We’re always being told that the Mediterranean diet is a healthy one- all that red wine, garlic and olive oil is meant to have given the Italians, Spaniards and French the healthiest hearts in Europe, if not the world. It has come as a surprise, then, to hear that thirty Madrid restaurants are to install portable defibrillators. The machines, costing £1,854 each, could prove the difference between the life and death of diners used to 3 hour-long lunches traditionally followed by brandy and cigars.
Campaigners believe that the machines could save up to 700 lives a year – Spain loses 35,000 people to heart attacks every year.
Real Madrid FC has already installed a defibrillator in its restaurant, lest the combination of tapas and football prompt coronary episodes.
Is this a trend that we can see arriving in the UK? And with most large companies boasting staff canteens, can we expect to see our catering staff using defibrillators on latter day Mr Creosotes as we queue for our subsidised pie and chips? “Just one more waffer-thin mint” …
