X-TRA DIARY - Heinz allotment selling fresh food in Soho Square

Published: 13 August, 2010

TINNED favourites Heinz aren’t necessarily the first brand Diary would associate with fresh food, but it looks like the marketing whizz-kids are taking a sharp can opener to that. 

If you’ve been down to Soho Square recently you’ll have noticed a new allotment has sprung up which the branding people at the home of baked beans are calling a “self-service salad sanctuary”. As you might have guessed by now, curious vegetable pickers are encouraged to dollop on the other not-so-fine, but oh so institutional food product they are famous for – Salad Cream. 

Here is Nigel Dickie, Heinz spokesman, with the inevitable seamless link between garden and brand: “Heinz Salad Cream has always been the perfect partner to a variety of the nation’s favourite foods, especially a crisp salad in the summer sun, and with the allotment we wanted to give people the ultimate salad to dress. With more and more people being denied the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of their own veggie patch, we felt it time to give some of these people the chance to paint their fingers green and tuck into a tasty salad of their own design.” 

Course for tour guides 

London Tour Guiding is one of the more unusual courses being offered for the first time at the University of Westminster this September. 

Last year, Diary was lucky enough to join a tour with a City of Westminster guide on the impact of the Second World War and was delighted to discover its success was the inspiration for this new course. 

The year-long evening programme at the Marylebone campus costs £870 and is focused on the borough’s rich history as well as developing the skills needed to explain it to international audiences.

There are no minimum entry requirements and organisers are keen to reach out to Westminster residents. 

• For more information visit www.westminster.ac.uk/tour-guiding 

Music: a note of caution...

Other than a banjo to the head, it’s hard to imagine what possible health risks playing a musical instrument could bring. 

But apparently the piano stool and practice room are the new rugby fields – a source of physical strains and injuries. 

Cellist Janet Horvath (pictured), from the Minnesota Orchestra, has written a book about the many medical problems faced by performing artists, and will give a talk about it at Westminster Reference Library later this month. 

Her book, Playing (Less) Hurt, addresses the problems, with advice on how to avoid and alleviate injuries. The talk is on Friday, August 27 from 2pm and lasts two hours.

Bovvered about etiquette?

There are a slew of instructional programmes on television at the moment; you know the ones where an ageing hockey team of woolly stockinged finishing school types peer over their glasses and pooh-pooh the loose morals (and lack of class) of the Vicky Pollards they like to think are representative of modern Britain.

Anyone who has ever seen these post-aspirational shows, usually on some satellite channel+1, quickly realises they have less to do with concerns over slipping standards, rather than a new take on that old English sport – laughing at poor people. 

So Diary was a little surprised to see this vogue has reached our centres of learning. Students at Paddington Academy have been taking etiquette lessons.

To be fair, it’s all about improving the “soft skills” rather than any advocacy of class war. Shaking hands, saying hello, looking people in the eye, removing chewing gum, eating with a knife and fork – that kind of thing. 

Much like the reality TV shows the course mirrors, students are given the opportunity to put these new skills into practice. In the last week of term, they hosted afternoon tea, ate smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches, and made polite small talk. Whatever next?