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SCMP Reporter

GIDEON Todes of BSB Advertising went with a friend to Kwung-Sheung-City Japanese restaurant in Central for a meal on Monday.

  They chose about $250 worth of food from the menu they were given.

  But after lunch they received a bill for $556.

  Gideon peered at the bill. One dish, which was listed at $40 on the menu, was more than $100 on the bill. Several other dishes had similar discrepancies. He complained, and staff openly admitted there was a difference.

  The manager explained that the diners had accidentally been given an old menu, which showed prices three years out of date.

  The actual bill was based on the present, much higher prices.

  Gideon decided that if this was an honest mistake, then the restaurant would not want to keep this troublesome old menu. The advertising man helpfully said he would take it away and dispose of it.

  But this is the strange bit. The manager seemed oddly reluctant to let it leave the premises.

  Gideon said: ''What do you need it for? After all, it's three years out of date.''   They left clutching the thing, leaving the manager clearly fuming at having to part with it.

  One can only assume that he was sentimental about the old menu. It's good to see a little open sentimentality in these hard, cynical days.

     Repellent idea    ACCOUNTANT Tony Nedderman was staring at a brochure for a holiday at the Mulu Caves from Frontieres 56 Travel Ltd yesterday. Listed under the title ''Recommend Personal Gear'' is ''Insert Repellent''.

  Surely you don't have to take a rape alarm with you?      Lost trade   REMEMBER last Wednesday, when a mind-boggling $7.7 billion moved through the Hongkong share market in a few hours?   Well it didn't.

  In fact, the figure was $8.2 billion, we learned yesterday.

  Apparently it had not all been counted the first time.

  Now we don't want anyone criticising the Hongkong stock exchange staff for this.

  We all know how easy it is to leave half a billion in a back pocket when you hand your trousers to the amah. We do it almost daily.

     Cadres sharp    CHINESE businessman Ko Xinga told us yesterday that there is a new game among cadres in China.

  At the moment, China is changing extremely fast, with all sorts of new trends, values and products. This makes it difficult to identify what is ''in'' and what is ''out''.

  ''The quick way they use to work it out goes like this: whatever the Communist Party says is bad, is good, and vice versa,'' said Mr Ko. ''Ironically, that means Fei Pang [Chris Patten] is in.''   He added that in the wake of the row over throwing liberals out of the Legco through train in 1997, there was a rumour going around that Beijing was going to hire Danny Devito to make a new film.

  It will be called Throw Martin From the Train.

     Ticket to ride   DID you read the latest proposal from a pro-China group about elections yesterday?   The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hongkong has proposed drawing lots to see which legislators holding foreign passports can stay on the through train after 1997.

  What a brilliant idea. You could have Legco members assembled in Statue Square in a game show format. If a member picks the right card out of a box, a glamorous hostess leads him to his seat in the chamber.

  The Democratic Alliance clearly has a broad definition of the word ''democratic''.

     Not my line    ELIZABETH Smith of Mei Ping, the porcelain shop in Wilson House, Wyndham Street, keeps getting stray faxes.

  Nothing strange about that. Except for the fact that these faxes come from Financiere Indosuez in Paris, and carry all sorts of interesting financial information about companies the firm is dealing with.

  She has contacted the merchant bank half a dozen times (Hongkong and Paris offices) but the faxes keep coming.

  ''Some of the material is really quite interesting,'' said Elizabeth.

  On the same lines, laughing tax-man Fred Fredricks told us yesterday that he had once been assigned a telephone number which was secondhand.

  After getting several calls from people he did not know, he realised that the line used to belong to a call-girl.

  Lots of wicked men kept bothering him with furtive requests.

  Life is so unfair. How come these things never happen to us?      Ad nauseam   GOT into one of those new advertising taxis in Quarry Bay on Monday night.

  A company had paid to have Joe the Camel of Camel cigarettes emblazoned on the side in iridescent red and yellow.

  But the inside of the vehicle was emblazoned with the words ''NO SMOKING''.

  We felt like forcibly emblazing the diksi driver's head with the words: ''NO HYPOCRISY''.



Manager mortified at losing link with the past