That steak's been cooked, now for something else....

Well folks that's your lot from Well Done Fillet. I quit.

Like eating a well done fillet steak it may take moment to digest that news.

After 2 and a bit years and nearly 700 posts I have decided to call it a day. I know what you're thinking, "Why now? Why not last year?". Pfft, whatever. My reasons, like trophies at Manchester United, are multitude.

I have truly loved writing Well Done Fillet but bugger me it doesn't half take it out of you and really does leave you with no free time for anything else. Like a politician forced to step down in disgrace I too want to spend time with family. Not specifically my family. But I also want to write about other things, there is more to life than waiters and chums of waiters or so I'm told. In a world filled with sheep and crooked politicians and where Adam Sandler is regarded as a comedic genius it seems wasteful just to write about the infinite joy of waiting tables. There is also a book that needs to be finished, rejected and started again and despite my best efforts and fanciful dreams it wont write itself.

Like I say, I have absolutely loved sharing my woes and wonders, my thoughtless thoughts and my foul mouthed meanderings with you. Ach I'm welling up. I hope I have made you laugh and I hope you have learned to love the waiters in your life. We are a noble breed, filled with compassion and charisma and an overwhelming sense of......ha! I cant even write that with a straight face. Seriously if you have learned nothing from me, and I assume you have learned exactly that then please just follow this simple advice - eat, pay, tip, leave or the waiter is gonna write about you on their blog.

So whilst Well Done Fillet will no longer be serving you truths from the restaurant floor (what?) I will be returning soon, in a new format and with bigger fish to fry. Or maybe just with stories of rude guests and courageous waiters. Who's to say?

Stay tuned.

I shall leave you with my second favourite waiter quote, “It's a good thing that life is not as serious as it seems to a waiter”.

Pfft, it was always serious.

It's a bloody good job I don't live in South Carolina...

Meh. Thursday was so meh I was irascible all day. Irascible and crestfallen. Where has the sun gone? Where are the early signs of summer? I blame the credit crunch and politicians. They seem fair game at the moment. But then as I saw the curry shaped light of freedom and home I became rather chipper again. This chipper moment didn't last long as a table of 20 managed to squeeze and sneak their way into the restaurant not five minutes before we were due to close. The curry shaped light of home was snuffed out in an instance. I blamed myself at first for not doing the right thing (for the waiters and chums of waiters) by just saying we were closed. Damn my indecision and constant desire to be liked. I'd really rather be unpopular and at home than much loved and at work.

But meh, what ya gonna do?

I directed much narkiness and snarky comments at the late, very late, table of 20 and played the hero for quite a while until I realised they weren't really noticing/falling for it. So I just gave up and accepted that huffing and puffing wasn't really gonna get me to my big bowl of post work curry any quicker. I am so growing everyday, maturing if you will. As much as I wanted to both hit and shout at them I didn't. If I am being truly honest I just wanted to cry on them. I wanted them to know that their presence angered me and was keeping me from where I wanted to be and with what I wanted to eat. But you cant go around crying and huffing on punters, even if they really do deserve it.

Not that all waiter think as rationally as me. No some waiters really do go a step too far. Waiters like 29-year-old Yakeisha Ward. She got so pissed with one of her guests, not sure if they are called guests in a waffle house, that she went to her truck, retrieved her gun and damn well shot the guest that was annoying her. Allegedly that is.

Now obviously not even I can condone such behaviour but still it must have been a hoot. I mean imagine the look on the customer's face when faced with a waiter pissed off at your complaints of slow service. Ha, oh how I would love to do that, just once. I wouldn't want to kill someone but maybe just graze them a bit. That would put the whining out of them.

I'd stand over them in a Dirty Harry pose, "So, my service is slow then is it? Explain yourself?"

Ha, what japes. Still shooting the guest is never cool and bound to put a dent in your tips.....

