"Welp," sighed the former whelp, "That's that."

"Good morning,

I spoke with your office yesterday regarding having received a notice of disconnection from BES Utilities for my business at 72 Victoria Road. I have been there since August 2018, so nearly five years, and it has always been my mission to provide the best food I can to the people of this neighbourhood for under £10. We were in The List's top restaurants in Glasgow in the last eating and drinking guide pre-pandemic, which I thought was incredible since we were up against some of the most expensive and large venues in the city, and Nanika only seats 14 people and a dinner for two will come in under £30 even if you really gorge yourselves.

It has been closed for the past six months due to an injury (I had tendonitis and could not use my left arm, so I operated a different business at my other shop on Allison Street while I was doing physio), so the only electricity usage would be the refrigerators and dehumidifier that are always running, and the occasional prep day and dishwashing where there would be very minimal drain compared to actual service, when the extractor fan/pasta boiler/steamer/bain marie/rice cookers, etc would need to run concurrently for at least five hours per night.

If you are familiar with the shop you will know it is literally one small room with one lightbulb, maybe 50 square feet. It is, I believe, the smallest functioning restaurant/takeaway in Govanhill. And I would like to reiterate that it has been closed, and thus its electricity usage has been as low as possible from the 20th of April to the 10th of November, when we reopened. We were similarly closed last year from May to September while I set up the other shop, with all the same equipment running at Nanika, and our monthly electric bill was £225 on average. That is the baseline for a closed shop, with £350 being average for the times we are operating normally.

I have had a direct debit set up for the electric bill since 2020, and I do not normally pay attention to the total, as it has always been consistent. In October, however, for the period of 15th September to 15th October, I received an invoice for just under £900, which is more than double the previous month's invoice. It is also almost double the monthly rent.

As I did not have £900 in the account, I immediately cancelled the direct debit and tried to contact BES, but their web interface was not functioning, and after managing to speak to an agent via chat he informed me that he couldn't even authorise anyone to call me back. All he would do is insist that I reinstate the direct debit. I explained that there is no way a closed shop could possibly use £900 in electricity, and that I wanted an engineer or other professional to come out and check the supply to determine what could be drawing that much energy or if someone else had somehow accessed my wiring. Eventually he agreed to have someone call me. I received two calls in November from BES, both of which were dropped due to poor connection on their end, as I spoke to them on the restaurant's phone, which we use every day we are open to take orders. There is no signal loss inside the building and the phone is on wifi anyway. When I attempted to call back the number was outgoing only and would not re-connect me to BES. (As an aside, I am wondering why so many companies nowadays use dead emails and blocked numbers to communicate with their legitimate customers; why is it legal to contact people about their accounts from a means of communication that can't be used to return the contact? And why would you want that?)

I then received a second bill for 15th October to 15th November for another £900 without explanation nor resolution, along with an intent to disconnect notice. When speaking to the disconnection agent he told me that if I did not give them £1100 in 24 hours they would remotely cut the power, and that if I didn't have £1100 then it would show that my business wasn't "economically viable" enough to continue operation.

As you can imagine, someone quadrupling one of your monthly bills after five years of consistent operation and then calling the business economically unviable when that is the sole reason that it would be so is as insulting as it is laughable.

Either someone is illegally using electricity from my meter (it is a shared building), or BES has literally quadrupled my energy costs in under six months, which would be completely unsustainable for ANY business, let alone one as small as Nanika.

I have attached several monthly bills and invoice summaries, etc. for your examination, as well as a small flyer I put on my window in September, before I received the first startling invoice. As you can imagine, Brexit and the post-COVID economy have driven my cost of goods up significantly. Literally every item I need to buy in order to make food for my customers has increased in cost in the past 12 months. I have raised my prices by 50p from their 2020 levels, and my profits are significantly decreased. Some months I even lose money, but it has always been more important to me that normal people can afford a good dinner in this neighbourhood and that they can count on the restaurant being there for that purpose.

