Waiters who don't carry a notepad to write down your order but rely on their (possibly less than reliable) memory;
Restaurants which have tables too small to accommodate the multiple plates in their "share seven or eight small plates" menus;
Waiters who insist on pouring your wine for you and then disappear with the bottle until they think you need a refill;
(I would add, waiters who hover around your table and refill your glass without asking you. Like Mr Rayner, I want to be in charge of my own bottle of wine and my own rate of drinking!)
Restaurants that hide the reasonably priced wines (something of a rarity in many UK restaurants, in my experience) among the gourmet wines, so that you have to read through all the wine list before choosing;
Waiters who take the bread away after you have finished the starters, deciding for you that you don't want or need bread during the rest of the meal;
Restaurants where the lighting is so subdued that you need to use the torch app on your phone to read the menu.
No doubt there was more and he undoubtedly made it more amusing. I tried to find the article online so that I could put a link to it but failed completely to do so. Lots of items from previous Observer Food Monthlies but not this one. So it goes.
As expected, given the overnight weather, I walked into the village to buy the newspaper this morning. En route I met a lady walking her dog. She greeted me with, "Not running this morning?" I restrained myself and did not give a sarcastic answer about how observant and perspicacious she is, but merely pointed out that I thought it might be a little slippy. Running on a couple of centimetres of fresh snow is probably not advisable.
Here are some pictures of the aforementioned snow.
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