The ‘Bug’

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I’ve said it before. As someone whose working life was bound up with ships, I get a little fed-up when the media reports cases of Novovirus occurring on board cruise ships, as they did yesterday when a few passengers suffered from it during a cruise on Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines ‘Boudicca’.

Having just recently disembarked from Olsen’s ‘Balmoral’ I can confirm that the hygiene precautions and standards on board, like all the other Olsen ships, were exemplary and, as someone who once worked for the company, I know this to be the case.

The Novovirus, known also as the winter vomiting virus, is the second most common virus next to the Common Cold and occurs regularly every winter throughout northern latitudes. It is an unpleasant illness though, fortunately, short-lived.

The problem is that ships, and other forms of closed communities such as hospitals, schools, hotels and others, do not themselves usually harbour viruses. People do. So, inevitably, when a virus of any sort is taken into such communities by folk, they are bound to spread.

What doesn’t get the same amount of publicity is when schools, hotels and even hospital wards are struck by the Novovirus. Such as the five wards in Bedford Hospital which were closed just this week to new admissions and patient transfers because of it. Or the two wards closed yesterday at Broomfield Hospital for the same reason.
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Mucky Fingers!

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Last night I watched one of those cookery competitions where various would-be chefs try to outdo others with their culinary skills. In each case, the contestants sweated their way through producing their own meals to be tasted and evaluated by a number of judges.

There are two things that always strike me with these type of programmes and, hence, modern cookery.

The first is that the food is always, but always, extensively manhandled by the chefs’ fingers to the point where it quite puts me off, regardless as to how attractive the meals may look when finally presented. Indeed, I have stopped using those restaurants where I suspect the chef’s fingers have been used to prepare mine and other people’s meals without having once been washed throughout the evening. While a meal may look attractive when presented at the table, you sometimes have to wonder what those fingers have been doing back there in the kitchen.

My mind goes back to the days of Fanny Craddock and Philip Harben and even, more recently, the much beloved Keith Floyd. Though many might criticise these chefs, the fact is that they mainly used utensils to plate up their food and not their fingers. Contrast their method of delivery with one young chef, now a so-called celebrity chef, who is, quite frankly, mucky in all of his cooking endeavours and a definite put-off to me when seen on television, especially when nasty things such as salmonella, novovirus and swineflu are around.

The second thought is how pretentious the judges are, even when they are chefs themselves. For goodness sake, food is to be eaten and, though there is obvious merit in presenting a tasty meal which looks good on the plate, it is just food after all. I don’t subscribe to the theory that cookery is an art form and the tosh dished out by some of the judges in these type of programmes is just dreadful. Words such as ‘vibrant’ about three pieces of fish, for example, which is piled on top of one another with a few julienned vegetables thrown on top of that with a dribble of sauce around the plate just seem so out of place; the food is dead remember!

For heavens sake, bring back chefs that can prepare meals without their unhygienic, mucky fingers having been over every single item. And also food that can be simply described as tasty, wholesome and just plain good, without all the pretentious nonsense that accompanies much of it these days!
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