There is more honour in serving gravy than riding the gravy train

I was chatting with some guests on Monday evening after the early rush had died down. The conversation soon got round to the subject of MP's expenses. It's hard not to be shocked at the gall of the bastards even if you have pretty much always considered every politician in the world to be about as morally bankrupt as it gets. Jabba the Hutt has more moral rectitude than most of these so called servants of the people and he imprisoned Han Solo in carbonite. The bastard.

But say what you like about Jabba the Hutt he never claimed £2,000 from the tax payer to get a pipe fixed under his tennis court unlike Conservative Party Policy Chief Oliver Letwin. Nor did the Hutt family, (is Jabba married?), bill the tax payer for the cleaning of his moat. A MOAT FOR FUCK SAKE! A FUCKING MOAT! WHO HAS A MOAT THESE DAYS? WHY AREN'T THERE RIOTS IN THE STREETS? WHY AREN'T PEOPLE MARCHING ON PARLIAMENT ARMED WITH PITCH FORKS AND BURNING TORCHES? JESUS H CHRIST! If this isn't the right time to sharpen the blades of the guillotine then exactly what do the fuckers have to do to get their heads chopped off?

That said I would love a moat. I'd like to see the postman try and deliver me my phone bill when I have a moat.

Arf!

But still it's outrageous conduct from those in public office and shows the politicians up for what they truly are - self serving, blood sucking, pocket lining, lying crooked bastards thus making Oliver Letwin et al sleazier than Jabba the Hutt.

Obviously.

"Oh I'd love to be a politician...", says the convivial American chap I was chatting with.

"Really?", I replied with some disbelief. We had both come to the same conclusion only a moment earlier that anyone who even considers becoming a politician should be shunned and treated with contempt, skepticism and derision.

"Yeah, I need to get the house painted." We laughed.

Personally I would rather jab a red hot poker up my chuff than sell my soul into the world of politics. Oh definitely not for me is that life of bungs and backhanders. There is more honour in serving gravy than riding the gravy train. My reasons, as the title suggests, are tenfold.

Ten Reasons Why Waiting Tables is a Better Job than being a Politician.

1. Waiters don't have off shore tax havens, secret bank accounts or slush funds. We have regular banks accounts, piggy banks for loose change and down the back of the couch for the tough days before pay day.
   
2. Waiters are more likely to be believed than politicians. I mean if a politician told me that this was the month of May I would check the calendar. But if the waiter was to tell you that today's soup was tomato and basil you would believe them right? Politicians say things like, ""Read my lips: no new taxes" and then promptly raise taxes. Lying bastards.
   
3. Waiters don't have to worry about Bob Dylan, Rage Against the Machine, Rolf Harris and that lot writing protest songs about them. Would The Dead Kennedy's "California Über Alles" really have lit that punk flame in your average teenager if it had been about waiters and their sometime proclivity for snootiness? I don't think so. There are no protest songs about waiters cause we are good people. Mostly.
4. Waiters look like....politicians look and smell and talk like this...
5. Waiters get to watch daytime television. Politicians don't even know who Fern Britain is nor who the principal characters in BBC afternoon soap, Doctors, are.
   
6. Waiters are free spirits and our wings are unbound are our thoughts, what thoughts we have, are free to express themselves - within the constraints of polite society that is. Politicians have to tow the party line at all times. They have to do and say what they are told no matter if the party line runs contrary to their own view. That's a shocking state of affairs. If I don't think that the special is as special as the chef thinks it is I say so. But if an MP thinks that selling of the post office is a terrible fucking idea they keep that thought to themselves so that they don't get a lashing from the party whips. Pfft, no backbone at all.
7. When did you last see a waiter get pied, egged, shot or require 24 hour police protection? Never! That's when. People love waiters and they detest the very ground politicians walk on.
8. Waiters also have no fear of democracy as you cant get a waiter shifted from his or her section, even if everybody at your tables wants a different waiter. Just like the pope we keep our sections until we die or get other jobs. Do popes get other jobs? Probably not. We are also infallible. And if by some miracle you did get the waiter moved to a different section the next waiter is going to be even worse, on purpose. Politicians fear democracy, they really do. They lie awake at night pishing into their pj's at the thought of elections.
9. Waiters sleep well at night, actually most of them sleep well at work. Our consciences are clear. Politicians don't sleep well. How could they with all the lies and soul selling?
10. And in the end being a politician is a morally repugnant job. Being a waiter is not.
    

