Willie Walsh and his weasel words!

The chief executive of British Airways has kissed the blarney stone and is off at full pelt with supporting the "we must have a third runway" proposals. I saw him on BBC's Question Time from Leeds. He got a free ride, that's for sure. Only David Dimbleby picked up "unnecessary flights" which an audience member had asked about. Dimbleby wryly suggested that these were those on competitors' flights. Audience laughter. Willie goes along with this and smiles.

Now I have no desire to see British Airways do other than prosper. However, it must be as a successful business because it attracts custom not because it out to do down others or create advantages paid for by the taxpayer. In short, these proposals as outlined by Geoff Hoon have nothing to do with jobs or the well-being of our economy. What they are about is securing advantage for British Airways and BAA, the owners of Heathrow at the expense of others.

When Terminal 5 was given the go ahead, this duo said they would not press for a third runway. They've got Terminal 5 and they still want the runway. On the programme, a woman asked why Leeds/Bradford Airport was not being given the extra flights. "We want to expand business here too!" she said. Willie was sympathetic but basically unconcerned.

He now wants all UK flights to go via Heathrow. This is so that BA can get the custom and not Air France or KLM or Lufthansa. He uses the mantra of "lost jobs" but anyone wanting to come to London already can from anywhere in the world. So all this is about forcing people to use Heathrow over Schiphol or CDG.

Willie Walsh also claims Heathrow has 180 destinations and some that the others don't have. Well Manchester has 225 and some destinations that Heathrow doesn't have. He never once mentioned Manchester! I wonder why?

This is not about the economy. It is not about jobs as such. The spin and subterfuge are there to obtain a goal. Perhaps when the enquiries come, we can find out how many planes are flying into Heathrow half full or empty? That's another question that needs answering.

British Airways left the domestic market as far as aircraft were concerned. However, they still sell flights from regional airports through codeshare arrangements as do other airlines. We don't need an expanded Heathrow for this to continue.

The only reason for Heathrow to get a third runway would be if there were no flights going from anywhere else. As this is patently not the case, the proposals for this runway are dead in the water.

Willie and his pals need to answer three questions.

1. Is it impossible now for a person to fly to London in order to visit as a tourist or to do business? YES or NO.
2. How many planes fly half empty or below full capacity into and out of Heathrow currently?
3. Is it impossible for a person to fly from any one of the top 20 regional airports to the USA, Europe, Australasia or anywhere else without flying though Heathrow? YES or NO.

These are the questions that may take some time to get answers to. We need integrity in business, not the handiwork of spinmeisters!

Whining Winemakers!

Last night I watched "Dispatches: What's in Your Wine?" on Channel 4. What indeed.! It seems that the wine industry is allowed to get away with stuffing anything up to fifty additives and "flavourings" into wine. There was a ghastly expose into the murky world of champagne making. The top brands blithely said it was OK to drink their expensive stuff even with pesticide residue floating up with the bubbles. It was all legal and passed by the EU bureaucrats. What these prize plonkers don't get is that they are no better that Arthur Daley and Del Boy together. Surely they would want to sell a product that is made exclusively from grapes and not from a cocktail of pesticides, E numbers, bags of added sugar, and grown on a rubbish dump of rusting razor blades and the dubious contents of Paris dustbins!

The big question was - why don't you label your ingredients? The answer is that their bogus business would be held up to ridicule if the labels were giving such information. A suave gent from the Wine and Spirits Federation made some disingenuous remarks about wine coming from different vineyards so it would be impossible to give the proper information. Basically, he didn't care. He had a pretty poor response. If food manufacturers can say their produce is from more than one country, why not his lot?

Oh, and the champagne producers said they had reduced added sugar. It would seem they had used masses of it previously. Added sugar in £100 champagne bottles? Are we being conned or not?

The programme is on 7 days repeat. Do watch it. We should all be demanding proper wine, not a confection, as Malcom Gluck so rightly called it.

Cheesed off with the brown sauce!

It seems every trade and profession these days has its own business-speak. The catering industry is no exception. I'm a great fan of cookery programmes on TV. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, is my latest interest! It's made by the same company that does Nigela Lawson's shows. Thankfully, St. Vitas doesn't operate the cameras!

A lot of these cooks and chefs have developed the habit of saying that everything is "off" this and "off" that. Nothing is ever cooked properly in a word sense. It is baked off, boiled off, or sweated off. Sounds ghastly. Fanny Cradock only ever managed to sweat off Johnny. The one that really gets me is "pan-fried". Nothing is just fried these days. It is PAN FRIED!

One menu item is pan-fried sea bass. This popped up in the early 80's. I remember a time when it was just called bass. "I've got a nice piece of bass, madam!" as my mother looked over the Macfisheries slab. She never thought of pan frying it.

Do we ever ask for our eggs done this way? Americans are great at asking how we like our eggs at breakfast. They'd think I was some kind of plonker if I said "I'll have mine pan-fried!"

It is a kind of distancing. By using words to imply some form of complicated process, those not necessarily in the know think it is more important or possesses deeper meaning than it does. I have to say though that Pan-fried Sea Bass sounds far more exotic and appetising than just Fried Bass.

I'll be thinking today when in the kitchen what I want "fried off". Sausages might be an idea.