Notting Hill Nonsense Human Being of the Year 2006 – 20/12/06
To be honest, I had no plans to make such an award. But a candidate so deserving has emerged this week that I now feel I have no choice.

Step forward Mr Johnny Ekperigin, managing partner of Julie’s Restaurant, a Notting Hill favourite for the last 30 years frequented by everyone from Princess Margaret to Kate Moss. Obviously, I don’t go there.

Why is Johnny the winner of this prestigious award, which, admittedly, I only made up this morning? Because he was up in front of District Judge Mary Connelly at West London Magistrates Court and was found guilty of three offences under Section 15 (1) (B) of the Food Safety Act 1990.

What did he do? He falsely described normal food as organic and so hit my funny bone in several places at once. First, he took his rich and gullible customers for a ride. Second, he showed that organic food’s one possibly genuine claim to superiority, it’s distinctive taste, is an illusion (none of his customers complained. I demolish the organic lobby’s claims about health benefits below). Thirdly, anything that makes the organic industry look stupid, and a bit crooked, is fine by me.

And Mr Ekperigin may have been up to it for a while. In a retrospectively hilarious item in The Evening Standard’s Food Spy column in July 2005 a staff member at Julie’s was reported as saying: 'Johnny's introduced a huge range of organic produce on to the menu. He visits the farms often and likes naming the animals, but the problem is he's got too attached and gets very emotional when he sees his customers eating them.' Perhaps he was crying with laughter at the stupidity of his customers.

The prosecution was pursued by the ever vigilant staff at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s Environmental Health Department, and it’s the first prosecution of a restaurant on such charges in the UK, though a couple of butchers have previously been caught out.

The sharp-eyed officers noted that menu items such as Julie’s sausages with olive oil mash and cranberry onions (£13.50), sage, mustard and balsamic roasted chicken with shallots and pumpkin (£15) and spice-crusted rack of lamb with caramelised pear and blackcurrant jus (£17) were all described as organic.

So they then checked the purchase records and found that the meat concerned was not organic at all. They calculated that Julie’s saved £4,186.44 on chicken alone during the 52 day period that they checked.

Julie’s say they use organic produce wherever possible – so Johnny may well have saved his restaurant a packet. But don’t worry, the money is coming out of the pockets of the likes of Jeremy Paxman, Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue.

Vested-interest groups like the Soil Association, which basically earns its income from people’s misplaced faith in organic, regularly, and falsely, claim that organic food is better for you than normal food.

I’m not the only one who calls this claim balderdash; so do the French Food Safety Agency, the Swedish National Food Administration, the Consumers’ Association and the UK Food Standards Agency. The Advertising Standards Authority has forced the Soil Association to withdraw some of its claims in the past.

Then again, organic sounds nice and cuddly and green. But the fact is that if we stopped using pesticides and fertilisers, crop yields would nose-dive and half the world would be starving. Funnily enough, another customer of Julie’s was Ireland’s most famous short-arse, Bono, who claims to know a bit about poverty and hunger.

Organics is a niche market for rich folk. I buy free range meat, especially chicken, when I can because it generally tastes better – though whether I’d spot the difference in a blind tasting is another matter. But I don’t believe for a minute that it’s healthier and boy, does it cost more.

Finally Mr Ekperigin told the court: "It was purely a mistake and I had taken my eye off the ball." Johnny, Johnny, my friend, I say you’ve nothing to be ashamed of!