Ice Cream Vans Chugging Around London Will Soon Be a Thing of the Past

Mr Whippy is causing global warming and hurting your lungs

The 99 — with a flake, or not — could become more elusive in parts of London, because traditional ice cream vans are chugging out tonnes of chemical by-products out of their diesel engines and into children’s lungs, over their cutesy jingle of choice. London councils are moving to ban the vans, install “no ice cream trading signs” — which are presumably the ice cream cone outline crossed with ‘no entry’ — and exercise stricter control than the standard London policy of 15 minutes’ continuous trading. Camden council is even planning to hand out fines to illicit ice cream floggers. While that council — and Westminster — are looking to introduce permanent power points so that vans can trade without engines on, a summertime tradition in the city looks to be slowly melting away. [Evening Standard]

And in other news...

• Percy Pig devotees are losing their minds after Marks and Spencer changed its recipe to make all versions of the cult farmyard sweet vegetarian.

• Two of London’s canniest restaurateurs are opening a restaurant in Cornwall called Fitzroy.
• For a country that wants to reduce its plastic consumption, the U.K. sure is buying even more bottled water than it did last year. [Guardian]
• Luke Selby will leave his head chef role at Ollie Dabbous’ Hide Above at the end of May. Selby led the restaurant to a Michelin star in its first year. [The Caterer]
• Kikkoman has responded to the U.K.’s appetite for calling just about anything in a bowl that features raw fish poke, by launching a poke sauce. [Just Food]
• Finally, a national restaurant critic comes up against an anatomical riddle. HOW CAN A FISH HAVE FINGERS????