It's been a good week for … good manners

It's been a good week for … good manners

As the old saying goes: it costs nothing to be polite. Now, it seems, spreading a little sunshine could even save you a few quid. Well, euros, actually.

A café on the French Riviera has found fame after encouraging customers to mind their manners. It started after the manager of the Petite Syrah in Nice set out to counter complaints that serving staff are rude (French waiters unfriendly? Jamais!). From now on, impolite customers would be charged extra.

A sign outside the café reads: "Un café - €7 [£5.90]; Un café s'il vous plaît - €4.25; Bonjour, un café, s'il vous plaît - €1.40."

The twitterati loved it. The former centre-right government minister Christine Boutin tweeted that it was an excellent idea, and the story in the local Nice-Matin newspaper received tens of thousands of Facebook "likes". Manager Fabrice Pepino even had television cameras turn up to film the sign.

"We live in a strange old world," he said. "For three years we have put all our passion into what we do, which is trying to offer quality food, and good wines … and it's this that creates the buzz, a few words on a blackboard."

There's nothing quite like a storm in a coffee cup.

It's been a bad week for … misshapen fruit and veg

A heid honcho of Tesco has been having a pop at shoppers, claiming that "wonky" vegetables are going to waste due to customers' preference for perfect produce.

Matt Simister, the supermarket giant's food sourcing director, said consumers are contributing to food waste problems by only selecting "perfect" produce.

Speaking at a House of Lords inquiry into food waste, he said domestic consumers were unwilling to consider imperfect fruit and vegetables.

UK customers picked the "cream of the crop", unlike their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, he said.

Supermarkets could do more to address the problem, he added.

Yes, like actually stock some wonky fruit and veg? I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it refreshing to be able to buy dirty, misshapen and very tasty produce when abroad; even in the supermarkets. The odd straightish banana or bendy carrot is about as deviant as it gets in the UK, even after the European Union scrapped controversial rules that prevented the sale of oddly sized and shaped fruit and veg back in 2008.

Mr Simister please note: people in glass houses should not throw perfectly shaped tomatoes.