Table talk
A lesson in food hygiene
On a trip to the ladies, a customer at a Swedish branch of a well-known global burger chain was perplexed to find the toilet seats missing. On passing the kitchen she was shocked to see a worker loading the seats into the dishwasher along with kitchen utensils. Health inspectors were alerted, according to a report in the town of Arvika's local paper, and the company admitted it had made a mistake - had it forgotten to load the loo brushes as well?
Santa's little helper
At the end of a beard-grabbing, hair-pulling and nose-pinching day, Santas in London's West End stores will really deserve a break. That's why the Westbury hotel in New Bond Street is launching a Father Christmas Happy Hour from 15 December between 5.30pm and 6.30pm. Head barman Ludovic Borghi will be dishing out free seasonal merriment in the shape of cinnamon, lychee, mango and raspberry Bellinis.
At last, the recipe for that legendary sandwich
Eyebrows will be raised, much like the corners of old British Rail sandwiches, at a new nostalgic exhibition on the old nationalised rail system. A 30-year-old document has emerged outlining precise instructions on how to prepare and fill the legendary BR sandwich. Two-thirds of the butter and at least one-third of the filling had to be placed along the diagonal line where the sandwich was to be cut to make it appear better filled. No more than 2/3oz of luncheon meat or sardines were to be used in fillings, cheese was limited to 3/4oz and gherkins to 1/4oz. For egg and cress sandwiches, a single punnet of cress had to be divided into 12 to cover a dozen rounds, according to the memo on display at the National Railway Museum in York. Still, despite their reputation, British Rail was selling more than eight million sandwiches a year by 1993, its last full year as a publicly owned company.
Placing Britain at Europe's soft centre
Experts have been scratching their heads over statistics suggesting we are gorging ourselves on more chocolate than ever. Market researcher Datamonitor reported that Britons ate a record 24lb of chocolate each last year, nearly one-third of the European market. But Mike Webber, director of the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Alliance (BCCCA), lamented: "We wish it was so." He said Datamonitor had polled a rather selective sample of the public, whereas the BCCCA had used the tonnage of chocolate sold divided by the population, and with this method confirmed that we actually came in fifth place behind the Irish, Danes, Germans and - the biggest chocoholics in Europe - the Austrians.
He may have a star, but he's always learning
It must be a long time since Michelin-starred chef Marcus Wareing was described as a trainee, but that is what the BBC managed to do when featuring him with Gordon Ramsay on its Web site last week. Ramsay was pictured with "trainee chef" Wareing alongside a report of Ramsay's arrest on drink-driving charges last week. Police later dropped the charges due to a procedural error.
