Ah yes, the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rivals.

It’s the perfect sentiment for Caterer’s annual awards bash, the Cateys, where hospitality’s heavyweights gather each year at the Grosvenor House hotel in London to see which of them will emerge victorious.

But don’t take my word for it. Watch our Cateys report on Caterersearch TV.

In the first week of England’s smoking ban it was claimed the action could save as many as 600 workers’ lives a year.

Although you’d think that would be good enough to silence the critics, a few diehards in the pub trade are fighting on and defying the ban.

Still, if Greene King one of the nation’s biggest pub operators can get on with it, which they did by delivering record results and a positive analysis of the impact of the smoking ban, shouldn’t we as well?

Margaret Hodge completed newly-installed Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s tourism reshuffle and Aramark pulled off a major coup with the £15m a year deal to cater at the BBC, which was previously held by Eurest.

But Eurest owner Compass Group took it on the chin and won itself a major school meals contract in East Sussex.

Still, deal of this week – and one suspects many weeks to come -  is the eye watering £10b-plus that private equity company and Center Parcs owner Blackstone has coughed up for Hilton Hotels.

Against that the sale of Hotel du Vin and Malmasion after Vector’s collapse comes across as rather provincial  and the launch of Yotel at Gatwick airport near London as positively cute.

With everyone going Green it was fast food giants McDonald’s turn this week with news they plan to convert their entire delivery fleet to “green fuel” by the end of the year.

Guaranteed to turn the air blue though is Gordon Ramsay who is off to France to give the nation of food lovers a taste of his Kitchen Nightmares show.

And it’s also got pretty heated in the case of the copycat chef in the US.

Quote of the week:  “All chefs are magpies and take ideas and inspiration from one another.” Paul Heathcote questions the New York restaurateur suing her ex-sous chef for allegedly copying her menu and restaurant.