John Whiting

I hope it also welcomes those who aren't hungry.

Haan may perhaps be forgiven a bit of journalistic exaggeration, without which his diatribe wouldn't have been published. It's well documented that pubs are closing at an accellerating rate. Aside from those that were always tough hangouts, the others are becoming good or bad gastropubs, where mere drinkers are unwelcome, or part of the burgeoning number of drinking places where the music gets louder and louder and the young get drunker and drunker . Once upon a time, a gastropub without the name was Franco Taruschio's Walnut Tree in Abergavenny, where Elizabeth David might be dining at her table in the corner of the bar, while a couple of locals knocked back a pint at the table next to her.

A large part of his protest is the fact that the pub as a social center for the not-so-rich is being elbowed out by toffs and yobs. It's increasingly difficult if you want a quiet pint without either lemon grass or a bloody nose.

One gastropub was a delight, two was a choice, three is a bore.

Actually, dating from well over a thousand years ago. In the 19th century a small bone-handled three-tined fork was the eating implement that a sailor carried with him. We have one that belonged to one of my wife's ancestors -- still in regular use in our kitchen. I've encountered this in very distinguished French restaurants. It corresponds to the way the diners would use it.

Two examples of arbitrary manners amuse me: 1. Americans who cut a piece of meat, then lay down the knife and transfer the fork to the right hand. 2. Right-handed Europeans who struggle to eat peas with their forks upside-down in their left hand (virtually impossible without the adhesive medium of mashed spuds). Any form of table manners which leads to difficult or awkward manipulation reduces eating to an obstacle course. Mirabel Osler had the answer in the title of her wonderful book, A Spoon with Every Course. In a restaurant I always ask for a spoon if it's not supplied, and I don't let the waiter take away the bread until I'm certain I don't want any more for final mopping-up.Good French manners, I'm told, is mopping up the sauce with the bread on the end of a fork rather than held in the fingers.

For others, it's to accuse them of being compulsively clean.

Is this distinctively British? When I helped prep for a demo in Perigueux a couple of years ago, I saw the dishes and utinsels being washed in a sink full of cold water, full of floating detritis, and left to dry (more or less) in a rack. There wasn't enough detergent in the water to require rinsing.

Slate's take on Iron Chef

Welcome to Blogland! As one pedant to another, I'm sure you'll forgive me if I point out that it was James Thurber.

I expect them to be happy because I'm dead!

Well, there goes Shakespeare out the window . . .

I doubt if fast food magnates are any more prone to eat their own products than are junk jewelers to wear their own baubles or steel-and-concrete architects to live in their own high-rise slums.

In 40 years, Wal-Mart will be the world.

A standard proceedure of Wal-Mart is to open several stores within a few miles of each other, see which one gets the most trade, and then close down the others. Meanwhile the lesser Wal-Marts have already cleared away the competition, so that the one surviving behemoth is the only option within miles.

Easily done in a small fraction of a lifetime. What with acid for enamel depletion and refined carbs for decay, dentists are as job-secure as undertakers.

To the tune of Wiener Blut?

Not a myth, according to a friend of ours who's a department head at Eastman School of Dentistry. Many children's enamel is rapidly disappearing. He demonstrates the effect to his classes by leaving a tooth in a glass of Coke; noticable deterioration after a couple of days.

Wonderful! But the acidity will still rot your enamel.

You're fifteen miles from La Garde-Freinet, a very attractive village. Faucado is a reasonable and decent place to eat.

The mind boggles!

Many public opponents are behind-the-scenes friends who enjoy each other's company -- and even plot together their next high-profile altercation.

According to the National Rail website, your only option is to leave Birmingham at 4:33 a.m. You will arrive at Ludlow at 7:54 a.m., 3 hours and 21 minutes later. You must then start back at 13:14, travel for 2 hours 19 minutes, and arrive once more at Birmingham at 15:33 in the afternoon. That will give you plenty of time to take a shower and hit the curry joints. EDIT: Birmingham to Ludlow by car is 51.8 miles and should take just over an hour and a half of leisurely driving.

. . . is another man's poisson.

tanabutler, the irony is that you've described many a person's heaven.