An eatery in Sheffield, central England, called the 'Polonium Restaurant' is getting more business from local customers in the aftermath of the poisoning of a former Russian spy, a tabloid reported. The owner of the restaurant, Boguslaw Sidorowicz from Poland, told the tabloid The Sun that bookings had gone up since polonium-210 -- the radioactive substance of which large quantities were found in Alexander Litvinenko's urine after his death -- hit the news.
Sidorowicz, 46, said he named the restaurant, which he has been running for about 18 months, after a band of which he was a member nearly 30 years ago.
"It was Marie Curie who discovered polonium and she was Polish," he told the tabloid.
"In 1978, a friend of mine who was studying chemistry at Sheffield University suggested it as the name for the band. So that's what we called our folk group, without realising just how poisonous a substance it was."
"When I saw the restaurant's name all over the papers -- I thought someone had booked us an advert."
"We've had an incredible 728,000 hits on the Polonium website, and have been inundated with calls from around the globe," he said.
