Invasion

Britain is being invaded. More correctly, the invasion has already begun, but having secured a stronghold in your capitol city, the interloper is now spreading into the surrounding counties, conquering everything and everyone in its wake. Counter attacks are useless. Surrender is inevitable. Resistance, as the Borg are fond of saying, is futile.

At stake is the British way of life, not merely your green and pleasant land, not only your health and happiness, but your famous British reserve, your stoicism in the face of adversity, your stiff upper lip. The peril is so great and so imminent that, if drastic action is not taken soon, you will, in a very short while, be unrecognizable, as individuals or as a nation.

I am talking, of course, about Krispy Kreme donuts.

When I heard they were establishing a beachhead in London, I shuddered, feeling, I imagine, as Jean Luc Picard must have felt when re-confronting the aforementioned Borg: we had been sucked in, made one of them and, against all odds, escaped, only to fall into their hands once more.

I first encountered Kristpy Kreme in New York City. I was there with a co-worker. He smiled when he told me about this donut shop he had found. He gently led me on, into the shop, so warm, aromatic, inviting. He gave me my first Krispy Kreme (the first one is always free) and smiled as I bit into it.

"These things are like crack," he said.

If it was meant as a warning, it came too late. I was biting into a piece of heaven. So what if each donut contained more calories than six Knickerbocker Glories, three large pizzas with extra cheese and a Whooper with super-sized fries combined, I was hooked, and I knew, whatever the cost, I would be back.

Fortunately, Mr. Krispy remained safely at arms length, and even though I couldn't help visiting the shop on my increasingly frequent trips to New York City, I told myself I wasn't hooked, I could stop at any time. Besides, I was young and resilient; my body could handle the devil in disguise I was dancing with.

A few years later, as luck would have it, I moved to England. I'm not suggesting I left my homeland just to get away from Krispy Creme, but as a happy collateral effect, it worked a treat.

Fast forward a few years. The security I feel in my new home shows its first crack as I read the news: Krispy Kreme is coming. Like the Killer Bees, there is no stopping this migration. The first store opens and slowly, they begin to spread. I tell myself I have nothing to worry about; I'm safe in Sussex, they'll never find me here.

To take my mind off of the looming menace, I give up sugar.

Well, maybe there really was no connection. In fact, I don't recall thinking much about Krispy Kreme at all when I decided to cut down on my sugar intake; I just said that for dramatic effect. Made your pulse race, didn't it?

What really happened was, I changed my desk at work. I used to sit on the top floor in an office with two other guys. If one of us wanted a cup of coffee, we would ask the other two. I drank about five cups a day, each with one teaspoon of sugar in it.

Then I moved downstairs and found myself in an office full of people who, every time any one of them felt the need for caffeine, they became the 'tea bitch' for the entire office. I strongly suspect (and experience proves this out) that the reason behind this isn't tea or coffee but the desire to spend a restful forty-five minutes away from their desks.

Most people don't have a problem with this system; if they've had enough to drink, they pass. But as for myself, if I were a woman, I would be in up the duff on a continual basis--I just can't say, "No". So now I'm up to 97 cups of coffee a day, and while I don't mind the havoc 97 daily doses of low-grade amphetamines wreak on my nervous system, I figure my six-pack, which already comes with copious amounts of packaging and bubble wrap, can do without the extra 97 spoons full of sugar.

It's a win-win situation: I can feel virtuous without actually having done anything, and it makes preparing a cup of coffee while queuing up for the 7:30 to Nottingham that much easier.

This, I felt, put me ahead of the game; in my private war against excess calories, I had achieved a victory without suffering any casualties. Then, while visiting a client's office in Guildford, I saw it: a Krispy Kreme Shop.

I'm told that people who live as fugitives, when the knock comes at the door and their past sins--wearing an off-the-rack suit and a detective’s badge--return to claim them, mostly feel relieved. In a strange way, this is how I felt; there was no surprise, no joy or horror, simply quiet resignation and surrender to the inescapable. I didn't even pretend to resist. I walked straight in. I bought a dozen.

It's too late for me, but you, as a nation, must resist. Having sallied forth from their London stronghold, Krispy Kreme has spread into Kent, Middlesex, Oxford, Birmingham and the Tesco's Extra in Weybridge. They have breached Essex, Herefordshire and even Surrey, their staging ground for the assault on West Sussex.

You may think I'm over-stating the danger, but if you don't act now, you will soon find yourself shopping for trousers with a waist size equivalent to the circumference of an oil drum. Do you really want to buy your next rugby shirt from Omar the Tentmaker? Are you ready to give up your thinly disguised moral superiority over Americans and replace it with thinly disguised envy over how slim they are? And finally, most experts agree that, if everyone in this country gains two or three stone, the island is going to sink.

So please, for the sake of the nation, for the sake of the world, for the sake of your children, resist.

But if you can't, I highly recommend the Apple Crumble.