UK owner of Indian restaurant fined for food safety offences

The owner of an Indian takeaway was fined £2,000 by magistrates after pleading guilty to a string of food safety offences.

Barakah Indian in Railway Terrace, RugbyTufail Khan, owner of Barakah Indian in Railway Terrace, Rugby, was first warned about the state of the kitchen in February when a council food safety officer carried out a routine inspection.

The kitchen’s sink and freezer were dirty, cobwebs and a broken pane were found in a window, wall tiles were missing and broken, and the wash basin in the staff toilet had no running hot water.

Drops of blood were on the kitchen floor, the waste pipe from the main sink was cracked and leaking dirty water on to the floor, wall tiles were still missing and the window pane remained broken.

In addition, records of the kitchen’s food safety management system were unavailable for inspection and the daily diary for food safety checks was blank – suggesting no checks had been carried out.

At a hearing at Nuneaton’s Warwickshire Justice Centre on Monday, Khan pleaded guilty to four offences under the Food Safety Act 1990.

In mitigation, 34-year-old Khan said following the inspection in February he had contacted a builder to make improvements to the kitchen, but the builder had been unable to carry out the work until a week after the follow-up inspection in April.

The court heard the improvements outlined in the council’s warning letter in February had now been made to the takeaway’s kitchen.

Magistrates fined Khan £500 for each offence and ordered him to pay £500 costs and a £120 victim surcharge.

Seagulls ‘will pose a health risk for Rugby World Cup fans’ claims UK businessman

Seagulls could pose a serious health risk to rugby fans as thousands flock to Gloucester to take in the spectacle of world cup matches in the city.

seagull.world.cupThat is the claim of one businessman who has been forced to leave his city centre location as a result of the surge in numbers in recent years.

Former city councillor Stuart Wilson, from county finance specialists Equity Advice, said packed Gloucester streets and an increase in rubbish will not just swell the city coffers, but also the numbers of seagulls nesting in rooftops.

“I moved my business out of the city because of the problem,” he said. “We moved out of Northgate Street in the summer, and relocated to where the seagulls are less active.

“I love all animals but a cull is simply a pest control issue. I’m not asking to wipe out the entire species, just reduce the numbers. …

“We will have visitors from around the world who will be attacked, defecated on, rubbish will be strewn around our city , and as usual our council will offer false platitudes and claim oiling is the only option.

“They omit to tell the public that they won’t send staff over a certain height or onto privately owned buildings.”

A city council spokesperson said: “The Rugby World Cup starts in September after the nesting season for gulls so we don’t expect to see an increase during this time.

Blame the Welsh: illness takes down rugby’s NZ All Blacks

Just 48 hours before the final test of an arduous season, almost all of the All Blacks have been struck down by sickness.

Only two members of the extended 34-man playing squad escaped the potentially debilitating bug, which first swept through the team in Cardiff last week.

Coach Steve Hansen said, “It’s been a difficult week with a lot of people being sick. We’ve had guys go down with diarrhea and vomiting. There’s only two that have missed out. Just getting that mix right has been difficult. Hopefully we’ve been smart enough to keep the energy tank full. … Apparently half of the UK has got it. Hang around here long enough and we’ll give it to you,” he joked to media.

All Blacks No 8 Kieran Read said, “Personally I’m feeling a lot better today. I know the boys had a good guided tour of their bathrooms yesterday on their day off.”

The sickness shouldn’t be anything like the “Suzie the waitress” food poisoning that ripped through Laurie Mains’ All Blacks before the 1995 World Cup final.

 

Despite lots of player barfing, Roos take rugby’s Four Nations

 This is a sports story lede in The Australian this morning; it apparently has something to do with rugby.

Injury and illness tore through Australia’s Four Nations camp before yesterday’s final against England but captain Darren Lockyer was never concerned the chaos would ruin what turned out a momentous and fateful farewell for the record-breaking five-eighth.

