Table talk

Where All the shots hit the bar

PUB landlord Phil Curtis had his bar decked out with real grass for the televising of last week's England-Argentina game.

Professional turfers covered the 40ft x 12ft bar of the Bristol Hotel in Gloucester to give it an authentic look for the big match. Curtis even had goalposts erected and a penalty area marked out.

Maybe he should have invited David Batty and Paul Ince along for a bit of pre-match shooting practice…

She's a real dish, and no mistake

A recent article in Marie Claire magazine unveiled an ancient Japanese tradition, known as nyotaimori, that makes lap-dancing look positively tame.

Translating as "the adorned body of a woman", nyotaimori is the novel (or should that be navel?) art of serving sushi arranged on the naked body of a young geisha girl.

It seems that clients are prepared to pay thousands of pounds to eat sushi off one or more immobile human serving dishes in sessions that can drag on for up to nine hours.

Despite the potential perils of misdirected chopsticks, the female platters do seem to enjoy two perks. One is a basic wage of around £33 an hour - almost 10 times what UK workers can expect from the new minimum wage. And it seems their skin benefits considerably from the long exposure to fish oils.

Howler that cost £400,000

BREAK for the Border chief executive Roger Beaumont seemed pretty chuffed at the turnaround in profits at the group's Oxford Circus branch in London, previously named Howl at the Moon.

Before conversion into a Wild West-themed Break for the Border last summer, the restaurant is understood to have lost about £400,000 in a year, prompting Beaumont to nickname it Howl at the Bank.

The festival passed in a blur

Chefs and kitchen staff who are tucked away in cosy kitchens may wish to spare a thought for the vast army of caterers that coped with the mud-bath that was this year's Glastonbury rock festival.

Culinary consultant Richard McIntyre has. In a letter sent to this magazine, he enthuses: "Glastonbury food and bars continue to stand out way above anything else on this scale… quality, sensible prices and - despite the seas of mud - still served with a Glastonbury smile."

Need we ask what is behind that Glastonbury smile? I presume it wasn't the extra relish on the veggie burger - or maybe it was.

The latest in wild west themes?

Could West Belfast become Ireland's new tourist hot spot? Gerry Adams would like to think so.

With only one hotel and no B&B accommodation in his constituency, the Sinn Fein president recently joined the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in a bid to persuade residents to open their homes to paying guests.

Festivals, culture and the surrounding hills are attractions that Adams wants to focus on. Something tells me he has his work cut out.

So what can they use the loos for?

Maybe it's just an urban myth, but I hear that a restaurant owner has come up with a novel way of combating the problem of drug taking on his premises.

The gentleman, so the story goes, was getting fed up with highly paid supermodels coming in for a drink (without ordering a meal), then disappearing into the ladies where they were snorting cocaine off the rim of the toilets.

To stop this, the restaurateur smeared Vaseline around the porcelain, causing the cocaine to stick.