"Welcome to Britain"

While you were dozing Britain was broken-up by New Labour, you were in Wales - not Britain. Britain no-longer exists.

Service is much better in England, you remember . Where the Empire came from.

I'm happy its not just me - I thought I had been spoiled by 5 years in Japan and its ridiculously over the top customer service. When I was back home in November, I was stunned by the idiocy passing for service in some places.

Say Happy Birthday to Mrs SquanderTwo for me.

I shall, Mr B. Thank you. And I hope your new marriage is going well.

Wolfie, I wasn't in Wales. That's the crap Bangor. We live in the good Bangor, in Northern Ireland, where service is usually noticeably better than on the mainland. We've had partial devolution for nearly a week now, and I'm not sure that all our ties to Britain have been completely destroyed just yet.

Besides, I would hesitate to ascribe customer service quality to politics. I think it's much more related to affluence and experience: what people are willing to put up with when they're paying high prices and the sort of service people have received in other bits of the world.

Oh, and if you're so proud of England, learn the language: neither "broken up" nor "no longer" is hyphenated.

Wolfie may make mistakes wth hyphenation but his point is still valid. NuLabour have destroyed the idea of a United Kingdom and the service is better in England - because unlike the Celtic Fringe who just whine and demand more money if they let their economy go down the tubes, those of us in England actually have to earn our keep.

You live in Northern Ireland where (if I recall correctly) 78% of the economy is state funded. Sorry, make that *England* funded seeing as we are the ones who subsidise all the whingers on the so-called "Celtic" fringe who nonetheless never have a good word us and blame us for all their ills.

The sooner England regains her independence, the better!

No, Wolfie's point isn't valid; it's just a feeble attempt to tie something completely apolitical to politics.

The very idea that service is better in England than in Northern Ireland is absurd to anyone who's been to both places.

Thinking about this further, perhaps I didn't make myself clear in the post, which could have led to misunderstanding on David and Wolfie's parts.

Both Jeffers and Villa Toscana are those new-fangled privately-owned restauarants, not the traditional nationalised state-run type.

Can I draw attention, also, to David's use first of 'the Celtic fringe' and then of 'the so-called "Celtic" fringe'. Yes, so-called by you, David, one sentence earlier.

What a fine standard of debate I'm attracting here these days. There'll be bloody MSPs commenting here any minute.

I've seen some pretty flimsy attempts to crowbar politics and/or nationalism into blog threads, but this discussion takes the biscuit. That's a different biscuit to what you ordered, delivered in pieces by a pissed-off waitress, fifty minutes after you ordered it, of course.

I think the biggest problem with all this (back to the topic, not the comments) is the UK attitude of don't make a fuss, which means people can be really amazingly ignorant to their customers and get away with it. Maybe if we not only refused to tip but also demanded a refund, threatened to kill everybody in the restaurant and mashed their faces in the remnants of our dinners while shoving serving spoons up their arse it might focus their minds on the customer-is-always-right attitude. Although I suspect it probably wouldn't.

I really don't think it's a wage thing or anything else, either. I suspect it might be a cultural thing, because when I think about it, all the times I've suffered service that's plain ignorant (as opposed to simple over-work due to bastard bosses and/or bastard customers making the staff's lives hellish) it's been from Brits (as opposed to brits of italian descent, brits of indian descent, brits of greek descent, etc etc etc).

Thinking about this some more, the only country in which I've received 100% wonderful service has been in the US - a country where, of course, the customers often have guns.

Oh, God, yeah: American service is fantastic.

Parisians can rival the Brits, certainly.

And another thing I forgot to mention in response to the above nationalist stupidity was that one of the waitresses at Villa Toscana had a strong Lancashire accent.

One could mention, yet again, that Glasgow is a city of extremes: I've often had world-class service in Glaswegian restaurants and shops and I've also had some of the worst imaginable, but never anything inbetween.

Usually, I'd have demanded a refund, definitely, but we didn't want to spoil Vic's birthday night out further with a big argument.

Vic's best friend and her husband are professional restaurateurs -- the husband runs one of Belfast's top restaurants -- and it's entertaining going out with them. They're not rude about it, but they don't accept anything even marginally sub-standard from service staff.

> Parisians can rival the Brits, certainly.

I think that may be a city thing, 'cause in the north everyone's lovely. Apparently southern france can be a bit arsey, though.

> but never anything inbetween.

That's been my experience in Glasgow too.

> I think that may be a city thing

Oh, it's a Paris thing. Rudest people on the planet, Parisians, and known for it. So rude, in fact, that they cause psychological trauma in Japanese visitors. Really.

Well, that's what you get when you use a common phrase for the non-English parts of the British Isles, and then get to point out that it's actually complete bollocks. The "Celtic" part that is. You should read up a little on the Celtic Romanticism of the nineteenth century. Utter tosh. Nothing new about that of course, if I remember correctly, Herodotus said that the Celts originated at the source of the Danube. But that was only because he thought the Danube rose in the Pyrrenees. A very entertaining writer though - I recommend "The Struggle for Greece" which details the War between the Greek City States and the Persians.

Getting back on subject, some of the worst service I have received was in Wales. And some of the best was in France, despite my execrable command of the French language.

> You should read up a little on the Celtic Romanticism of the nineteenth century.

Why?