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‘Have a nice day’ is bad enough, but pregnancy advice (from a man) is really fast-food service gone mad

Ellen E Jones
Ellen E Jones

Do you like your takeaway food with a side of side-eye? Then step into the Waterloo station branch of Wasabi, where this week I was transformed from casual weekend whinger to serious filer of official complaints.

I’d gone in before a work event, hoping to grab a bite and sit down to eat. But instead of getting my usual — traditional chirashi salad with an extra sachet of spicy sauce — I got an unsolicited lecture on antenatal healthcare. The server at the cash desk (male, early 20s, an idiot) pointed to my TFL ‘Baby on Board’ badge and said: “You know, pregnant women shouldn’t eat sushi.”

Actually, according to current NHS guidelines, raw fish is safe to eat in pregnancy if it comes from a parasite-free source and/or has been frozen before consumption — as is the case with Wasabi and almost all sushi for sale in London. “But still,” persisted the young man when I politely corrected him, “it’s not good for the baby.”

Er…what the…? Why was I, a grown woman, having the basics of maternal nutrition twerp-splained to me by someone with no medical training (presumably) and no uterus (again, presumably)? Had I accidentally wandered onto the set of The Handmaid’s Tale season two?

I’d have dropped down dead from the effrontery, were it not for previous experience. Having my first baby made me familiar with this weird social phenomenon whereby a woman’s body becomes communal property when she’s pregnant. Suddenly everyone from anti-choice law-makers to randoms in Waterloo station believe it their right — nay duty — to make decisions on your behalf. It’s sweet. And then it’s annoying. And then it’s a downright threat to your hard-won liberty.

I offered my card, hoping to be allowed to pay and leave. No such luck. “They tell us to say this to women,” he went on — I took “they” to mean Wasabi management. He then added sarcastically: “But I suppose you know better…?” At that I gave up and left in search of somewhere else to eat. Later, as I choked down a burrito seasoned only by my salty tears of frustration, I made a resolution: it was time to make my first-ever complaint about customer service.

Wasabi’s UK head office was brilliant. Within an hour of my arsey email they’d offered a proper apology, some lunch vouchers and the reassurance that it is not in fact company policy to refuse service on spurious medical grounds. So soothed am I by this sensitive response, I can even admit that the guy probably did mean well. And, yeah, maybe my attitude to lunchtime interactions had been coloured by lingering bitterness over the fact that no Pret server has ever once offered me one of their free coffees! Not once!

Yet I maintain that when the stranger behind the counter feels comfortable offering any advice beyond “have a nice day”, the service has crossed a line. I’ll meekly endure all manner of unsmiling transactions and pointless queues, but not that. Never that. And don’t call me “hun” either.

Why Cynthia’s set for success in the city

Cynthia Nixon (Getty Images)
Cynthia Nixon (Getty Images)

Cynthia Nixon, actress and recently announced New York State gubernatorial candidate, was born and raised on the Upper West Side and made her name playing a thirty-something, single career woman, so there’s no doubting her “real New Yorker” credentials. There are plenty of people, however, who doubt her qualifications for office. Do these people have no understanding of TV’s place in modern US politics? More damningly, have they never seen an episode of Sex and The City?

Admittedly, it’s hard to say what counts as relevant political experience in these days of a Trump presidency but everyone’s got to start somewhere. The 40th US President, Ronald Reagan, had never run for office before he announced his candidacy for California Governor in 1966, and in his Hollywood actor days he mostly played cowboys. Nixon, on the other hand, has surely picked up some pointers as both Eleanor Roosevelt (in 2005’s Warm Springs) and Nancy Reagan (2016’s Killing Reagan). She’s also actively campaigned for public education, LGBT rights and cancer awareness (as a breast cancer survivor) for over a decade.

Yet surely, in front and centre of all of Nixon’s campaign materials, should be her time playing Miranda Hobbes on Sex and The City’s six seasons and two films.

After peacemaking between former co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall, all that Albany politicking will be a doddle.

* Scott “son of Clint” Eastwood is so sick of being asked questions about his famous dad that he’s begun denying that they’re even related. On the publicity tour for Pacific Rim: Uprising 2 journalists have been confronted with a lesser version of that “Do you feel lucky, punk?” snarl and told that Scott’s father is, variously, an astronaut, Peter Pan or the rum brand mascot Captain Morgan. The quickest way to escape a famous parent’s shadow? Make better movies.