I was browsing through The Age this morning when I saw an article that caught my eye… “Fixed-time dining a race against time”, or, “Ready, set … eat!” Apparently a lot of restaurants these days (Sydney and Melbourne, anyway, and I presume they meant the CBD – I really can’t see it working in the suburbs terribly well) are limiting the time you can sit at one of their tables and eat your meal to 90 minutes, or in some exceptions (e.g. a special occasion, such as a Birthday), 2 hours. I was aghast! Then I thought, ‘well, fair enough, if you live in or close to the CBD, and you don’t fancy struggling home from work to cook dinner, a 90 minute quick snackeral at a restaurant that has a reputation for good food would probably be OK.’

However, I don’t care how good the restaurant is, or how wonderful their food is, I can’t see a couple, or a group of friends, who are not going on to the theatre or a party afterwards, but who simply want to enjoy a nice meal with their partner, or their friends, with good food, good wine, and good conversation, paying top dollar for service that might be a bit on the slow side (as it all too often is!), only to be shuffled out the door after 90 minutes (and in some cases even being denied the dessert menu!) so that the restaurant can cram some more bums onto your still-warm seats in order to charge them top dollar for a rushed meal too!

We’re anti-social people, Julian and I. We don’t have friends*, and we don’t go out much, but when we do go out, we want to enjoy ourselves, not be rushed out the door because there are a couple of people who walked in off the street and asked “Any chance of a table for two soon?” There are a couple of very good restaurants that we go to, here in Doncaster, and in Glen Waverley, and we’d recommend them to anyone – but if they started adopting that sort of service, they’d lose our patronage immediately. Still, I suppose it’s par for the course these days – grab, grab, grab, with both hands… It’s a shame, really – it’s a bit like the photos I saw on Bored Panda of people so taken up with their smartphones that even at a restaurant, or with a loved one, there was no conversation. You could see by the body language that each person was totally immersed in their own private little world – “It’s not you dear, it’s all about me!” Just another aspect of our totally material world and the current “what’s in it for me?!” attitude

Yes, it does upset me. No fun or humorous side to this at all, sadly….

Weigh-in was… pleasing, but disappointing? I went down, but only by one measly point, to 122.1kg. I was really hoping for better though.. Oh well, maybe tomorrow will be more “fruitful” in the weight steaks. Stay tuned… 🙂

*We’re anti-social people, Julian and I. We don’t have friends: well, we do, sort of. I mean we know lots of people, we like lots of people, and get on very well with them… some of them have been friends since I started kindergarten, and some have been friends since I started my Bulletin Board (BBS) back in 1986 – but we don’t want to socialise with them on a regular basis. It’s wonderful when we do catch up, and we chatter on for hours… but then they go home, and we go home, and, I presume, everyone’s happy. I don’t have a “best friend”; I don’t want one or miss having one, nor does Julian. My two best female friends are my two daughters – I’d be lost without them. Julian is my best male friend, and I couldn’t be without him. We label ourselves “anti-social”, but in reality I suspect that we’re just eccentric. It’s not going to be a pretty sight when one of us drops off the twig, but it’ll happen sooner or later. The one left is going to be very lost and lonely… but that’s what you get for being… different… 🙂