FOOD, inglorious food, was very much on the menu in Beggarsdale this week, brought about by a strange conjunction of the Easter break and TV chef Jamie Oliver marching on Downing Street.

The Beggars' Arms was once a favourite school holiday lunch stop for parents desperately trying to entertain their caterwauling kiddiewinks, falsely believing that a 10 minute walk by the beck will tire them out so they don't have the energy to brawl over the dining table.

Not so. It merely takes them away from their game stations or the telly and makes them even more irritable. And when they read the Beggars' menu (those who can read, that is) they begin to whine even before they have placed an order.

Reason: the Innkeeper's Lady took burgers, fish shapes, chick nuggets and the now notorious turkey twisters off the menu two or three years ago because a) she thought they were unhealthy but b) because they lowered the tone of the place now it has built a reputation for traditional English food.

So, all over the weekend, groups of snarling family members sat down, read the menu, squabbled and sometimes wept, faced as they were with steak and kidney pudding with spring greens or roast hock of lamb in rosemary and wine sauce.

Then they would stand up again and walk out, kids grinning in triumph, mothers mouthing apologies, off to the Macdonald's in Mar'ton to stuff themselves full of fat, sugar and salt.

Now this came in the week when the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was planning to take a petition of an estimated 200,000 signatures to Downing Street in protest against Britain's 37p a head school dinners which, he says, are helping our youngsters on their way to being the first ever generation to die before their parents.

Now Oliver is an unlikely hero in this part of the world. We don't like his Essex accent, we don't like the way he parades his family on the telly, we don't particularly care for dining-out Londoners and many of us - Cousin Kate, the post mistress in particularly - violently object to his constant foul language.

Yet when his school dinners programme became the talk of the Dale, even Kate switched on - and became a rabid fan.

She was even heard to remark - admittedly after a couple of G&Ts on Tuesday evening when most of the visitors had gone home - that if Jamie were to stand for Prime Minister, she would vote for him.

Now that set off one of those comical debates that we play for laughs here in the Dale when, in fact, most of time the levity is merely a veneer over what is often a deeply important subject.

"They'd have to remake that old TV series and call it No ******* Prime Minister," said Ben the Bucket.

"They'd have to get a new bandwagon to hold all the politicians trying to jump on to it," said Yun' Tom.

It is a strange state of affairs, is it not, when to get to the bottom of a long running scandal which puts the entire future of this country at risk, we ignore our smooth-talking politicos and have to get the truth from a foul-mouthed cook who admits he failed his GCSEs?

Jamie for PM? I'd vote for that!

o The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.