Tony Benn is exempt mainly because he isn't a politician any more but as a politician he was ace. Oh and Carrie Gracie is aces. Watch this.

Fill in the blanks....

This has been up for the best part of a month. It makes me sad. Good grief it's only May, the children are still and school and the shops still have Cadbury's Creme Eggs is stock. I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man but that really does suck balls.

Jebus wept.

The baby Jebus in the manger that is.

I'm tired from an afternoon spent gardening, whilst listening to Clutch - gardening really does get done quicker when you are listening to the stoner rock musings of Clutch, and an evening spent dealing with the giggly machinations of Enrique Iglesias fans so you fill in the blanks.....

"The Ramada Hotel Belfast are a bunch of .............. for putting up a Christmas poster in April. I really hope they get .............. for christmas."

The one that tickles my cantankerous fancy the most will win a prize, probably a packet of seeds. Maybe two packets of seeds. I'm generous like that. Like Santa.

Does it smell of pine? No it smells like mentalism...you mentalist.

My taxi driver home last night was in fine fettle - you name it, he swore at it/about it/or just in it's general direction. Everything was annoying him, from the price of takeaway coffee, "It's just water awn some bloody nescafe.....sake.....I can get a whole jar for the price af that der...so I can" to the quality of pine used in the pine air freshener. This went on for ages, or what seemed like ages. I'll be honest with you, I could have lived without it. I mean he really was ruining my post work buzz, such as it was.

Not since the dawn of civilization has one man moaned as much about the smell from a pine shaped air freshener than this chap. I became quite frightened when he ripped the offending item from where it was dangling, experts tell me it's called the rear view mirror but whatever, and with more force required shoved it in the direction of my nose. Oh my.

"Does that there smell like a forest to you? Eh? Does it like?"

Now, I'm not sure if it was his fist that was shaking inches from my nose or because he was staring at me whilst careering through the city centre but I got confused. I'm sure confusion is a natural emotion to experience when staring down the barrel of a taxi driver shaped fist. Instead of replying in the appropriate manner, ie agreeing with the lunatic with the pine freshener in one hand and your life in the other, I said, "Doesn't smell too bad mate"

D'oh

"Doesn't smell too bad? Doesn't smell too bad? Wha?"

Oh dear, thought I, I've angered it. And I had indeed angered it. Checking the road for like a nano second he sticks the offending item up to his nose and goes at it like he was backstage at a Motley Crue concert. I mean he sniffed the pine right out of it.

"Doesn't smell too bad like? What you on mate? Here get a good whiff of that" and he reaches the bloody thing over to me.

"Get a good smell of it....", I did. I mean what choice did I have faced with the irrationality of the situation?! You know what I discovered you cant do? You cant fake the sound of sniffing without actually sniffing. This was very disappointing as I really didn't want my nostrils filled with the odor of fake pine.

"Well?", he says glaring at me.

"Aye yer right...", I wasn't sure now what I was supposed to be saying or agreeing to. Did he want me say that it did or didn't smell of something? Was that something meant to be good or bad? Jesus I was so confused. I just wanted to get home and nestle up to a chicken and chickpea curry and let it make everything better.

"Now does that smell like a forest then does it?"

"No...no I suppose it doesn't", said I handing the air freshener back to Crazy McMad-Bastard, the craziest maddest bastard driving in Belfast.

"You know what I'd like to do mate?" I did not know what he wanted to do. I didn't have a notion, maybe stick his winkle in a fish? It wouldn't have surprised me such was the manic nature of his discourse.

"I'd like til take the eejits that make this here shite to an actual forest and ask em if they think their air freshener smells the same." Christ it would be the scariest trip to the forest since Hansel and Gretel were abandoned by their parents. But his use of the word eejit made me giggle, into myself obviously, I'm not completely clueless about how to handle myself round grade A whack jobs. I mean right up to that point everybody was a "fucker" a "bastard" and a "cunt". Clearly went to a very refined finishing school.

