You would have thought making chips was as easy as boiling an egg, after all drunk Scots have been burning their houses down from time immemorial by setting fire to their chip pans after getting home from the pub.

Heston Blumenthal obviously didn't think so, and has now introduced to a bemused world the complexity of his famed triple-cooked chips. This basically involves adding an extra cooking stage in which the chips are par-boiled in water until they are almost falling apart, followed by a thorough drying and then the more usual two-stage frying process.

One thing not always thoroughly discussed are the best varieties of potato to use for chips - and the best fats in which to fry them. Heston uses specially-grown Golden Wonder but recommends Charlotte or Belle de Fontenay (and occasionally enthuses about Arran Victory) for home use and always to choose 'drier' potatoes for best results.
Heston uses groundnut oil for purity and lack of odour, but also suggests trying rendered beef fat, goose or duck fat for their flavour. Indeed McDonalds' PA! famed french fry flavour is supposed to have come more from their use of beef tallow, as from their choice of Russet Burbank potatoes.
Good 'ol Delia recommends 'mealy-textured' potato varieties such as King Edwared, Desirée, Majestic or Maris Piper cooked in lard! or groundnut oil.

To save you looking, I have already scoured the interwebs for chip advice and it seems older potatoes will make a better chip, go for floury varieties such as King Edwards, Maris Piper, Desirée, then Pentland Dell, Rooster, Sante and finally for no-name versions choose larger 'baking' potatoes.

A couple of personal notes:
You really need a chip basket so you can hoik the chips out as soon as they are done. If you try to scoop them out with a slotted spoon it will take too long and you'll end up with a load of half-burnt chips.
It's up to you whether you fancy leaving the peel on your chips - I quite like that, but most of these professional chefs seem to be peeling their spuds.
As to thickness, you can cut normal chips that are anything from ½"-1" thick, or go for real french fries that are only ¼" thick. I found the thinner fries to be more difficult to cook to a good crisp - it seems that the increased surface area really cools the oil down and required two, three or even four re-fries from 200°C to really brown them. And in the end they're just not that great flavour-wise being all outside, and very little soft fluffy inner.
You can also use a simplified version of Heston's triple-cooked method (skipping the soaking and cooling) to produce magnificent deep-fried potato wedges too.

On the science of chip cooking:
I actually had good success adding bicarbonate of soda to my fat chips' pre-cooking water to break up their surfaces and provide plenty of crunch, though you have to watch them like a hawk to avoid overcooking or they prematurely fall apart.
Alternatively J.Kenzi López-Alt recommends par-boiling McDonalds-style fries in (heavily salted) vinegared water to prevent them breaking up, yielding fries with tiny, bubbly, blistered surfaces that stay crisp even when cool.
I guess you pays your money and makes your choice!