all: how in the name of Big Macs and Gherkins was I supposed to know that that innocent little culinary invention of mine, which I hadn’t even named, happened to have already been invented and patented by MacDonalds? Yes, indeed. I refer to Patent Application WO2006068865, which states that “the simultaneous toasting of a bread component”, together with the preparation of “a meat and/or cheese filling”, is the sole intellectual property of the MacDonalds Corporation. Therefore, any “pre-assembly of components” in order to guarantee that garnishes (“including, but not limited to, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, chilli, coleslaw, gardiniera, peppers, spinach, radishes, olives, egg, cooked bacon and cheese”), as well as condiments (“ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, sauces, relish, oils, salt, pepper, barbecue sauce, steak sauce, hot sauce, dressings including salad dressings, yogurt, butter, margarine and liquid or semi-liquid cheese”), are applied directly to the bread without any unnecessary delay or time-wasting, is an activity that can only be legally carried out in a MacDonalds restaurant, as per the terms of the patent. And needless to add, my kitchen does not exactly qualify.

* * *

But like all self-respecting cautionary tales, mine, too, has a “Happy Meal” ending. For as I prepared my defence from my cell in Guantanamo Bay, I came across the following quote from the 55-page MacDonalds patent application:

“Typically, a sandwich filling will thereafter be placed in the bread component... Often the sandwich filling is the source of the name of the sandwich, for example – ham sandwich.”

* * *

Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich. Now, where on earth did I hear that curious word before? Ah yes, now I remember. Good old John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich... who used to be a good friend of mine, before that unfortunate game of canasta way back in 1718.

Yes, that’s right: I seem to also remember how John had asked the waiter to press his steak between two slices of bread, so that he could have his dinner without actually leaving the card table (having already lost over 400 guineas to me in a single hand that selfsame evening). And so, when it came to the trial, my defence was all already mapped out in my mind. I would enter a plea of “Not gristly”, and then proceed to argue that MacDonald’s couldn’t possibly have patented the “sandwich”, seeing as the concept had already been invented nearly 300 years earlier by an amiable young rogue with a healthy appetite, but who couldn’t play cards to save his miserable life.

* * *

Fortunately for me, in the end I didn’t even have to bother. For by that time, Lawrence Smith-Higgins of the UK Patent Office had already observed: “McDonald’s or anyone else can’t get retrospective exclusive rights to making a sandwich. They might have a novel device, but it could be quite easy for someone to make a sandwich in a similar way without infringing their claims.”

* * *

So all charges were dropped, and I was free to go back home. But alas! My margarine ‘n’ cheese sandwich was never returned... so all that was left for my rumbling stomach that evening was the dead moth in the fridge.

THE END.