Table talk

Ramsay's sommelier shows bottle

There are those who regard even crossing the threshold of a three-Michelin-starred restaurant as something only for the ludicrously rich or the financially insane. But how about the further gamble of saying to the sommelier, "Choose some nice wine for me", which is what one of London's top restaurant PRs, Maureen Mills, said in Gordon Ramsay's restaurant when she took two friends there last week. Mills asked for half a bottle of white and half a bottle of red. Both were good wines, so no problem about quality, but there was a bit of a shock when the bill arrived: one of the halves was £125, the other £120.

All shook up over a Thai

Manchester's E-Sarn restaurant has developed an intriguing twist on the East-West fusion idea so popular in the Antipodes. As its diners tuck into their green Thai curry, proprietor Peanporn Beddard - also known as Wendy - likes to treat them to a feast of hits from her idol, Elvis Presley. Rather confusingly, she serves up the songs decked out as Shirley Bassey because she feels a Thai woman looks "funny" posing as the Memphis rocker. A local rag summed up this cultural melting pot with the headline "Wok and roll with the King and I".

We have ways of making you laugh

Welsh complaints about Ann Robinson's tongue-in-cheek remarks have certainly staked Wales's claim to inherit the mantle of European Nation Lacking a Sense of Humour from the Germans. Especially now it has been declared that, yes, the Germans do have a sense of humour. In a refreshingly anti-PC ruling, the Advertising Standards Authority has thrown out calls for the Shepherd Neame brewery to tone down advertising for its Spitfire Ale. Slogans such as "Votz zo funny about zeez posters" and "Downed all over Kent, just like the Luftwaffe" apparently drew accusations of racism, but the ASA ruled the ads were just a typical example of British humour.

A pilau of the church

The way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but a Stockport cleric has found the digestive organ a viable avenue to his soul, too. John McKae, vicar of St Mary's church in Manchester, has boosted the number of posteriors on pews by taking his parishioners out for curry nights - a tactic aided by the church's location in the city's Rusholme "curry mile" and one that usually attracts more than 30 churchgoers. "It's just a great night out with no prayers or hymns - but they're still helping to build up my congregation," enthused McKae.

Anti-climax for Hadcock-Mackay

When Tim Hadcock-Mackay, managing director of hotel consortium Grand Heritage, was shown last year trying to run his 57-room house without his seven staff for Channel 4's Can You Live Without? series, the episode was a staggering success. So much so that Channel 4 decided to show it again last night ahead of the new Can You Live Without? series, which begins next week. Unfortunately, the press failed to pick up on the change of schedule, which meant that television and radio magazines, instead of listing the repeat episode, gave details of the first episode of the new series, entitled Can You Live Without Sex? "Those poor viewers will have tuned in expecting to watch a programme about sex and they will have got me instead," said Hadcock-Mackay. "They must have been devastated."