He went quiet after that. I finished the holy rosary I had been reciting in my head whilst he was brooding. He was fingering the tree shaped problem with the intensity of a serial killer who has just lopped the ear of his 33rd victim. I thought he would probably regret doing that as his hands would stink of faux pine by now. Oh I just wanted to be home.

"Fuck this....", he yells.

Oh holy fuckarama I'm gonna die. He's gonna drive the car off a bridge with me in it. And me with a lovely fresh made curry in the fridge. Who would eat my curry after I'm dead, who?

But he just wound down his window and threw the offending item out.

"So were working tonight or just out for something til eat?", says he with all the calmness and gentleness of a visiting head of state asking the oik what they do for a living. I was stunned by his change in mood. It was all very perplexing and totally uncalled for on a Sunday night. Tree shaped air fresheners appear to work like some sort of angry kryptonite on him.

I was quite relieved to get home. I considered phoning the taxi firm to remonstrate about the quality of mentalist they entrust with their mid range saloon cars but changed my mind when I realised I didn't want to spend the rest of the night fending of an angry taxi driver/mentalist who reeks of faux pine trees. I've seen Assault on Precinct 13 and my house simply isn't prepared for such shenanigans. If this continues, the mentalism of Belfast taxi drivers, I may have to start walking home. Oh my!

For what it's worth the curry was good.

"Don't eat as if you have only moments to live...." and other wonderful ideas that will never take hold

I've been chortling my way through Nicholas Clayton's, "A Butler's Guide to Table Manners" over the last day or two. It's been a welcome distraction. Any book that starts with "Never be rude or patronising to the people serving you- it's never justified..." is always going to find favour with me. But I'm not sure Mr Clayton would appreciate my guffawing and tittering as I read his informative and neatly written text. But it is very very whimsical, not sure it was meant to be but it is. Of course it's done nothing more than arm me with more ways to be offended by guests. You are, it has to be said, a crass and boorish lot with your pinkies poked out and your blowing on hot food (both are considered no no's) . Quite rum indeed.

Not all of you....but most of you.


"A Butler's Guide to Table Manners" is full of fascinatingly superb nuggets of information pertaining to how one should conduct oneself whilst dining. For example it is considered "beyond the pale" to discuss money, illness and medical procedures at the dinner table but sex, religion and politics are fair game. I assume not at the same time though. Could get ugly. I recoil at the idea that polite society should set the parameters of my dinner conversation.

But then again polite society has never had din dins at my house where conversation with The Cousin stretches no further than football and the lives, loves and whippets of the Coronation Street characters.

"Go on ye boy ye Ken", remarked The Cousin the other evening as Ken slipped off to his lover on a barge.

To which I replied, whilst shifting the plate on my lap of sausages a la mash, "Aye...". It's a dignified and humble household full of sophistication but mainly vagary and whimsy and farting. So much farting.

There are pages, with diagrams, on how to hold your cutlery. There are more pages than you would expect detailing the rules of etiquette for using a toothpick. This is a particular issue for me as I fucking detest, with a passion I normally reserve for stepping in dog poo and Scousers, the use of toothpicks at the table and the resulting leaving of them for me to pick up. Good grief surely you don't need a lesson in etiquette to realise that stuffing your sweaty man paw into your damp hot mouth and rooting around with a little piece of plastic whilst there are other people dining may be more than a little off putting. It's crassness in the extreme. Like this charmer here.

But Nicholas has the answer in a section amusingly titled, "Biting Talk". (There are also sections called, wait for it, "Plate Expectations" and "It's no choke" amongst others. Arf!

• Before gouging around with a pick, try a swill of water to free the problem.
• Go somewhere to probe the teeth in private, never do it at the table.
• Never do that thing with a flattened hand over the top lip in a failed attempt to hide the picking going on underneath; this is unparalleled in it's vulgarity and in, on a par with sniffing.

