Table talk

Yes, Doctor, my dinner bit me back

There's nothing fresher than live eel, but discerning chefs might think twice about buying the delicacy still wriggling after hearing the unfortunate tale of a Hong Kong office worker. Yang Li was on the bus going home when an eel he had bought for his supper jumped out of his bag and clamped its powerful jaws on his hand. Fellow passengers beat the slippery creature unconscious and Yang was taken to hospital for stitches to a deep bite wound.

Hawk-eyed pest controllers put pigeons to flight

Flocks of pigeons perching on the balconies of the De Vere Grand Harbour hotel in Southampton were giving staff a headache until they heard about a unique pest control service. Two magnificent birds of prey now carry out fortnightly patrols around the hotel, making sure the building is out of bounds to the local pigeon population. The two Harris hawks are owned by Essex-based Nature's Way Pest Control, and have proved effective at other hotels, shopping centres and football grounds, including Arsenal's Highbury stadium, by scaring away the pigeons without hurting them.

There's a name for that kind of thing

Thanks are due to Kit Chapman's Brazz chain of restaurants for giving us a suitable technical term for people who end up in jobs appropriate to their names. Inspired by the recent appointment of Pierre-Yves Menu as the new Brazz manager in Exeter, the chain's latest newsletter informs us that this is an example of "nominative determinism". Now you know.

And this, madam, is our presidential dungeon

A Romanian prison, where former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu spent part of his youth, is to be turned into a hotel. Ceausescu was imprisoned in Doftana from 1936 to 1938, after being convicted of spreading communist propaganda, an illegal activity at the time. The new hotel will cost about £65 a night and a disco will be built next to it. During Ceausescu's rule, the prison was transformed into a museum, where school children were able to see where "evil capitalists" had imprisoned their glorious leader.

Rubbing a wound into the salt

An Indian waiter has been admitted to hospital in shock after he was sacked for serving salty coffee he hadn't prepared. Bhag Singh, who's worked in a school canteen in Uttaranchal for 36 years, says kitchen staff made it. Indian newspaper Sify News says that the headmaster of Wynberg Allen School in Mussoorie is refusing to reinstate him. Non-teaching staffs at schools in the area have now gone on strike in protest at the sacking. The president of the College and School Workers Union, Kedar Singh Chauhan, says that the strike will continue until Singh gets his job back. He is also demanding compensation for Singh for the psychological damage he suffered.

Putting the "ill" into "vanilla"

An ice-cream company has launched a range of alcopop-style ice-creams that include gin-and-orange and rum-and-blackcurrant flavours. The cool snacks, called Cream Breeze, contain 5% of each spirit per tub. Pete Hartle, who helped devise the desserts, said: "It's possible to get quite tipsy on this but only by eating four or five tubs in one go. After that, you'll be feeling ill - not because of the alcohol, but because you've eaten so much ice-cream." Fascinating.