World Vegan Day: The battle over Dublin cafe White Moose not serving vegan food is one best won with humour

It’s clear this is a battle that will be won with humour rather than earnest sentiment

There are an estimated 150,000 Vegans in the UK

1 November is World Vegan Day. It is a noble cause celebrated by an estimated 150,000 people in the UK, but the past few weeks have not been good for many who choose to abstain from animal products.

It started when a young woman called Tee Jay wrote a scathing review of a café in Dublin called the White Moose because it did not cater to vegans. The café’s owner, Paul Stenson, hit back with a post on Facebook that stated he would be happy, with some advance notice, to cater to “idiosyncratic dietary requirements”, but Tee Jay misunderstood and got angry about having her beliefs judged “idiotic”.

Needless to say it did not end there. As Tee Jay started to rally the troops and a Facebook page called People Against the White Moose Café sprung up, Stenson hit back with “All vegans barred”. As the story spread around the world, Stenson further fuelled the fire by telling his vegan non-customers that “if you were to put a monetary value on this kind of publicity, you would be talking a six-figure sum”.

And while it would be unwise for this column to take sides, there is currently a competition on the White Moose’s Facebook page to come up with a slogan for the back of the café’s new T-shirts. Among the contenders are “My food shits on your food”, “Being a vegan is a missed steak” and “Lose your veg-inity”. Stenson tells me that he will probably go with “Vegan free since 2015” and says he is rubbing his hands together mischievously at the news that today is Vegan Day. Come on, vegans. It’s clear this is a battle that will be won with humour rather than earnest sentiment. Over to you.

The old ones are best

The American comedian Michael Pritchard put it this way: “You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.” It is a great line and, appropriately enough, it is now being used in the search for the Silver Stand Up of the Year, the annual competition to find the UK’s funniest person over the age of 55, with the winner to be crowned next year as part of Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival.

What, then, might the victorious comic expect? I spoke to Marc Lucero to find out. “I’d been working as a comedian for a number of years, but when I heard about this competition I’d just hit 60 so I gave it a go,” he said. “Since then, it’s been a massive profile raiser. I get young comedians asking to have their pictures taken with me, and I’ve been on TV and the radio. I’m also pitching to film companies that would not have let me through the door before.”

And have others pointed out the spooky similarity between your delivery and that of the “Cockney comic” Micky Flanagan? “Oh, don’t you start,” he said. “I can’t even order a pint in the pub … I was close with Micky on our way up but I was never quite as funny as him.” Based on what I’ve heard of Lucero’s material – listen to his take on being Facebook friends with sausages on YouTube – that’s not entirely true.

Gum ball rally

It is one of the mysteries of the modern age: who the hell is responsible for those hundreds of blobs on the pavement that councils insist are discarded chewing gum?

It’s a serious issue – the Chewing Gum Action Group claims the average UK town spends about £60,000 a year on clearing up – that calls for a light-hearted approach. On London’s Oxford Street recently the council painted the gum fluorescent yellow (inset, centre) to, ahem, highlight the problem. Others employ the services of artist Ben Wilson, “the Chewing Gum Man”, to paint mini masterpieces on sticky circles.

But the best idea of all has come from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has just launched an initiative to hand “Gum Tec” balls out on the street. The idea is that people fill the balls with gum and then send them back to the council which uses the gum to produce more Gum Tec balls. Meta, or what? “Hopefully,” said the council’s member for environmental health Timothy Ahern, “this will free the sole.”

Leap of faith

It is the kind of story that websites thrive on – the World Puddle Jumping Championship is hit by a “doping scandal” as it decided to ban the use of fizzy drinks for its annual splash in Kettering’s Wicksteed Park last Wednesday.

But organisers of the event, won this year by a nine-year-old girl called Ruby King, insist that their words were taken out of context. “As you can see from the original press release,” an organiser told me, “this was only ever a polite request to parents, which was exaggerated.”

It seems nothing is safe from the clickbait headline.

No rhyme or reason

Another in a regular series of limericks based on recent events:

Though she said it’s a word of the soil,

On TV it made viewers recoil,

But the ‘Carry on …’ star’s

Known for going too far,

The name Windsor don’t make you a royal.

Twitter: @simmyrichman