Sniffing? That's right sniffing. No sniffing at the table, apparently. How disappointing.

In the same section Nicky baby, as I'm sure he would be delighted to be called, lists some other don'ts for the dinning table. Some make good sense, some are just fanciful dreams...

• Don't pick your teeth at the table (or anything else for that matter)
• Don't lift your glass for a refill, as a moving target can be hard to hit.
• Don't gulp at drinks; it's looks desperate and greedy

and

• Don't get drunk; you'll look absurd. (Arf!)
• Don't make a fuss; if you don't like something just leave it. (More arfs than I can possible manage. If only. Sigh)

and my favourite

• Don't treat the waiting staff badly, or you might end up with more than you ordered.

Well that's just sage advice right there. But really at the end of the day I couldn't give a fudge which spoon you use to scoop your soup and I wouldn't bat an eyelid if you were graphically explaining the intricacies of your last anal exam, as long as I don't hear it that is. Etiquette is one thing manners are another and manners matter more.

A Butlers Guide To Table Manners is a great read and I urge all waiting staff to get a copy. But you mustn't be tempted to carry it in your apron pocket and quote lines to the rude and boorish mouth breathers that clog up your restaurant. It will take an age to pull it our of your ass.....

Bring back the IRA*....

...so that our kids don't turn into booze monkeys, obviously. Eh? Am I drunk? Is there gin hidden in the toilet and whiskey under the bed? No, no I'm not drunk but when faced with a headline like this...

...it seems like the most obvious answer. Maybe they could get government funding? Heh. The Belfast Telegraph quotes The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report and conclusion that,

"The peace process has led to increased investment, employment, urbanisation, improved financial status and independence amongst the population and among young people generally. The social and economic emancipation, when set against a historic low baseline of alcohol use because of religious and cultural norms, may have led to increases in alcohol drinking over recent years towards the levels in the rest of the UK"

So there you have it then. If the last thirty years of bombing, shooting, capping - both knee and elbow didn't get you the booze will. Pass me the bottle, I'm gonna get snoshled.

Just our fucking luck eh?

* obviously I am only joking about with the headline before people start messing themselves. And anyhoo, they haven't gone away ye know, apparently.

Manuel and the Infinite Smugness of Marathon Runners.

You know it's not going to be pretty when the infinite smugness of marathon runners collides, not literally you understand, with the barely repressed jealousy and tubbiness of the waiter. I mean one is a self important egomaniac with insecurity issues and a need to constantly challenge themselves and others around them and the other is.....oh wait. Makes for an interesting day at work though.

cheesy does it...

The restaurant was overrun, ahem, with self-satisfied types on Monday following the Belfast City Marathon, a marathon that is very similar to the likes of the New York City Marathon and the London Marathon. Well okay the distance is the same but that's about it. Has the NY marathon ever had to be stopped because a bunch of irate lorry drivers got a bit mouthy about being late with their deliveries? I very much doubt it. Quality work Belfast, quality work.

But yes the restaurant was full of people who rejoice in the smell of their own farts. This upping of the smug level was particularly annoying for me as I am the guardian and indeed master of the smugness round these parts. It's all fake, obviously, as I have nothing to be smug about what with my chubster paws and Quasimodo'd posture. But it keeps people guessing.

The afternoon diners weren't as annoying as the evening diners. They were smellier for sure and inappropriately dressed for a late lunch but substantially less annoying. Obviously like all right minded people I believe that tracksuits and shorts have no place in a restaurant unless of course that restaurant is at a gym or one of those imaginary places that I hear people talking about, leisure centres and that sort of thing. [Shudder]

Yes there was far too many near cock n ball popping incidents for my liking for a Monday afternoon what with the stretching between courses and the constant need for bending over. Why must they bend and stretch so much? Why? I'm an innocent child and found all these near escaping genitals quite frightening. One minute you are serving sausage on a bed on mash, next there it is poking out and winking at you from a pair of loose fitting Adidas. All rather frightful I must say.