A main at Nanika is £9. A bun is £4. A person making minimum wage can get dinner for the cost of an hour's work. Apparently I should be charging £13 for the thing you can hold in your hand and £34 for a chicken katsu, if we're going by the BES maths, which would be wildly out of the reach of my neighbours, friends, and fellow Govanhill residents.

If these figures from BES are accurate then Nanaika must close immediately. It cannot absorb the cost of their naked greed. Obviously the energy consumption would increase with regular weekly operation, and if it miraculously costs almost a thousand pounds just for the shop to sit empty what would it cost to actually sell food?

There is no possible way that BES could need to increase costs by 400% to cover their expenses unless they are simply willing to let people literally die to maintain or exceed their already astronomical profit margins, which would be repugnant from a restaurant but should be literally illegal from a utility company. The difference between Nanika and a utility company is that nobody needs Nanika to keep their house warm in the winter, or to keep medical equipment running for the sick and dying. They don't need buns to see when the sun sets at 3:30pm, and to keep their groceries from spoiling.

I hope to hell there has been a mistake, or that some illegal activity is to blame rather than just corporate greed and government complicity pairing to literally kill off some citizens for money this year, because while I have been here for ten years and tried my best to improve the city/country I cannot and will not contribute to that sort of behaviour. It is morally bankrupt and disgusting, and can have no positive consequences for the UK and its actual people going forward.

Please review the attached, and let me know your thoughts.

Thank you,

Justin Valmassoi"

Just in case you were wondering why we're closed this weekend and every weekend thereafter, that is the letter I sent to my MP this morning, but I already know the answer. There is no cap on commercial electricity, so the energy company doubled my bill in April and then doubled THAT in October, and will continue to do so while making record profits, just like every other privately-owned utility company in the UK because nobody will stop them. I work 70 hours a week. I have been doing that for years. I will not do it so that BES can make more per week than I do while thousands of their customers will literally die this winter in shivering poverty. Fuck them and fuck those that created the situation, and continue to allow it to progress. And fuck the "small businesses" that lie about their energy woes, and the "community interest companies" whose entire business model is apparently based on borrowing money from the taxpayer, and somehow still charge triple what any other business charges for the same items. I will not be holding a crowdfunder so the community can pay twice. Without Nanika I will not be able to afford my visa renewal either, so what I really need is someone to take my pet when they deport me, as airlines do not allow lizards to fly on them. Believe me, I have checked.

This country is broken. I came here because mine was too, and I thought the people here were smarter, but it turns out they were just on a slower path to the same point.

I have not always enjoyed my job, but I have always enjoyed my customers, and seeing/feeding you week after week, year after year. You are the best, and I wish you all a tolerable Christmas and independence from Westminster's insane policies in the future.



Thanks, Govanhill. Happy holidays, etc.

The slave admires the tyrant because the last is what the first would be.

"He surveys himself all over in the glass of royalty. The swelling bloated self-importance of the one is the very counter-part and ultimate goal of the abject servility of the other. But both hate mankind for the same reason. because a respect for humanity is a diversion to their inordinate self-love, and the idea of the general good is a check to the gross intemperance of passion."

As we wind down 2022, a year I think everyone but the utility and gas companies will remember as one of the worst in their lifetimes, let us abandon the trappings of rote behaviour and surrender to WHIMSY, not for the spark of joy that might illumine those pitch-hued corridors of your guarded hearts but as an experiment to test the strength of those bonds forged by that which is stronger than twined steel and more steadfast than the mightiest of ancient oaks: FLAVOUR. Perchance the flavour of a cauliflower hash brown bun, whose yielding dough and alarmingly savoury layer of chilli crisp mayo surrender to the pressure of your grinning jaws and yield up their crispy, well-seasoned bounty. Maybe to the flavour of numbing Sichuan noodles whose hidden cashews proivide a rich textural contrast to the soft, pork-dappled noodles atop them. Does the flavour of kedgeree that you can hold in your hand do more to move the blood through your sluggish veins? How about the spicy crackle and finger-staining bliss of a salt & chilli aubergine?

