BRUNCH


LUV - There are two types of people in the world: breakfast people and brunch people.

You may see breakfast people on the morning train, conducting ebullient phone conversations about their busy social lives and life-affirming pre-dawn spin classes. Or you’ll find them on Twitter, firing off supercilious tweets ripe with self-empowerment adjectives detailing their morning’s productivity, just how psyched they are about their alfalfa-based lunches, and their plans to watch TED talks on their iPads.

You may see brunch people on the morning train, too. Assuming they make the train. They’re the pale ones slumped in their seats clutching double-shot, extra-hot coffees in one hand and a ready-to-go cigarette-and-lighter combo in the other. Oh, they may try to style it out with sunglasses and upturned collars, but the sad truth is that they are allergic to the morningtime. A brunch person’s pre-noon Twitter feed contains things like “Ungh” or “\SNFSFD;L SORRY MY lkeyboard seemdf to b.e brokyen1”.

Some brunch people may, in a fit of self-improvement, fruitlessly try to choke a raspy bowl of Shreddies down their closed throats before they leave the house but, in the main, they’ve accepted that their fine motor skills and major organs are simply offline before 11am. So, on weekday mornings, they sit quietly in meetings with the hollow-eyed trauma gaze of the recently bereaved, and pray for lunch time to come.

These are my people, these are their issues, and a decent weekend brunch is their reward.

Brunch. The very word conjures visions of inviting sun-dappled cafés full of air and birdsong and gently sizzling sausages. Steaming buckets of unlimited lattes, fluffy pancake towers with globs of butter just starting to melt through the layers. Crisp copies of our favourite papers and magazines, and smiling waiting staff who speak slowly and absolutely won’t judge you if you ask them to repeat themselves four times before you understand them. “When you’re ready,” they’ll whisper. “When you’re ready. When you’re ready. When you’re ready.”

Generally, we’re ready at the civilised hour of 11am, just when our delicate stomachs and senses are beginning to tremulously unfold like the first spring flower. The many and varied wonders of brunch are our prizes for struggling through the stark grey horror of the weekday morning, and we have hours and hours to enjoy them all.

Brunch. Brunch. Brunch. Say it with me.

Because we’re worth it.
- Robyn Wilder


HAT - Between breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea, supper and dinner, we’ve already got plenty of legitimate excuses to eat ourselves into a diabetic sphere of cholesterol whenever we want. We don’t need to start making the fuckers up as well.


But that’s what brunch is. It’s a completely imaginary meal, and that’s what irks me so much. When are you supposed to eat brunch? Ten o’clock? Hardly - according to McDonald’s, that’s still breakfast time. Twelve o’clock? Nope - as soon as the clock ticks over into PM we’re firmly in lunch territory.


Eleven o’clock? Possibly, but who wants to wait until eleven o’clock to eat something? Nobody. That’s why anyone who has ever arranged brunch for eleven has managed to sneak a quick bite to eat beforehand. And that defies the point of brunch. It’s not even brunch any more. You’ve already had your breakfast. Now you’re just eating lunch. You’re eating lunch at eleven o’clock in the morning, you greedy bastard. Couldn’t wait that long to eat your lunch, could you? You lardy turd. Get out of my sight, you unsightly fucking bucket of fat. You disgust me.  


Also, I have a problem with the word itself. A portmanteau of the words ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’ coined in the late 19th century, ‘brunch’ may well be responsible for every single cute portmanteau invented since. So, really, when you boil it down, what has brunch ever given us? That’s right - fucking Jedward. Thanks a lot brunch, you fictional wanker.
- Stuart Heritage