Near escaping woo woos and wee wees aside the real bell ends didn't reveal themselves until night time. Now don't get me wrong I am all for people running marathons and if you do it for charity whilst dressed as a Dalek or a whilst balancing a roll of £1.00 coins on yer elbow then who the hell am I to criticize or belittle your sparkling effort. I say more power to you. But the self satisfied, smell of their own fart loving, Nikeeeeee wearing (and wankily pronouncing), carb munchers, Lucozade Power drinking douche bags and sons of douche bags that think they are the only people who have ever run a marathon ever and wear it like a badge that they think affords them special privileges and the right to be a total ass can go fuck themselves with a four foot wide pedometer.

Phew, feels good to get that out.

"Oh hi man....", said the tall tanned cheesy looking guy at the door. Obviously by calling me "man" he was down ten waiter points. Waiter points? That's right, waiter points and he was minus ten already for inappropriate greeting.

"Yes indeed and how can I..."

"Yeah man can you hook me up with a table for like six or seven" asked the tall tanned cheesy looking guy. His tallness and super fake tan combined with his cheesiness reminded me of a tube of smoked German cheese. Now clearly he was down another 20 waiter points. Ten for interrupting me and ten for using the phrase, "hook me up". I am a waiter and not a pimp/drug dealer. I do not hook people up with shit or as it comes to it, tables either.

"Oooooookay then", says I adopting my, "are you for reals?" face.

"And what name are you reserved under then.....man?"

He was too busy poking about in his iPhone to hear me which forced me to repeat the question. Minus a further ten waiter points.

"Reservation? Ah man, don't have one. Do I need one?"

"Well yes sir, it is a rather busy night."

Still with a tan finger hovering over his iPhone he replied with, "Maaan, I couldn't get a table booked this afternoon.....I was.....well...you know....doing a bit of running...the eh...you know marathon....this afternoon."

He said it like I was supposed to be impressed. I was not impressed. He was down a further twenty waiter points after this pitiful exchange but not for what he said but for the way he said it and the painfully cheesy facial expressions he made whilst saying it.

Ignoring this I offered him a table at half eight. This wouldn't do as he was meeting other "pals" later for "champers". The cheese was oozing from him worse than from a busted tube of Primula in the hands of fat kid. Just then one of his "pals" arrived.

"You get our table yet Johnny?", asked the rather excitable pal. He was bouncing about like a horny Spaniel.

"Not yet Marky, my man here says they have nothing 'til eight."

"Half eight". My man? My man my hole. Cheeky fucker. I enjoyed correcting him. Hell I enjoy correcting most people. So I awarded myself twenty waiter points right there for quality correction.

"Half eight Johnny? Ain't gonna work. You tell him we ran the marathon today?" It was if the horny Spaniel guy couldn't see me and this despite me being right beside him and with the build of a small out house. I'm not exactly ninja like.

"Yeah Marky, no dice though, no dice."

They tried again with the pleading and the hero routine but alas all to no avail. I wasn't being a bastard, we just didn't have any tables until half eight. I was enjoying myself though which is a little bastardish. But they then pulled a shit little move that really annoyed me.

They slunk off and had a little chat outside. Within a minute or two the rest of their ill fated, and doomed not to dine with Manuel, party arrived. There were three women with them now. So guess what they did? They tried the old, "send in the honeys routine" cause all men like a honey. Manuel likes honey on his carrots and maybe occasionally in his breakfast cereal but that's it.

The ladies were rather pleasant and I enjoyed talking to them, didn't get them a table though.

"Just like I told your friends, Mark and Johnny, we don't have any tables for you even if you have just run a marathon."

Their little faces were precious when they realised that I had rumbled their ruse. They were just about to walk away when the horny spaniel man came bounding in all horny and spaniel like and blundered out, "Well did it work? We in?"

No, no horny spaniel man it didn't work. Minus four thousand to you and plus fifty to me. I waddled off and had a Snickers to celebrate my little victory. You cant bullshit a bullshitter and you cant give out tables you just don't have, even if the person wanting the table has just run a marathon.

