Sideswipe: February 25: Dining out on Trump

Donald Trump only visited one DC restaurant in his four-year term. And it was the steakhouse in his own hotel ... when the star appeared, you had to stick to the script. A "Standard Operating Procedure" document, recently obtained by Washingtonian, outlined step by step exactly what to do and what to say anytime Trump dined at BLT Prime, the hotel restaurant. As soon as Trump was seated, the server had to "discreetly present" a mini bottle of Purell hand sanitiser. (This applied long before Covid, mind you.) Next, cue dialogue: "Good (time of day) Mr President. Would you like your Diet Coke with or without ice?" the server was instructed to recite. A polished tray with chilled bottles and highball glasses was already prepared for either response. Directions for pouring the soda were detailed in a process no fewer than seven steps long—and illustrated with four photo exhibits. The beverage had to be opened in front of the [germophobe] commander in chief, "never beforehand". The server was to hold a longneck bottle opener by the lower third of the handle in one hand and the Diet Coke, also by the lower third, in the other. Once poured, the drink had to be placed at the President's right-hand side. "Repeat until POTUS departs." (Via Metafilter)

This neighbour has watched too many spy movies

Spotted on a neighbourhood social media platform.

To flush or not to flush

Londoners have been told to watch what they flush after workers took two weeks to free a blockage in the sewer system. The fatberg in the London sewer was described as "the weight of a small bungalow". Until now, I never imagined that anybody had actually calculated the weight of a bungalow, so let's be knowing – how did they do it, why, and what weight did they come up with? The head of waste networks at Thames Water, Matt Rimmer, said that it had taken "a great deal of brute force" to clear the blockage. "We'd ask everyone to help fight the fatberg by only flushing the 3Ps – pee, poo and paper – as well as disposing of fat and oils in the bin, not the sink," he said.

Bare bottom in the line of fire

An Alaskan woman had the scare of a lifetime when, using an outhouse in the back country, she was attacked by a bear, from below."I got out there and sat down on the toilet and immediately something bit my butt right as I sat down," Shannon Stevens told the Associated Press last week. "I jumped up and I screamed when it happened." Her brother heard the screaming and came running. "I opened the toilet seat and there's just a bear face just right there at the level of the toilet seat, just looking right back up through the hole, right at me," he said. "I just shut the lid as fast as I could. I said, 'There's a bear down there, we got to get out of here now'," he said. "And we ran back to the yurt as fast as we could." Once safely inside, they tended the wound. "It was bleeding, but it wasn't super bad," Shannon said.