At your service?

EACH week at about this time I Iike to look back on the more interesting moments in the last seven days of my life and decide what I am going to write about here.

But what if today, for no apparent reason and without informing anyone of my plans, I instead turn those thinking minutes into many hours, delay the paper by missing my deadline and, instead of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph popping through your letterbox when it usually does, leave you waiting around with absolutely no clue about what is going on.

And what if the people who print it decide to go for an early lunch instead of cranking the presses into action, leaving the van drivers twiddling their thumbs with nothing to deliver and they fall asleep for the afternoon?

To add further insult to injury, I thought that when it eventually does hit the streets - with or without Wright On!, depending upon whether I could be bothered to finish it or not - I could stand in the shop and tell them to serve the person behind you in the queue first.

Or maybe I'll ask the paperboy to deliver to everybody else in the street before you. Is that OK? No? And why not? Isn't that basically what happens in restaurants and pubs across East Lancashire all the time?

Well, it certainly happened to me three times this weekend.

Take Saturday night for example. Some friends and I decided to try a new restaurant following a particularly successful festive shopping trip, but three hours later we felt like Christmas may well have arrived before our promised table, if you know what I mean. Now we didn't mind at first because we had arrived on spec about 8.15pm and agreed to wait an hour because they were busy and we hadn't booked, but three hours?

My friend and I were so sozzled on wine by then we had to be carried to the table with the drinks.

Well! It wasn't our fault. We hadn't eaten since noon, you know, and had spent all afternoon shopping.

Anyway I don't remember what time the food actually arrived - or crashing into a display of empty wine bottles on my way to the loo or knocking a drink all over someone for that matter - but I'm told we complained when the clock struck midnight. I think we were right to moan, too, because as far as I am concerned if someone agrees to do something they should do it - and in reasonable time too. Am I right? Exactly.

But do they really care? And surely by the time you come to complain it's too late? But it didn't stop us complaining about the dreadful, sub-standard service and food in two neighbouring East Lancashire pubs on Sunday, when we spent another four hours waiting and almost missed the Coronation Street omnibus.

Honestly, you'd have thought I'd booked into Fawlty Towers for the weekend, not dined at some of the area's more salubrious eating spots.

I reckon Basil Fawlty could have got it sorted sooner than this lot too! Now, don't get me wrong, I know everyone can have an off-day, but three in a weekend is a bit more than bad luck, don't you think?

My mum reckons I'm a jinx, but I think poor service is a regular on the menu in too many places these days and the next pub we went in was much the same.

And I wouldn't mind but we only went there for coffee and sweets because we couldn't be sure they would arrive in the first place.

Anyway, I won't be going back to either in a rush - though I don't suppose that matters as the food probably still won't have arrived.

At least you've got your paper though, eh?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.