The poo in the icecream

No, this is not one of those stories, the sort you expect to find in an Arthur Goldstuck. In fact, it’s not an urban legend at all – at least, that’s how events are panning out. So far.

The story of how four scoops of gelato were served on a bed of faeces to a family at Sydney’s famous Coogee Bay Hotel has riveted Australians this week.

The Sunday papers were full of the news that the Whyte family had suffered the most terrible of indignities a couple of weeks back. They had visited the hotel’s spiffy new brasserie to watch the NRL grand final on October 5. The trouble started when they complained – three times — that the volume on the television was turned too low. Then they were angry about the cost of ice cream for their children: $19 for an adult serve (R125 or thereabouts, take it or leave it). They got up to leave; the hotel placated them with an offer of a complimentary bowl of ice cream.

Mrs Whyte takes up the story: “The minute I put the spoon to my lips, the stench went through my nostrils. I retched and spat it into the napkin,” she said. “My friend thought I was over-reacting, but when she smelt it, she started screaming: ‘Oh my God, they’ve served us s—.”‘

(The Sun-Herald has a slightly different angle: “Later, this huge bowl of ice-cream arrived at our table as a ‘sorry for all the hassle’,” Mrs Whyte said. “There were four scoops including vanilla, chocolate and hazelnut. At the bottom, there appeared to be chocolate. Greedily, I went for it ahead of the kids. Thank heavens I did. The stench, the taste … I spat the food into a napkin and immediately I was sick. “There was no doubting what it was. The whole family became hysterical. My poor son screamed at one of their staff: ‘You made my mum eat poo.”‘)

The quote from Mrs Whyte on the emotional trauma she has suffered is worth repeating here:

“Mrs Whyte said the whole episode would have a lasting effect on her. She said she now struggled when wiping her youngest son’s bottom and was anxious about eating out.” (In the same article, the Sunday Telegraph reported that it had “inspected the remains and can confirm it to be consistent with human faecal matter”. The mind boggles.)

PR machines soon whirred into action. The Whytes appear to have somebody who knows how to manage the media on their side, judging by their slick and coordinated appearance in both major Sunday papers. The hotel reportedly offered them $5 000, which was dismissed out of hand. Hotel management then intimated that there was some kind of sabotage effort going on saying that the Whytes had demanded $1-million.

On Monday a second couple, friends of the Whytes, backed the poo in the ice cream claim. Then it turned out that the brasserie’s manager herself had served the offending dessert. Testing showed that there was indeed faecal matter in the gelato, though whether it was animal or human was not clear. Staff are offering DNA samples to clear the hotel’s name. Meanwhile, the brasserie’s chef denied reports that he had quit his job.

Sydney-siders are of course enjoying this immensely. “Gelato hits” wrote one wag to the Sydney Morning Herald. The Daily Telegraph printed my letter in response to an execrable new comedy, my debut in print in Australia. (I declared that not even the Coogee Bay Hotel could have served up a bigger pile of poo.)

The timing could not be worse, given that the hotel has only recently relaunched itself as a “family-friendly” venue. It had long been associated with gang violence, specifically the notorious surf gang the Bra Boys, partying backpackers and aggressive, drunken louts. All of that marketing money has been effectively unspent; talk in the office this week has been of little else. “Coogee Bay Hotel” is now code for the brown stuff hitting the proverbial fan.

And it’s only been four days since the story broke. Who knows how this will progress. But it is interesting that in a world where doom and financial gloom has dominated the papers for so long, that it is stories like these that provide, well, a breath of fresh air.