IT'S back to the grind, well not quite yet. Having got bored of watching 15 hours of telly a day I decided to take a trip to the curry mile in Manchester for a hard earned curry.

However, it seems going to a restaurant isn't what it used to be, what with all the food experts around.

Everyone and anyone is an expert in the perfect curry now and some can even tell you what's in it just by smelling it (it has been done).

But expert or no expert there's nothing worse than seeing the behaviour of some people when their curry, for whatever reason, doesn't arrive at the table.

I get the feeling some us think just because we have a curry every day we have the divine right to treat waiters like nobodys.

A family sitting near me seemed to enjoy making the waiter run around like an idiot all evening just because he got their order wrong.

Complain -- yes, but what's the point in demeaning the serving staff so much they wish they had never been born.

I must say some women seem to excel at this. I think they must get their training from the countless weddings they attend every year.

One middle-aged woman behind me threatened on numerous occasions to go into the kitchen and make the curry herself.

The lassi (milk shake like drink) wasn't thick enough, the chutney had gone off and the chicken pieces hadn't been diced properly.

Her constant whining finally caught the attention of her husband who proclaimed, 'Listen love, the reason I brought you here was because you didn't want to cook at home today. So quit complaining!'

There seem to be rules. Like the well-known fact that the less you order the longer it takes to arrive. I guess it makes good business sense.

If I go to a restaurant the waiter automatically knows I ain't ordering nothing but two nans and a curry so when I order something out of the ordinary it catches him off balance.

He then gives me a funny look and asks me if I'm sure about the starter. There are also those who decide ordering in English is not good enough for them so give it go in Punjabi.

All this in the hope it will go down well with the waiter and he will bring the food quicker. One time, I heard the waiter patiently take everything down and then repeat the order back to the customer in English. It turns out the waiter was a final year English degree student trying to make his way through university.