John Gibson: Panda poo, pretty pricey for the zoo

You’re bound to laugh. What happened next at Edinburgh Zoo? What’s brewing? Only a harmless bit of fun. A hoot. Panda dung tea, which can be sipped exclusively in this column.

It tastes different and, by Jove, it costs different. It goes on sale soon initially in China where it will be selling at £130 a cup. You make it with leaves fertilised with panda dung. The dung’s being salvaged at a panda breeding centre in south-west China.

For the fun of it, there’ll come a time you’re in Edinburgh Zoo’s caff, you can ask for a cuppa made with PD Tips. Served in their best china, of course.

Curtain call

Sobering words from somebody who has given me a lot of viewing pleasure, David Suchet: “I’ll be 66 in May and in my 66 years I don’t think I’ve lived through such a time as the past ten, 15 years, when there has been so much alcohol in our society. So much readily available to the young. And what occurs through alcohol. And the drugs. We live through a time of drugs.’’

Seven hundred and fifty million viewers round the world will watch Suchet die in Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. The way to go after 23 years in the role.

Afterwords . .

from the ultra-cool, not so serious Sir Anthony Hopkins, talking after a past Oscar ceremony: “It was very nice to get an Oscar but now it just rusts and tarnishes on the sideboard near the TV. You can’t take any of it too seriously. Death comes to us all . . . . Nothing really is of any importance and there’s peace in that.”