Table talk
Was it X-ray specs or the VPL?
Diners at Anglo-Persian restaurant Dish Dash in London's West End will find themselves presented with an unusual hors d'oeuvre while waiting to be seated. As a promotional tool, owner Hugh Crossley has decided to give out black G-strings customised with the restaurant's logo. The idea came to Crossley as he noticed the fashion for the undergarment among his female customers sitting on the restaurant's benches.
Mane topic of discussion JD Wetherspoon's shaggy-haired chairman Tim Martin is spending £40,000 on anti-euro posters and beer mats which will appear in all his pubs for the next two months. While insisting this was not a political campaign, but that the single currency is purely an economic issue, he added: "Because there's no music in our pubs we want to give our customers something to talk about." Asked if he would be standing on an anti-euro political platform in the event of a referendum, he replied: "What? With this haircut?"
A bit off course for Young's brewery Police were called to a hotel in New Zealand last week to remove a ram from the lift. Security staff called the police after terrified guests spotted the ram in the lift on the fifth floor of the Rydges Queenstown hotel in Southland. The beast was taken to a nearby farm. General manager Troy Cuthbertson said: "It must have been someone who had a few too many to drink. I don't know where they got the ram."
Ah well, if knees must The Montrose restaurant in Stockport, Cheshire, faced a serious staff shortage when three waitresses left to go to university. That was until chef Kelly McAllister had the bright idea of dressing his waiters in kilts. He said: "Six months ago we couldn't give the jobs away. Now every spotty youth in town wants to come and work for us." This surge of interest is due mainly to the female attention the kilted staff are attracting. Now McAllister would like to recruit some waitresses as the atmosphere is becoming too "laddish".
Listed status for building that's knocking on a bit A sex hotel in Chile has been given listed status. The Fireflies hotel is in an impressive old colonial building in La Florida, but the owners are unhappy because they must now get planning permission for any alterations. The hotel rents rooms by the hour to couples who still live with their parents or have nowhere else to go. The town's mayor said: "To be honest, having a seedy motel operating in one of our most historic buildings is a little bit embarrassing."
Better look to our laurels Some embarrassment also at Caterer last week when we referred to the annual awards of the Good Hotel Guide as the Caesar awards. What we should have realised, of course, is that the awards do not have some obscure link to the Roman statesman, but are named after the legendary hotelier C‚sar Ritz, and spelled accordingly. Apologies to the guide and the late Monsieur Ritz.
