Britain's best known pub is engulfed in a ball of flame as landlady Stella Price screams for help when the Rovers Return becomes a raging inferno.

Room Service

Trying to film a hidden camera show in this "summer" is starting to get me down.

To British television viewers, David Kelly was the stereotypical Irishman, guaranteed perpetuity through his appearance as O'Reilly, the inept contractor hired by Basil in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Builders". After botching a job inside the hotel, he is seen taking issue with Basil's disgruntled wife. "I like a woman with spirit," he unwisely says, before Sybil batters him with an umbrella. "I've been 52 to 53 years on stage and yet Fawlty Towers, those full nine minutes, make me recognised anywhere in the world," he once said.

I've been driving round the huge roundabout on the south side of Westminster Bridge for years, and assumed there might be a pumping station inside, or a maximumsecurity prison. Imagine my surprise when it recently shed its dismal chrysalis and emerged as a lumpen butterfly, 15 stories high with 1,021 rooms and dramatic views of Big Ben.

For three sweaty hours, we'd been crawling north in bank holiday traffic. Another two hours, at least, lay ahead of us. We would have to break our journey to eat. Once, our only option would have been the nearest service-station cafe. But thankfully we live in the modern world. A quick search on the Blackberry, a phone call and a sat nav-guided escape route later, and we were happily installed in a dreamy little bistro, feasting on braised pork belly and pan-fried brill. Also, this being the modern world, charred antelope steak in goat's cheese sauce, but we'll come on to that later.

Paris Notebook

Earl Cadogan refuses to renew lease on celebrated London brasserie because 'the prices were too high'

Its predecessor was named after a restaurant reviewer. But is the Brompton Bar & Grill still beyond reproach?

Côte, 124-126 Wardour Street, London W1, tel: 020 7287 9280

We all know what a seaside restaurant should look like. Scrubbed wooden tables, perhaps draped with a tasteful bit of Cath Kidston lighthouse-sprigged oilcloth; old photos of grizzled fishermen; some fishing nets, driftwood or other maritime detritus; a blackboard advertising the Catch of the Day (inevitably just sold out). So what the hell was the owner of the Thorpeness Brasserie on when he dreamed up his decorative scheme?

DINERS THRILLED at booking a table at Aurora, Sir Terence Conran's newest eaterie, have found themselves seatless and disappointed. They are the losers in a restaurant war that has seen confused, tuxedoed diners turning up miles from their seats and table bookings cancelled.

Roger Trapp reports on an advertising agency where all the cooks are creative

The Meridien, Piccadilly, which is already doing quite nicely food-wise with Marco Pierre White's Oak Room, has declared its intended dominance of the hotel-food market by opening another splendid restaurant on the same premises.