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Caterer & Hotelkeeper Magazine

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Table talk

Ben Walker
Thursday 31 July 2003 15:07

The chairman's on line 1, Big Bertha's on line 2

British workers make 15,000 calls to sex and chat lines from the workplace every hour. At an average of £1.50 a minute, these calls are costing British businesses more than £25m a year, according to BT research.

And who uses these dubious services the most? Hotel workers, along with financial advisers and car dealers, that's who. So, the next time you can't get through to your line manager, you'll know why.

Fifty Million Frenchmen can't be wrong, can they?

Former Groupe Chez Gérard deputy chairman Laurence Isaacson is embarking on a surprising new career, as a character actor. Remarkably, he has landed the lead non-singing role (a hotel owner) in Cole Porter's musical comedy Fifty Million Frenchmen, which opens in August in New York.

Seems that the one-time restaurateur won a place at RADA in his youth, but quit after being told he'd never make a juvenile lead.

"I suppose now my time has come," Isaacson told BBC Radio. "Hollywood beckons. Jim Broadbent and Marlon Brando had better watch out."

The name's Kent, County of Kent

You're more likely to associate James Bond with exotic locations such as the Bahamas, Monte Carlo and the Côte d'Azur but, surprisingly, tourism bosses are promoting Kent as "James Bond country".

Apparently, author Ian Fleming spent his weekends and holidays there and loved playing golf at Royal St George's in Sandwich, the venue of the recent Open Golf Championship.

In fact, Royal St George's, thinly disguised as the fictional Royal St Mark's, was the setting for the infamous golf game between Bond and the dastardly Auric Goldfinger.

Kent Tourism's new brochure includes tours which take in fictional sites from the Bond novels as well as Fleming's home, White Cliffs, in St Margaret's Bay.

Fleming, who was fond of the odd martini (shaken, not stirred) at the 19th hole, died of a heart attack at Royal St George's clubhouse.

Jings! What's next? Alcohol-free whisky?

Steven King, founder of bagel chain Oi! Bagel, receives a lot of sandwich fillings from suppliers keen to do business. But even he was nonplussed when a vegetarian haggis arrived on his desk.

What does it taste like? "It's rather like one of those bean burgers from Burger King," says King.

He's quite keen to use it, but not sure what to serve with it. Turkey? Perhaps, but then it wouldn't be vegetarian. To keep to a Scottish theme, how about smoked salmon? Maybe not.

It's a dilemma he's still wrestling with. Any suggestions?

Sounds like a good excuse for leaving without paying

Strange goings-on in London's Charlotte Street...

Slightly squiffy diners using the gents' toilets at pizza joint Zizzi do so at their own risk. One colleague took the wrong door out of the lav and found himself in a cellar with the door locking shut behind him. He eventually spotted an escape route up a winding staircase but, once at restaurant level again, discovered he was not in Zizzi at all, but round the corner at upmarket Spanish restaurant Fino.

This caused much confusion to himself and Fino's waitresses, and much mirth among his fellow diners when he finally returned to a now cold pizza.

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