Even more Daily Fail Shubtill

The cherry popping of Elf n Safety shubtill on this blog...

...it seems the toothpick has become the latest victim of the health and safety police - leaving disgruntled diners with food stuck between their molars.

Staff at a luxury hotel chain are refusing to provide customers with the post-meal dental sticks - because they are 'potentially dangerous'.

From the Daily Mail, 22/1/10.

Well a site that I lurk at now and again; the excellent Mailwatch, have extracts from an e-mail conversation one of their posters had with the hotel. It makes excellent reading.

From: xxxx
Sent: 27 January 2010 11:35
To: Customer Services
Subject: OH, NO - NOT THAT TOOTHPICK AGAIN!

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope this is not a too unwelcome email. I have written to the Portal Hotel in Tarporley to ask for their view on the " TOOTHPICK GATE " furore. In my experience, stories like this often bear little likeness to what actually happened. In the stuff I've seen on the Web, reference is made to Head Office, which is why I'm writing to ask you for your response to the story.

Please note that I'm not a journalist out to set you up!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

R.A.Vant (Mr)

So far so good; ready for the fun part? Because we know the Mail would never, ever, exaggerate or fictionalise certain parts of a story?

From: xxx
To: xxxx
Cc: Customer Services
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 2:39 PM
Subject: RE: OH, NO - NOT THAT TOOTHPICK AGAIN!

Dear Mr Vant

Thank you for your e-mail. I have not as yet received any correspondence from you directly at the hotel, so will reply via the e-mail as passed on to me by Customer Services.

Unfortunately I do not have a lengthy response for you, except to note the following:

- There is absolutely no directive from Head Office with regards toothpicks, and this was not noted to the guest by the senior manager on duty, as implied by the various articles
- There is no law against toothpicks, and this was certainly not reported to the guest concerned
- The hotel had genuinely run out of toothpicks, and we are at a complete loss as to why the waiter would have come up with the Health & Safety excuse, unfortunately being a casual staff member and University student, we haven't as yet seem him to ask
- The guest concerned had in fact ordered a bespoke meal for himself and his wife, and this was different to the rest of the visiting diners
- The guest was found a "toothpick" once the situation had been brought to the attention of the manager on duty that evening

We have found the articles to be quite amusing, and somewhat out of context, however these are the joys of the media grapevine and a little bit of "story telling". If anything, it has been wonderful publicity for the hotel, and bookings are up.

Nowadays we very rarely get a request for toothpicks, as generally society frowns on the art of teeth picking in public, a somewhat ugly act whilst other are diners enjoying their own meals.

Should you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Yours sincerely

What I never, ever will understand is how these stories get to the newspapers? Do the people go themselves, send an email? Did the plonker in the picture think, 'Oh, I know, I'll ring the Mail' as soon as it happened? And as the manager alludes to, what sort of person picks his teeth at the table these days, anyway? (A Daily Mail reader, duuuuh)

Well, to be honest, funnelling Dicky Littlecock, you really couldn't make it up.