Talking Points: Johnny Borrell and where not to eat dinner

FOOD, NOT SO GLORIOUS FOOD

Here is a list of the 50 best restaurants in the world, topped by Noma, none of which you will ever eat in. But, as food critic Marina O’Loughlin points out in the Guardian, that’s really not the point. ‘For the normal restaurant-goer, these hyperbolic junkets just feed the fear of missing out and raise expectations – look, Mum, I'm in the best restaurant in the world – that are forever destined to be dashed.’ Anyone for takeaway?

TESTING, TESTING

New evidence suggests that rodents are more stressed by men than women, and this may have been affecting the results of scientific testing for years. ‘Opponents of animal testing will argue that we may, therefore, have inflicted a lot of cruelty for nothing’ says Tom Chivers in Telegraph Blogs. But before we start panicking, let’s not forget, ‘without mice and rats, modern medicine would be in a terrible state’

WATCH OUT, BILIONAIRES

The real reason the Labour party hired David ‘The Axe’ Axerod? To target the super-rich, according to Rachel Sylvester in The Times (£). Miliband is putting a twist on the traditional Labour message. ‘It’s the have-yachts rather than the have-nots that concern him most, a break both with old-fashioned socialism and with the Blair tradition of being “intensely relaxed” about the filthy rich.’

UKIP CRASH

The latest ‘you just couldn’t make it up’ UKIP story: their campaign bus, emblazoned with the message ‘Common Sense’, crashed into the roof of Portsmouth station where it was about to meet Nigel Farage. Did it turn too far to the right?

LUNCH-HOUR LAUGHS

Had a bad morning? This interview with Johnny Borrell in the Metro will cheer you up no end, with his erudite musings on the news, ‘you’d find out more truth by just walking down the street with a musical instrument’, and his new EP ‘I wouldn’t bother’.