Never offer an MP an olive

Kitchen Rat had an interesting lunch meeting with a Lib Dem MP recently. The honourable member of parliament for Sutton, Paul Burstow, arrived for lunch a little late following his Friday morning surgery with his constituents. Kitchen Rat had got a little peckish during the wait and had tucked into, and finished, all the olives. When a slightly flustered Burstow, apparently London's hardest working MP, finally arrived he sat down and picked up one of my regurgitated olive pips and started to chew on it before he realised what he had done. It was one of those jaw-droppingly embarrasing moments as he had to endure the ignomy of spitting the pip out again. I just wanted to hide under the table to save his embarrassment. No wonder MPs prefer the olive-free zone of indian restaurant the Cinnamon Club in Westminster.