Table talk

13 January 2000
Table talk

Ah, but do they serve Watney's Red Barrel?

Le Gavroche may no longer have three Michelin stars, but its general air of luxury is such that it has been said that no other London restaurant makes its diners feel as rich. Many of them are indeed rather well off, of course, which is just as well if they are enjoying the restaurant's special celebration menu in 2000, because it costs a thumping £2,000 for four. Admittedly, this includes some top-notch wines - Latour '82, d'Yquem '88 and a glass of 1963 Croft among them - but it is undeniably pricey, a fact about which the restaurant is magnificently unembarrassed. "We would not want to be too cheap," said maître d'hôtel Silvano Giraldin suavely. Quite.

They probably even put Coke in it
The Hotel Palace in Berlin rather spoiled some recent publicity about the return of "steadfast Scotch drinkers" to its new bar by saying that "suddenly guests materialised who could tell the difference between a Drambuie and a Glenmorangie". Well, they wouldn't have to be connoisseurs to do that, as Drambuie isn't Scotch. It's as difficult as telling the difference between a cup of tea and a banana.

So what's wrong with Love Shack?*
The industry's reputation for poor pay and long hours won't be helped by the notice spotted behind the bar at my local Scruffy Murphy's, the ever-so-authentic Irish pub. "Do you have to work for the minimum wage?" it asks. "Do you have to listen to
Mustang Sally every Friday and Saturday and Love Shack* every Wednesday? Do you have to work hard all night and try and remain smiley throughout? Do you have to deal with people who can't speak, let alone stand upright? Do you finish your day job then start your night job and not get home till 3am? Do you have to work with Scott? … Spare a thought, spare a tip." I presume the notice was unofficial.

Happy New Year again… and again… and…
It's not just the numerically accurate who will be celebrating the new century next January rather than this. In Ethiopia, they are waiting another eight years because, according to the Ethiopian calendar, it is now 1992. The Orthodox church there is relaxed about the difference between itself and the rest of the Christian world, commenting with serene imperiousness that other churches appear to have "made a mistake". This is all good news for Ethiopian hoteliers, who will get three bites at the celebration cherry: this year (for most of the world), next year (for the pedants) and in eight years' time (for the Ethiopians). And, multicultural as they are, they also get the Islamic new year every 353 days or so.

Left by someone who got blind drunk, maybe*
The petty pilferings of light-fingered hotel guests may keep the housekeeping team on their toes but the left-behinds of the butter-fingered can really stretch their imaginations, suggests the latest survey by
Where* travel magazine. Heading its list of unusual lost property were items more likely to be seen in an Ann Summers brochure, including the blow-up doll dumped by one guest at London's Sheraton Park Tower, and the whip found in a bedroom at One Aldwych. More poignant tales could be woven around the iguana abandoned at Los Angeles' Disneyland hotel, or the wedding gown discarded at the Adolphus in Dallas. But some bedroom debris defies all attempts at illumination - certainly, the human eyes reportedly left in New York's Essex House indicate a leap into the twilight zone.

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