Regardless, all of these are valid possibilities at one of Nanika's famous MYSTERY SALES.

And a MYSTERY SALE is all we are doing tonight because Cilijn is away to a funeral and I am too overburdened to run the whole place by myself, but still have to run the whole place by myself because there are so many bills to pay and no other way to pay them! That's the joy of being alive right now! Inflated bills from companies that are absolutely rolling in money! Corporate interests that threaten to sue the government if they try to cap their greed! Amazing! You have to marvel at the illusion that anyone else is actually in charge of the country!

So come on down (or call; you can and probably should call ahead) to Nanika and get yourself a bag of WHIMSY, containing one main, one bun, and two sides for only £16.00! That's it! That's all we're selling! And you don't know what's in it, just that it's food, and that it's good! That's the MYSTERY!

ETC!

De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio.

I am really struggling to stay afloat, either financially or emotionally. If it were possible to take a day off we would not be open tonight, nor this entire understaffed weekend, but I am forced to not only work but work fourteen or fifteen hour days at an untenable pace so you should probably buy some katsu, etc since it is there and in need of purchase.

Speaking of needing purchase, have you seen society's collective fingers desperately seeking some as we all slide merrily into the abyss of our own complacent acceptance of moral bankruptcy? I can't quite figure out why we're struggling against what we so obviously allowed to happen, both in insidious, small ways and in blindingly bright explosions of stupidity whose afterimages have yet to fade. It would be fascinating, if we could afford the illumination necessary to examine it.

So come on down to our Cilijn-less weekend of migraines and merriment. We can briefly discuss my birthday, which was very eventful in comparison to my usual complete lack of social activity. You will have to speak loudly, though. In my advanced years it becomes harder and harder to hear you.

Poultry providers for poverty prisoners.

"How matter presses on me! what stubborn things are facts! How inexhaustible are nature and art!"

Despite an exhausting week of melancholia and mild injury it is time once again to feed you, the eight people who read this thing (and the two hundred who have no idea it exists but see the lights on and are drawn to them like moths with debit cards). We have all the things on the menu so you don't have to keep asking. We are not one of those hipster places that run out of their shit every shift and open whenever they feel like it. We are the place that has been here for five years and has always adhered to its opening hours, and I have tried to never run out of anything unless it is a special, which by its very nature would be a limited item and subject to the whims of fate and scarcity.

Speaking of specials, they are the same as last week, with the caveat that the Red Chicken Curry is actually on the menu full-time but has been omitted from the printed version because of my own failings as a menu-artist. We have so much Red Curry. Please buy it. We need the space for other foods.

The only thing that was neither painful nor disappointing between Saturday night and Thursday morning was watching Tár, starring Cate Blanchett, twice (and also Three Days of the Condor starring Faye Dunaway, the Cate Blanchett of the 1970s, once). Tár is phenomoenal, and you should watch it, twice.

So when you have finished with that, or if you find yourself peckish at some point during its expansive yet very engrossing runtime, there is a little bun shack/noodle hut just at the end of Victoria Road which for some bizarre reason has dynamite (and huge) cannoli for like ... £3.50. Come grab some dinner, and lift my sunken spirits with your presence as I lift yours with pork mince.

Következő!

It is amazing what not working 9 am to 10pm four days a week and another 20 hours on the "off" days will do for one's productivity. NANIKA is all cleaned up and fully stocked (save for some spring onions, the eternal job, the bane of our existence, etc), I have run something like 35km in the past eight days, and after 704 consecutive mornings I have finally finished the Hungarian Duolingo course (although I still cannot speak/read anything more complicated than a children's book, and not a very good children's book at that). And now it is time to once again fire up the pasta boiler and sharpen the cleavers to provide you, the few remaining people who can afford to live in the south side, the katsu and/or noodles you have so long been without.

