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'What the frigging f**k?' and other reasonable reactions to Iceland loans for food

ICELAND is offering loans for hard-up shoppers to buy food. If you’re wondering if this is some new low for Britain, you’re not alone. Here’s what you’re probably thinking.

How the hell is this meant to work?

Sure, we take out loans for much larger sums all the time, eg. a car loan. But there’s a slight difference – you don’t eat a car. When your food is gone, you’ll need another loan. So you’ve basically got one shop on tick for a couple of weeks. At last, poverty is solved!

What the frigging f**k?

Yeah. Borrowing between £25 and £100, even if it’s interest-free, for basic food items, has a hint of the Dickensian about it. Maybe you should take your warmest coat to the pawnbroker. Or go door-to-door asking if they can spare a piece of coal or some tasty bacon rind.

Is this any sort of solution?

It might work if you have a strange financial situation whereby you’re occasionally totally skint then suddenly okay. But, as noted, chances are you’ll soon need another loan. It’s unlikely that in the two weeks max it takes to eat £100 of food you’ll have gone from minimum wage to working for an investment bank.

What about the poor bastards who aren’t eligible?

Iceland is clear you won’t get a loan if you can’t pay it back, which, in fairness, is the right thing to do. But if you don’t get the loan you’ve presumably got no food AND the humiliation of telling people ‘I couldn’t get a 25 quid loan from Iceland’. That’s ignominy close to being caught ‘interfering’ with a sheep. 

Isn’t this the government’s responsibility?

‘Ensuring your citizens have enough to eat’ definitely should be on the government’s ‘to do’ list. Especially in a financial crisis. The Tories are notoriously against ‘handouts’ on ideological grounds, but in the last week they’ve done f**k all because they’re busy furthering their ambitions or on bloody holiday.  

Can you only eat Iceland food?

Obviously. Iceland aren’t going to all that trouble so you can spend your loan in Sainsbury’s. So you’d better be a fan of their range, skewed as it is toward frozen potato smiley faces and Bernard Matthews Jurassic World Turkey Dinosaurs. Also the famous £2.50 kebab meat pizza now comes in a stuffed crust version, so fill your boots.

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Five songs you thought you knew the words to but don't

SINGING in public is a real minefield, so it’s best to stick to the classics. But do you actually know the words? Here are five songs you could have sworn you had down off by heart:

Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond

This song has inexplicably become a firm favourite with English football fans, yet nobody knows the words aside from the chorus. Even the ‘hands touching hands’ bit is tricky to get right. Luckily the crowd will soon move onto Three Lions, the lyrics of which have been burned onto your brain after nearly three decades of dreary repetition.

The National Anthem

Almost as tedious and tuneless as Three Lions is the National Anthem, a song you must have heard several thousand times and yet still only recall one single line of. The only people who really need to know the words are footballers and rugby players, and even they look like they’re making it up as they go along.

Anything by ABBA

You insist you don’t need the lyrics on screen at the karaoke bar, as you know every single ABBA song off by heart. However, when the ABBA medley megamix kicks off, you realise you actually know f**k all and instead find yourself randomly shouting out ‘…something something WATERLOO!’ several seconds behind the music.

Hey Jude

You were in the crowd at Glastonbury this year, impatiently waiting for Sir Paul to crack into Hey Jude so you could show your mates what an ardent fan you are by singing along, totally word perfect. Unfortunately apart from the ‘Hey Jude’ at the very beginning and the repeated ‘Na, na, na, na, na, na, naaaaa’ at the very end, you didn’t know any, and you looked like a bellend.

Auld Lang Syne

Given that you sing this every New Year without fail, it’s no wonder you think you know the words. But the truth is that after the opening ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot’ no ones know anything, and it immediately falls into loud, drunken la-ing before tailing off after 30 seconds as everyone cracks open another drink and snogs their best friend’s partner instead.

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