Merryn Somerset Webb: Fleeced by sushi-munchers

Merryn Somerset Webb wonders why anyone would pay £250 to eat cold rice off someone else's bottom.

Think of yourself as a bit of a "gastro thrill seeker"? Then I have good news for you. A group called Flash Sushi are bringing nyotaimori ("the traditional Japanese art of eating sushi off a naked female body") to London. Those who attend the group's pop-up dinners (different locations every time) will join 12 to 24 other guests for a champagne reception before taking their seats at a communal table around some "stunning Hakada models".

They will then get a ten course Japanese meal prepared by "master chef Saito", which will be arranged on and then eaten from the woman's body. I'm not 100% sure this isn't a joke, but assuming it's not, it all seems rather disgusting: personally I'd go well out of my way not to eat rice off someone else's bottom. Still, a check on the website (Flash-sushi.com, if you must) shows that's just me: most of the dinners are sold out.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.