Fancy a fresh DRESSED Cromer bat?

LAST week I lamented the fact that because of coronavirus, and in the name of good hygiene, sauce bottles in restaurants are being replaced with those irritating individual sachets. I’ve since heard from Mail reader Ros Gooding, who was having a meal in a pub on the River Hamble, in Hampshire.

At the next table, she noticed a diner take a sachet of tomato ketchup from the condiment bowl, floss his teeth with it and then put it back. It doesn’t get more hygienic than that.

It reminded me of the time the new plastic fivers were issued. In a Glasgow pub I saw a bloke use one to dislodge a piece of food stuck between his teeth, then casually pay for his pint with it.

CYnICAL opportunists have seized on the coronavirus crisis to further their own selfish agendas. Remoaners are trying to exploit the lockdown and resultant economic chaos to extend Britain’s membership of the eU and even derail Brexit altogether.

The Greta Thunberg Fan Club is attempting to use Covid-19 as an excuse to curb freedom of movement, banning cars from city centres and curtailing air travel.

London’s two-bob chancer of a mayor Genghis Khan has capitalised shamelessly on the financial black hole affecting bus, train and Tube services — by raising fares and the congestion charge and building even more cycle lanes.

Other councils are following suit. We keep being told that in future we must accept all these so-called ‘emergency’ measures as the ‘new normal’. In Scotland, Wee Burney and her Toytown Tartanistas see the Covid crisis as just another weapon in their neverending campaign to secure a new independence referendum.

Across the private sector, struggling companies are shedding workers they planned to get rid of anyway and blaming it on corona, confident that the Government will pick up the bill — either through the furlough scheme or the benefits system.

So it was only a matter of time before the animal rights brigade got in on the act, too. In one of the more bizarre developments, they are trying to force the annual Cromer and Sheringham Crab and Lobster Festival to turn vegan.

EveRY year thousands of visitors flock to the north norfolk coast to enjoy the fabulous fresh seafood, caught by generations of local fishermen, going back to the turn of the 19th century and beyond.

The festival, which was cancelled this year because of the lockdown, is one of the highlights of the summer season.

Tourism is vital to the economic wellbeing of the area and will be increasingly as we are all encouraged to staycation in Britain for the foreseeable future.

So it makes no sense whatsover to torpedo one of the main attractions. Cromer brown crab is rightly celebrated for its sweetness and fragrance.

I can vouch personally for its excellence. My wife’s parents retired to Sheringham and my sister-in-law and her husband still live there.

no visit is complete without a tub of cockles on the promenade and a couple of dressed crabs to bring home. And Cookie’s Crab Shop, at nearby Salthouse, serves some of the most delicious sandwiches anywhere.

now, though, People for the ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) want to put a stop to the sale of all seafood. They’ve written to the organisers asking for the festival to go vegan when it resumes next year.

Dawn Carr, who describes herself as director of vegan corporate projects, said: ‘Because Covid-19 emerged from a market where live and dead animals were sold for food, festivals that celebrate eating animals should be a thing of the past.’

Hang on. Is she seriously suggesting that the Cromer and Sheringham Crab and Lobster Festival is right up there with the Wuhan Wet Market in China, which is said to be the source of coronavirus? The clue’s in the name. The festival features, er, crab and lobster.

Wuhan Wet Market sells and slaughters such yummy delicacies as bats, pangolins, turtles, snakes, beavers, porcupines and baby crocodiles.

I’ve never seen a deep-fried dead dog on a whelk stall, or on the menu at a cafe near Cromer pier. To the best of my knowledge, chippies in Sheringham aren’t knocking out snake and chips alongside the skate and saveloys.

Maybe the odd holidaymaker has experienced a funny tummy after eating a dodgy cockle, but there is no record of Cromer crab ever starting a worldwide pandemic.

When was the last time anyone went to north norfolk and ordered a plate of delicious dressed bat?

Once this lockdown’s over, I’m heading for Cromer and buying the largest local lobster I can lay my hands on.