Food ratings – to care or not to care?

Earlier in the year the well known and charming ice cream outlet, George and Davis’, was outed as being a festering hive that is guilty of serving ice cream more rotten than the hopes and dreams of a thousand undergrads. Or that is what you’d think if you saw the 1 star FSA hygiene rating.

Mental scenes

The truth will always be hard to unearth in the murky, cut throat world of the ice cream vendor but it was probably closer to there being a sink that wasn’t pointed out properly during the inspection.

It was a similar “story” with Missing Bean which, at a firm 2 out of 5, now rests just under At Thai. This was almost a cause for massive upheaval with various Starbucks boycotters worried that the only independent coffee shop they knew about in Oxford might not be conforming properly. I myself believe it was an excuse for student press to peddle the painfully rhythmic line “I’ve always found the Bean to be clean”.

Leaderboarding

Arzoo of course sails in with another valiant 1/5, which is perhaps what you’d expect, but you probably frequent it all the same, or if you don’t it’s got nothing to do with being worried about the FSA. And all freshers are fed some story of Hassans’ (or equivalent) meat being riddled with maggots but let them off while they’re busy with their kebab van turf wars.

Cellar’s the real winner, treading the fine line between infectious disease and the hygiene hypothesis. I didn’t even realise they did food.

looking better

So how does one reconcile such a horrible reality? A nice medieval free market would see couple of punters die from salmonella before the rest of the village burned G&D’s to the ground. In an opposite utopia everything would be kept pristine by a team of overlord Mustapha Monds and there would be no need for anyone to question the legitimacy of the Mexican vanilla beans. Our own dysfunctional system sees tasteless nonsense ratings heaped on where you would prefer to have Belgian chocolate sauce. It can only be part of some larger conspiracy centred around the pros and cons of regulation.

Motive?

Word of this conspiracy has spread fast, causing the government’s FSA website to crash spectacularly (so credit to scoresonthedoors.org.uk ), in what can only be an omen of impending societal collapse.

tl;dr – OMG food ratings soooo stoopid. I don’t care if my coffee has poo in it. PS Illuminati!!

Now, in my capacity as Opinion editor I am obliged to hold opinions, but alas I’ve never been to G&D’s and find the whole issue banal and merely a target for writing a short, self-amused, meandering rant. So it falls to the faithful and better informed reader to decide on the appropriate ending.