WHAT time do you call this then? Christmas office night out was it? Le tout Glasgow seemed to have the same idea last night, judging by the number of people swaying through the streets wearing novelty jumpers. Such was the static electricity being whipped up by all that acrylic colliding one didn’t know whether to call the fashion police or the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
Most folk started the evening wisely with a meal. Even more wisely, they went to real restaurants serving proper food. Not everyone gets that far, as the strange tale of The Shed at Dulwich proves.
As revealed this week, there is no such restaurant in south London. There is, however, a writer by the name of Oobah Butler, who thought it would be a giggle to invent such an eatery. 
Courtesy of fake reviews and a flashy website, The Shed soared up the TripAdvisor rankings to become the number one place to dine in London, leaving all the famous and fashionable joints to eat dust. 
The more people tried and failed to book a table at The Shed – those who phoned the number given were told it was at least a six month wait – the more appetite for a table grew.
When Mr Butler eventually gave in and opened his back garden for the evening, he thought the reality of microwaved food sprinkled with flowers and a weed-strewn patio would be the end of it. 
But no. “All of them left saying how nice it was.” 
And there, on a plate, is the problem with the way we view food, and eating out, today. What used to be a pleasant, fairly uneventful pastime has been turned in too many instances into a hot and cold buffet of  pretentiousness and faff. Who is to blame? Let’s sit down at that shoogly table by the toilet and talk it through.
First in the frame are TV cooks, a band of men and women (but mostly men) who at the last census numbered some 16 million. Or at least that is the way it seems going by the number of programmes and associated cookery books. 
These chefs promised to show viewers how to have a restaurant experience at home for a fraction of the price. But once almost every home in the land had a fresh pasta maker and a mezzaluna people grew bored, not to mention royally cheesed off with all the washing up, and they wanted to go back to having the restaurant experience in a, well, restaurant. Only now, forced to cater for a more informed and demanding clientele, eateries had to up their game even further. You see how the situation has escalated? It’s like the Cold War arms race, with spoons.
Now those very same cooks are up in arms about the monstrous situation some of their number helped to create. As Delia Smith, one of the most sensible of the breed, railed recently: “Cooking has become very poncy, very chefy. If I get one more plate put in front of me with six dots of sauce on it, I will go mad. The joy, years ago, of going to a really special restaurant and having a really special meal, has gone. It is very hard to find one that isn’t trying to be theatre on a plate.”
The fussiness is extending to other areas, says Raymond Blanc. When he looks through the bookings for the evening at his Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Seasons it is not uncommon, he says, for there to be up to 50 people who have flagged up allergies or intolerances. “We are a kitchen not a hospital,” says Blanc. “Now, if you don’t have an allergy, you’re nobody.” 
There are of course genuine allergies and intolerances which must be taken seriously, but 50 diners a night suggests either the problem has reached epidemic levels, or some folk are over egging the pudding somewhat.
All of which brings us back to The Shed at Dulwich as a prank waiting to happen. Feasting upon the fashionability of dining out, and cooking up an air of elitism, one man was able to lure the punters in and make a mockery of restaurant rankings. Give that man his own TV show, just not a cooking programme. As part of his ruse, Mr Butler faked plates of food using shaving foam and paint. One one occasion, he used his foot to prop up a fried egg just so.
There is only one thing for it, and that is to go back to a simpler time when the height of fine dining was a trip to the Wimpy on a Friday night and we did not know jus from jam. On that note, I have a fabulous idea for a new restaurant. It’s a place that only serves one dish in one setting, the service is swift and no special tools are required in making la spécialité de la maison. 
The name of that dish? It’s tea and toast, served on a bed piled high with blankets with a side order of a snooze afterwards. Bliss.

AH well Paisley, what’s for ye won’t go by ye and all that. 
     City of Culture 2021 it is not to be, but let there be no slumped shoulders this morning. Paisley is back on the map, and such is the civic pride generated, it will be staying there. 
Anyone in the market for a new competition might like to take a look at the increasingly heated battle for Channel 4, which the Government has long wanted out of London.
Though the hot money is on Birmingham, FM Nicola Sturgeon has somewhere closer to home in mind. “Glasgow would be an ideal base,” she told this year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival.
So could we soon be seeing Jon Snow strolling the banks of Pacific Quay , or Krishnan Guru-Murthy opening an account at Greggs? Don’t count your organic chickens just yet. A Government source told the Times: “It is just very well paid TV people who seem to be horrified at the idea of living anywhere apart from London.”
As if media types would ever be so shallow.

RIP handwritten school exams, says the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which predicts paper will go the way of the belt and the blackboard within 10 years.
“Electronic assessment is already used for some courses and society is going that way,” said SQA chief Dr Janet Brown.
This will worry those who already feel writing skills are on the slide. All that prodding on phone screens and pecking at keyboards is leaving youngsters with handwriting that looks as though a sozzled spider has staggered across the paper.
But just think, kiddoes, of all the wonderful things you will be missing out on if the giant novelty eraser of technology rubs out handwriting. Like buying lovely stationery. Or spending ages writing out a shopping list then leaving it on the kitchen counter. Or leaving a darling little note for that special person in your life along the lines of: “Out of toilet rolls. Working late. X” Not to mention being unable to sign those mortgage papers committing you to work till you are 84. 
On second thoughts, stick to your keyboards.