It does occur to me that it is mid-November, which means that there is only a month or so before we have to close for Christmas holidays. I was hoping to get some dinner parties happening, but that's not a lot of time, and you will likely be even more broke than usual this holiday season due to the almost pathological greed of the energy companies and the completely fabricated helplessness of our laughably inept leaders to stop their donors from literally killing the electorate. Woooooooohooooo! Perhaps we'll squeeze one in. Keep an eye on this space for details.

I hope you all remember the drill. Phone line opens at 3pm. You call, order, and select a time between 5pm and 9pm to collect your dinner. We get you as close to that time as possible. You arrive and pay the person who is not covered in sauce and oil burns, and he/she hands you your bag of hot food with a pleasant smile and some sort of chat (and maybe even eye contact, a completely unheard-of experience in this neighbourhood). Rinse, repeat. First call, first to get a slot. The later you call, the longer you might have to wait, depending on what you want and how busy we are. Then again, maybe we can squeeze you in quickly. Who knows. It's a crapshoot. Walk-ups are also welcome, although much like the previous scenario it is possible you will have to go for a walk and come back later. Or go to the Star Bar and grab a beer. Or sit in your car and have a wank. Whatever floats your boat. It's your life. I just work here.

See you soon, Govanhill and surrounding area residents. Thursday to Saturday, back under the extractor, deaf and crying, where I belong.

Get a touch of class this Thursday.

There is a lot of prep required to get this old hunk of noodle bar up and running again. Also, it needs the internet to run the basement sex dungeon Spotify playlist that one of our Chechen dominatrices playfully titled "slappers" (plus the air fresheners down there are on a digital timer that comes with a super helpful app you can access from your phone), so it will be next Thursday, the 10th of November, before you can stampede to your/our old stomping grounds and fill bag after bag with Chicken Katsu and steaming Sichuan Noodles. Meanwhile, the children and I will be hard at work testing fuses and selling cocaine to ensure that everything is tip-top and ready to go for your arrival. Any specials will be announced slightly before we reopen, but the full menu is available somewhere below this post in another idiotic post I made earlier.

See you soon, back where we belong.

Their fingers scrabble for purchase as the earth yaws, but find little in the smooth and ergonomic lines of their illuminated keyboards.

It is unlikely that we will be open this weekend, given the staggering amount of food that needs to be prepared. I had forgotten how big the actual Nanika menu is. There are hundreds of tubs crowding every conceivable horizontal surface, currently empty but destined to hold various sauces, pickled vegetables, meat mince, noodles, vegetables, and powders. Just an absurd amount of tubs. They're like ... everywhere. So we will begin prep tomorrow, and work through Thursday night. If it seems feasible to open on Friday then we will. If not, we will possibly do a Sunday night trial run for the newbies, or just patch it until next weekend when we can properly serve you, all tubs and hands on deck.

That is the tentative re-opening menu. As always, something will be unavailable along the supply chain, an electrical appliance will explode, or or someone will trip and spill a 25 liter tub of noodles down The Hole to form some sort of Tim Burton-esque art project, necessitating last-minute alterations to the available offerings, but it will definitely hew along these lines. And, as we are incapable of doing less when MORE is an option, there will be specials as well, which we will post in due course.

This weekend or next. Keep an eye on this here space for details.

Not long now.

The digital tongue, forever forked, weaving a tapestry to drape over unsightly reality.

JOIN US ONE LAST WEEKEND (and Thursday, which is like ... an honorary weekend day depending on how employed you are) DOWN AT THE BUN SHACK. We have all the hottest human food items! Buns! Wakame! Korean Taco Bowls! So many aubergines you will shit your pants! From excitement, not food poisoning!

