Life

Sleb Safari: Mannequins in restaurants and pubs sounds like comedy gold

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

One day, back in the mists of time in 2011, shoppers were surprised to see that some clothes shops in Castle Court had live mannequins in their windows to mark Belfast Fashionweek
One day, back in the mists of time in 2011, shoppers were surprised to see that some clothes shops in Castle Court had live mannequins in their windows to mark Belfast Fashionweek One day, back in the mists of time in 2011, shoppers were surprised to see that some clothes shops in Castle Court had live mannequins in their windows to mark Belfast Fashionweek

SLEB Safari read something terrifying the other day and hasn’t been able to dislodge the image from its mind despite shaking its head like a dog that’s been for a swim.

A restaurant in the US says that when it’s allowed to reopen it’s going to put mannequins at empty tables so that social distancing rules don’t leave guests feeling as though the dining room is only half full. Creepy or what?

Worse still, the mannequins will be wearing outfits from the 1940s. It sounds like a scene from a horror movie. Run newly weds! Run!

Also – how can you eavesdrop when the table beside you is full of dummies? And the table beside that is mannequins. Badoom tish.

The Inn at Little Washington is a Michelin-starred restaurant in rural Virginia and has a number of $248 tasting menus which look delicious, plus an optional $180 wine pairing.

Sleb Safari is a big fan of paying a professional chef to cook its dinner and looks forward to the day when that privilege is restored.

How, and ever, it does not want to dine among creepy mannequins like it’s trapped in some sort of murder mystery evening that’s seven shades of weird. Imagine if other restaurants follow The Inn at Little Washington’s lead? First Dates would be a right laugh. We’d be watching it thinking one couple had run out of things to say to each other then we’d get a close up and realise we’d been looking at the wrong table the whole time.

"Madam, I've got a lovely seat for you over at the window"
"Madam, I've got a lovely seat for you over at the window" "Madam, I've got a lovely seat for you over at the window"

And then there’s pubs. What’s the Old Vic going to do? Put a dummy between every customer waiting to be served? The potential for comedy is immense. Max Branning would be chatting someone up without realising it’s a shop dummy. Meanwhile, over at the Rover’s Return Sean plonks a hot pot in front of what turns out to be Resusci Anne, the CPR training doll, and Peter Barlow’s making eye contact with an inflatable doll lady across the bar.

You know how actors say they feed off the person in the scene with them? Things are going to get tricky. “But Mr Spielberg, I just wasn’t getting anything from him”.

Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood is adamant that the show can return despite social distancing and now Sleb Safari is wondering if this is what he had in mind. When Colin Jackson and Erin performed their show dance with dummies they got slated and it cost him the glitterball.

That’s. How. Serious. This. Whole. Thing. Is.

Sleb Safari demands that the WHO issue a directive immediately.

Monty Don pays tribute to Nigel

Nigel and Monty Don
Nigel and Monty Don Nigel and Monty Don

MONTY Don of Gardeners’ World fame has shared a beautiful tribute to his dog, Nigel, who has died at the age of 12.

Sleb Safari has caught Gardeners’ World a few times and had a soft spot for the shockingly handsome golden retriever.

Monty spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the benefit of looking after a dog – and being loved by a dog – when you have depression.

“I think if you suffer from any kind of mental illness, whether be it depression or anxiety or whatever, having someone to look after, who returns that attention with completely unqualified love, is very powerful, it’s powerful medicine.

“There’s just the basics – if you have a dog you have to take it for a walk, which means you have to go outside, you have to put your boots on and put a coat on and as anybody listening knows, when you are depressed, you don’t do any of that.

“If you get out of bed you just sort of eat badly, you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, you don’t do what you want to do because you don’t really want to do anything and so on and so forth, so having a dog that needs food and water and a walk and attention and who just loves you is extraordinary.”

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Kylie Jenner cannot cut cake

HUGE drama. HUGE. Did you see the way Kylie Jenner sliced her olive oil cake?

First off, Sleb Safari had to Google what an olive oil cake was. It’s a cake, with olive oil as an ingredient, so that was time well spent.

In a nutshell Kylie cut a slice of cake and Instagram called her a psychopath because the portion was so small it didn’t even reach the centre of the cake. She basically cut out a Dairylea triangle.

Does it make her the right person to ask if you fancy a slice of cake? No. Does it make her a psychopath? Also no.