Peter Rhodes on dear beer, profitable peanuts and 'orrible otters

A publican once told me his most profitable line was neither beer nor lager but tomato juice, bought in huge kegs for a few pennies per shot and sold for a few quid per glass. In a perfect world, he said, all his beer-drinking customers would switch to tomato juice.

And don't forget the astonishing mark-up on some pub snacks. A Daily Telegraph reader reports that his local pub in rural Gloucestershire charges £3.50 for a small 40g bag of roasted peanuts – that's equivalent to £87.50 a kilo.

Many years ago in my misspent youth I worked in a bar which branched out into catering, with all profits going to charity. We bought the raw materials for a hamburger for less than 20p, sold the burgers for £1, and no-one ever complained.

Thanks to TV nature programmes, we are aware that the animal kingdom is divided into two sorts of creatures, namely goodies (gorillas, dolphins, meerkats, et cetera) and baddies (snakes, scorpions, hyenas, et cetera). And the jolliest, happiest, most playful, endearing and all-round nicest animal of the lot is, of course, the otter.

Which is probably why we were so shocked recently at reports of a British man being attacked and savaged by a pack of 20 otters in Singapore's botanic gardens. Graham Spencer suffered more than 20 wounds and said he thought he was going to die. Somewhere, in the dusty recesses of my memory, a bell rang. It was the strange story of the late TV naturalist Terry Nutkins who, in his teens, worked in the Highlands with otter expert Gavin Maxwell. One of Maxwell's otters suddenly attacked the youngster. The bites became gangrenous and Nutkins had to have two fingers amputated.

Moral: beware of animals that seem too good to be true. Especially in gangs.

There's a stirring footnote to this tale. Gavin Maxwell recorded Nutkins' fortitude as he lay in hospital looking at his mangled hand and saying calmly: “Chop 'em off, doctor. That ruddy lot's no good to anyone.” At the time, Nutkins was 14.