We have POTATO SALAD for the spice averse! Black Pepper Sausages! Red Chicken Curry! Cannoli the size of your penis! We hope! I have just been informed we will not have the cannoli until Friday! That's BREAKING NEWS! Come on down to the BUN SHACK we have BREAKING NEWS!

We hope you have enjoyed this smaller, cuter version of NANIKA, complete with things humans enjoy, such as Kedgeree Buns! Salt & Chilli Tofu! Actual conversation! A Dutch girl! ZERO MURDERS (a new record)! Kimchi Noodle Salad! Etc!



Four more days until we disappear into the wind, like a whisper of a better possible future, forgotten as soon as it is spoken aloud.

If the poor believe that their condition can be improved by judicious entry into the systems of power, who stands in genuine opposition to those systems?

It's all in The Book, as my religious aunt used to say whenever I had some foolish youthful question like "Why is the sky blue?" or "When can I eat?" or "Why did you handcuff me to this radiator and why is it so dark down here?"

I am alone all day/night, so apologies in advance if I start to take your order and then bolt over the counter, knocking you to the pavement in a breathless rush as I vault through the hatch and sprint down Allison Street into the wet night air, never to be seen again by man nor beast.

In that event, I give you full permission to raid the fridges and take home whatever cannoli filling or pork products you find, lest they eventually spoil and go to waste.

The suns sets on the shack of steam.

Last day of the week for buns and bullshit.

Specials disappearing fast, so get your potato salads and cannoli while you can. We also have a boatload of red curry at the moment, so if you could order that it would really free up some fridge space.

"When the seasons circle sideways out of turn, and words don't speak just fall across the carpet ..."

Is the purpose of the artist in 2022 to write grants? Is that the burning need for expression? The pressure to commune that demands release is neatly double-spaced obeisance to the money tap?

There is more genuine art in the decorative choices of an average immigrant's flat than the collective creational drive of the southside arts community because one is genuine and the other is so immured in bureaucracy that it cannot, regardless of eventual outcome, be considered true.



The voice of revolution cannot be funded through the engines of oppression, and what you create for Mammon will be critiqued by Maat.

Also, you can have a free mango cannoli if you buy £30 or more worth of food today.

You know, as a treat.

Alle Nachrichten, die druckreif sind.

That was a fine, fine Friday. I give every potential new employee the whole spiel about how all our customers are regulars and the best regulars in the city at that, because we are normal people selling selling good food to normal people who want to eat it, and there is no upselling or greed from our end and thus no mistrust nor entitlement from theirs (and because we got rid of all the assholes way back in 2018, leaving only the cream of the customer crop).
Still, it's always amusing to see someone who thought you were giving a corporate induction speech have to stand by and watch while twenty people in a row come up and have lengthy, animated conversations about twenty completely different topics, everyone cursing and laughing and being normal and open and honest, all while Korean Taco Bowls and buns by the hundreds are being assembled, more than half of them saying some variant of "I'll have the usual," then frolicking off into the moderate sunshine with a bag of lunch, leaving me to go, "See, I told you."

This business exists as a functioning testament to the fact that you do not have to pay someone to optimise your search engine results and you do not have to desperately try to make TikTok videos of yourself where you basically say you'll suck some dick if only someone will buy your product(s), and there is no need to pay someone to take arty photos of food that will NOT look like that when the customer gets it, nor do you even need a sign on your own shop that says what you are.

People have been selling things to other people for a couple millenia, and the modern tactics are not the ideal. Your participation only really benefits the systems we all hate, and in the end it's the customer who suffers, and since all you small business types are customers somewhere else, you should probably ask why you're doing things that you wouldn't want done to you when you're on the other side of the till.



Small business is meant to exist in opposition to large corporate interests and their predatory behaviour. We are meant to provide an alternative, better example.

If you're just doing all the same shit but on a smaller scale, what does that say about you? And how does it serve the public, of which you are a part?

Stop worrying about your branding and start thinking about your customers. Chances are, they are awesome people once you stop viewing them as revenue.