Louisa Young just has to vent.

The food tastes unpleasant, is over-processed, pretends to be healthy and makes you fat and spotty.

Of all the things I have against McDonald's the worst must be the omnipresence, because without that I wouldn't be forced to think about it. I am; we are. Coming up the stairs at Oxford Street tube station you notice, beneath your feet, on the vertical surfaces between the horizontal steps, red and yellow ads for McDonald's. Waiting for the bus, a giant portrait of a greasy breakfast substitute looms within the bus shelter, making it unappealing to lean against. There they are on every bandwagon, exploiting every weakness. The adverts on television are perhaps the most offensive, because they are actually rather well-made and amusing. Which makes it worse. The reality is that the food tastes unpleasant, is over-processed, pretends to be healthy and makes you fat and spotty. As Mr Justice Bell, in the McLibel case, said: "McDonald's advertising, promotions and booklets have pretended to a positive nutritional benefit which McDonald's food did not match." I worked at McDonald's for a week. Every night I had to bathe and wash my hair to get the smell of ersatz meat and fat off me. I probably spent as much on hot water and shampoo as I earnt (£55 for the week). I will never forget the impatient shout of "You girl! Mop floor!" with which I was greeted every hour or so. Actually I prefer it to the phoney smarm you get as a customer. We were reminded, as staff, that children are the ones who bring the families in to spend. The manual says: "Ronald loves McDonald's and McDonald's food. And so do children, because they love Ronald. You should do everything you can to appeal to children's love for Ronald and McDonald's". Also, some two thirds of McDonald's staff are teenagers. They are paid very little, and they tend to leave quickly (which makes it easier to pay them so little). The turnover during my stay was astounding. Most people left on Friday evening when they realised that their pay packet was hardly going to cover the night out they had dreamed of all week. So children are exploited by appealing to their "love" of a sinister, vulgar marketing device (children have no taste - that's one of their sweet vulnerabilities) and then exploited by low pay.

The ugliness of the fascias, the smell, the constant masquerading of what is pasty, tacky and nasty as bright, lovely and natural.

Campaigners Helen Steel and David Morris were sued for pointing out unpalatable things about the company, its business practices and environmental record, which McDonald's argue were false. The case, the longest-running in English history (two years), was held behind closed doors, with no jury to dispute the judge in his deliberations. McDonald's (turnover $30bn) won, and was awarded damages against the two jobless campaigners. I don't say unemployed because they were working extremely hard. Despite that result, I still think McDonald's is connected with pollution on many levels. The ugliness of the fascias, the smell, the constant masquerading of what is pasty, tacky and nasty as bright, lovely and natural. The pollution of education: since 1993 it has been offering schools something called "resource packs", which set children exercises such as identifying the word McNuggets and making up new words for Old McDonald had a farm, starting with the line "Old McDonald had a store". The DoE has arranged for McDonald's to sponsor the upcoming National Year of Reading, with, it hopes, free lunch boxes for children. If mine gets given one I am going to post it second class to David Blunkett. The one thing I like about McDonald's is that my child yells "Cows toe-nail gravy!" whenever she sees one of their signs. It may not be much, in the face of such blatant attempts at world domination, but it's something.