In his last game of rugby league, Lockyer scored a 79th-minute try from his own kick and then wrote a final, off-beat chapter in his incredible story by comically spraying the conversion attempt from almost in front. The 30-8 win went some way to restoring Australia’s hard-won status as the game’s top nation.

Probably no more foreign than an Australian reading the news lede of a hockey game; or college football (what a mess).

Back to the Roos (the Kangeroos, Australia’s national rugby league team).

Team doctor Dave Givney said in the build-up to the game that, "Half the team were in doubt today. That’s why we had 21 people warm up. I’ve completely run out of my gastro medication. We had five or six of them in single rooms overnight, all throwing up. They all came good.”

A (thermometer-verified) Canadian Thanksgiving in Australia

 I’ve got turkeys wandering around the yard but I can’t buy one at the grocer or butcher.

Paul the butcher in Annerley, Brisbane, Australia, took pity on me and gave me – gave me for free – a frozen turkey breast he had in his freezer.

“If it sucks, throw it out.”

I threw it out.

Paul says he does a lot of turkeys for Christmas, but Thanksgiving just isn’t an Australian thing.

And it’s sorta weird, with spring strawberries and asparagus abundant rather than the traditional North American harvest foods.

Was even weirder prepping food all morning while Amy played with Sorenne and listened to the K-State football game on Internet radio.

But, we continued our tradition and had some 15 Aussies over for a Canadian Thanksgiving feast.

And instead of North American football, there was the 2011 Rugby World Cup quarterfinals: yeah Wales (suck it Ireland); France will lose next weekend to Wales; yeah Australia (suck it South Africa), and in a few hours it should be yeah New Zealand (suck it Argentina).

Safety watch kept on All Blacks’ World Cup dinners

Susie is a mysterious waitress who allegedly served the New Zealand All Blacks a dinner of food poisoning 48 hours before the 1995 Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg, which felled 27 of the 35-member squad. Or so the story goes.

As the 2011 Rugby World Cup approaches, the Food Safety Authority has revealed that samples of food served to the team will be frozen to provide a record for food safety.

And to ensure a level dietary playing field, Rugby World Cup 2011 will document all meals provided to all teams at the tournaments.

But it’s not because of Susie.

"We are following best practice,” said hospitality and logistics manager Ian Crowe, “so it’s unrelated to those issues."

Tournament organisers had been working with the authority for the past four years to ensure the best possible food safety.

Teams and officials will be served 103,000 meals during this year’s tournament.

Ham knuckles with staph, oysters with noro fell 94 at French rugby cocktail party

I thought rugby match cocktail parties only happened with cans of Brockman’s beer after the games; I have seen Invictus. It’s the way hockey players do it – especially the girls.

The Institut de Veille Sanitaire in France reports today (thanks Albert) that on Feb. 20, 2010, the Fire and Rescue Service of the Hérault district informed the Regional Health Authorities that symptoms such as stomach ache, nausea, vomiting were diagnosed among around 15 people taking part in a rugby match cocktail party.

One person was taken to the local emergency hospital service. … A total of 94 cases and 110 controls were reported among the people taking part in the cocktail party. Two successive epidemic events were identified with distinct symptoms and median incubation periods of 3.5 and 30 hours. The results of the epidemiological, biological and veterinary investigations were in favor of an intoxication of the early cases due to the ingestion of knuckle of ham pieces contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus (OR=3.75; IC=[1.91; 7.35] p=0.001) and an intoxication of late cases due to the ingestion of oyster contaminated by Norovirus (OR=32.22; IC=[7.09 ; 146.34] p<0.001). In this investigation, food and pathogens at the origin of the contamination were identified. This outbreak stresses the importance of respecting hygiene measures in collective catering and defining first management measures as soon as the results of the investigation are known.

Full report only in French, http://www.invs.sante.fr/publications/2010/Tiac/Rapport%20Tiac.pdf