Table talk
Now that's what I call fresh honey
Bath restaurant the Moody Goose, which I recently reported as suffering from an invasion of bees, might care to take a tip from the Linton Cottage bed and breakfast in Abbotsbury, Dorset.
This establishment has built a glass-fronted miniature hive in its dining room for 5,000 of the blighters. And proprietor John Harman, for 20 years an avid apiarist, reports a "really busy" season.
"Guests who are frightened by insects don't need to see them, as they can be hidden behind a heavy curtain," he says. "You would only know they were there when they become agitated and buzz loudly." The bees, not the guests, I presume.
Ramsay gets Mezzo fortissimo
It's hard to believe that giant Gordon Ramsay is easily scared - except perhaps by a stint in the kitchens of London's Mezzo.
Ramsay recently swapped roles with Mezzo head chef John Torode. Torode got stuck in straight away at Ramsay's Aubergine, but for Ramsay the thought of dinner for 1,000 at Mezzo was daunting.
The task wasn't made any easier by the noise. Ramsay normally insists on quiet, so the combination of Mezzo's jazz band and the bedlam of the kitchen was in sharp contrast to his usual working day.
Bloody good decorations
Many strange things have been witnessed in hotel lobbies over the years. But giant pig's-blood rock paintings have not been among them - until now.
No, it's not the latest offering from Damien Hirst, but the vast 10m by 4m murals at the new Durban Hilton in South Africa, designed to mimic the country's ancient tribal cave paintings.
Artist Hazel Soan was also commissioned to paint four original pictures featuring bright-beaded Zulu head-dresses and costumes. All were then reprinted and hung in the hotel's 326 bedrooms.
But they're not bottom feeders
Table Talk has heard of one chef who has expressed his love of fish in a rather unique way.
Our man - let's call him Jones - has had a piranha tattooed on his backside. Don't ask how I know.
Pleading the fifth amendment
Rocco Forte made his feelings for Granada crystal clear during a recent interview at the Restaurant Show.
Asked bluntly what he thought of the company, Sirocco, as he's now sometimes known, regarded the questioner with incredulity and replied: "You don't seriously expect me to answer that, do you?"
Making a case for diversification
To Paris, where, among the many cafés providing services to the weary sightseer, one enterprising hot spot stands out.
The owners of La Taverne des Flandres have made the most of their unused space to diversify - looking after the suitcases of those travellers thwarted by the closure for security reasons of the left-luggage service at Gare du Nord.
With hungry and thirsty tourists queuing out of the door willing to pay Ffr10.30 for three hours' storage, it seems that business is in the bag.
Hardly an uplifting experience
Included in a book called The One Hundred Stupidest Things Ever Done is the tale of an English hotel employee asked to clean the lift. Asked why it took him four days to complete the task, the poor man later said: "There are 12 of them, one on each floor, and sometimes some of them aren't there."