What's that noise?

I went back to work on Monday fearing that I would hear the dreaded crunching of egg shells as my chums tippy toed round me. I'm prone to emotional outbursts at the best of times but given the current situation I would have understood if they were a touch wary of me. I didn't need to worry. I wasn't back five minutes but I was being regaled with the usual fantastic tales of woe and magnificent accounts of customer uncouthness and hideousness. Oh how I missed the humdrum yet reliable hideousness and uncouthness of customers. Bless their little open mouths.

The best of these stories was the lovely woman who ordered lovely tuna and then poured lovely creamy pepper sauce all over it. This was washed down with expensive Chablis. Waiters peered from behind plant pots and and through the cracks in the velvet curtains as she gulped it down, one fishy peppery forkful after the other. Pepper sauce? With tuna? It's just so wrong. I mean who does that?

Cheers for all the well wishes and what have you. Normalish order will return with a proper post on Wednesday.

You can keep your melancholy and fuck right off with your infinite sadness too.

The melancholic waiter lumbered towards the perky threesome as if he was carrying more on his shoulders than in his hands. His graceful shimmying between tables had given way to laboured and heavy movements and for a larger chap it is indeed a remarkably dexterous dance that he normally weaves. It was if the weight on his shoulders was pushing down on him with a pressure he couldn't bear. He was a pitiful sight.

As he got to the table he made an abject attempt to force a smile and raise his voice above the gleeful din of the three ladies seated under him. But his, "Excuse me ladies" was as morose as it was impotent. He faked a cough, probably not what you want from a waiter all things considered.

One of the ladies looked up at the sullen faced plate schlepper and after taking a glug of her wine announced to her friends that the food was ready.

"Now ladies, who's having the ribeye tonight?" He could have been Death incarnate offering one of them sweet repose such was his monotone delivery. They never noticed. One of them squealed. But no one noticed the waiter's gloomy disposition. He placed the steak in front of the squealingly excited lady.

"And the pork?", asked the waiter again employing the same life sucking, doom hued voice as before.

"PORK?", screamed the loudest of the ladies as she stared at the plate of belly pork with fear. It was all very reminiscent of the mid 1990's, thought the waiter, when people looked at plates of beef in much the same way as they look at Gary Glitter - fond memories but never again.

"Aye, I'm having the pork....what's yer problem Trish?" Goodbye joyful camaraderie and jolly japes and hello defensive stand off. Normally such a to-do would tickle the waiter's fancy but not tonight. He just wanted to set down the food and flee to his hiding place where there were no people and no reason to have have to force a smile, no matter how pathetic it was.

"There's nothing wrong with the pork. I've had it here loadsa times. It's totally delish Trish." She let out an exuberant laugh as she realised she was the next Pam Ayers. Or maybe not.

"But what about the swine....". But she never finished the sentence as the waiter plonked, with an uncharacteristic lack of class and flourish, the risotto in front of her.

"The swine? He's at home watching football.....he can get his own."

And the three of them fell about with laughter. Big laughs, big big laughs. The sort of laughter that disappears for a moment only to come crashing back round your ears again as they are forced to take breath. Maybe she was the new Pam Ayers.

As the waiter walked away from the table he chuckled to himself. He was suddenly aware that he hadn't as much as smiled in four days let alone let out a chuckle.

Life is short, too short for morose thoughts and melancholy. Life should be celebrated and as one large life is coming to a premature and untimely and god damn fuck it unfair end the waiter realised that he needed to do just that, celebrate it. There will be time for tears soon enough but for now lets just revel in the life of a man who never spent a second feeling sorry for himself.

My father has been given a couple of months left to live. It's a short time for sure but I assure you it will be filled with more laughter than tears.

Man down, very down....

You still remember how to serve yourself?

Back in a day or two. Probably tomorrow.


Here, play with this 'til I'm back....

Or you can catch me in Olive Magazine, page 86, "BYO's that make you proud to be British". Obviously I went for a French restaurant.