First warm the pot

Anyone remember those black and white public information films about how to brew tea and the like? I am sure there must have been one about not wasting food that Gordon could wheel out to be played between programmes on state television.

It is now almost cheaper to run your car on Chanel 5 than petrol, by the time you have pushed your trolley twice round the supermarket the prices have gone up, we have some poor kid knifed every day and the best the Government can come up with is don't waste food.

To back up this "first boil your water" style of advice the Cabinet Office reckons we throw away £10 billion worth of food each year which begs the question of how do they know? I suspect that it is like all Government statistics and figures which seem to owe more to shoe repairers than accurate research. Pluck a figure from the air to prove a point.

Anyhow with Gordon's one man war on waste I hope he enjoyed his 14 - that's right FOURTEEN - course lunch at the G8 summit. Raise a glass to that as you enjoy your reheated leftovers.