Table Talk
Time, please - drink up or she'll sing Angry drinkers are staging a protest to stop Charlotte Church from singing in her parents' new pub. Locals at the Robin Hood in Pontcanna, Cardiff, have signed a petition calling for the millionaire teenage diva not to use the pub as a showcase for her talents. Alarm bells started ringing when her parents recently snapped up a 25-year lease on the bar where their daughter first belted out her favourite songs.
It's never too late to put things straight
It's the oldest correction we've ever had. Sharp-eyed reader Ann Manno found an error in an archive news item from a 1944 issue of The Caterer and Hotel Keeper. Last week she contacted us to put the record straight concerning a story about her grandfather. Loreto Santarelli had worked for the Savoy group in Britain for 30 years. In 1940, when Italy joined the war, he was interned along with many other Italian hoteliers. In error, we wrote that Santarelli was shipped to Canada on a boat called the Arandora Star. In fact, he was interned on the Isle of Man for eight months before being released and returning to the Savoy hotel. Sadly, he died of a heart attack at the age of 57.
Making a meal of text messaging
TGI Friday's, the Whitbread-owned restaurant and bar chain, has introduced a text-messaging game which gives guests the chance to redeem the cost of the meal they've just had. Guests take part in "Play your Bill" by texting a number found at the top of their bill. Each Friday and Saturday night, one lucky group of diners wins back the full cost of their meal, while runners-up get back half the bill or a free dessert.
You just don't know who you'll bump into
Mint Leaf, a new restaurant and bar in London's Haymarket, is issuing its waiters with night-vision goggles to serve guests in absolute darkness for one night only. On Saturday (27 November) about 50 of the capital's singletons will meet and mingle at Mint Leaf for cocktails before plunging into total darkness to grope their way through a finger food buffet. The Dinner in the Dark event is the brainchild of events company Cosmo Party, and has proved a big hit in New York.