Adam Kay Guest Blog

Much as I realise the laziest comments an English comedian can make about Scotland relate to the currency and the cuisine, I’m going to press ahead and write a blogpost about the food in Glasgow.

Getting my defence in early, I dearly love Glasgow – I live there for two months of every year, my boyfriend is Scottish and the Ubiquitous Chip is one my favourite restaurants in the world. But crucially to my defence, this story is about being served up a dead crow.

Staggering back from a pub in the Southside last October, talk naturally turned to buying fried foods, and we found ourselves in a chicken emporium. Shortly into our journey home, our friend Danny was spitting feathers. (Thick black battered feathers.)

There was some degree of discussion as to whether they were chicken feathers that had blackened as a result of the frying process, or if they were a different bird altogether. By the time we were back in the flat, we had decided to perform a CSI: Glasgow autopsy on Danny’s food. Happily for the investigation, we didn’t just have wings to work with – one of the other fried chunks contained a beak. Reference to the RSPB’s very helpful Bird Identifier website allowed to narrow it down to a Carrion crow, a Jackdaw or a Jay. Danny went off to be sick.

It’s worth pointing out in fairness to the place that only one of us ended up being served a dead crow – four of us received precisely what we ordered. But we all learned a valuable lesson about late-night fast food in the Southside. Needless to say, it’s a lesson we completely ignore when we get drunk enough and fancy some chicken.

From Amateur Transplants: Adam Kay's Smutty Songs is at the Citizens Theatre on Saturday 31 March