Exciting news breaks this week from Australian scientists suggesting that aspirin can make you go blind. Of the Aussies I’ve met in the food business, it’s not aspirin that’s the cause of any impending sight issues.

This theory is underscored by McDonald’s decision to call 13 of its down under restaurants ‘Maccas’. Naming your outlets after Paul McCartney is so counter-intuitive (this is the polite interpretation) that Karoline (with a K) is wondering whether she can sell the same idea here. “This is the sort of brave branding strategy that could have saved Mac Fisheries,” she barks, as we look on blankly. “I can see it now. Starbucks could be called Starrs. And Burger Kings could be renamed Jonathans after that DJ.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” she concedes, after a pause, in a rare moment of self-awareness.

Before she can go any further, Miranda interrupts with news of the results of our generic anti-retail crime campaign - ‘Nab The Naughty Nickers’. Though M tries to spin the stats, it’s clear that a 15% rise in theft, most of it underwear related, is not good news. Before blame can be attributed (not my idea, but that doesn’t stop the attribution) I’m outta there to accept Daddy’s invitation to dine on the contents of his 2011 Fortnums hamper, which has just been delivered. As regular readers will know, père Touché believes The Co-operative to be the UK’s last bastion of communism, fuelled by class hatred and 99 Tea. So when conversation turns to its newly announced ‘back to basics’ food strategy, his verdict on Co-op customers - “Let them eat cack” - befits a man who has just downed an overripe (“but all the better for it”) tin of potted pheasant.