(1159) Almost afternoon all … snoozed for awhile … timed heater just came on so got up. (1337)

 

12. Moosh corner

11. Uniparty

10. The effectiveness of Essex plod

9. Net Zero is go

8. Benevolent v meanspirited

I re-entered student life three times … the last time a few years older than those around, still before 23, having been working my way ahead in the big bad world … different perspective. One of the new boys was actually thanking me for speaking out for the students (yep, even back then) and diplomacy was not top of his skill set, surfer boy: “You’re not the most social guy, Jimbo but … thanks.”

Yeah right … he wasn’t wrong about “not the most social”, as I’d experienced this sort of thing which was on Quora just now, by a salon manager … she wrote:

I sat with a group of 12 ladies at a very expensive, popular restaurant. It was a place to be seen and the food was way overpriced. I ordered a tostada and one drink. The very small tostada was 20.00 and the drink was 30.00. It was not a meal and came with nothing else. Some of the ladies had several drinks and a full meal. When the bill came, the one that had had the most said, “Let’s just split the bill down the middle”. I was livid but said nothing. I paid 120.00 for a tostado and a drink. Never again.

To my mind, there are social rules here … if it’s a smallish group (6 to 8), known to each other, with no others smuggled in, in a welcome, bonhomie way … if it’s a regular group, everyone is there to eat a main and dessert maybe, same number of drinks, if the place is a known-known, not a ripoff joint … then ok … it will always cost more than what it would have cost your gal and you, say. It will always be somewhat more but the company is good.

No-nos though, for me, is some guy suddenly saying he’d pay on his card, you all give him cash for your amount … that one’s not too bad. But the lady’s example above … nah … no way known, group’s way too big for that for a start.

Then there’s always the spiv who knows his group dynamics and they end up paying for him. Then there’s the “buying a round” scam at the bar. Every regular drinker knows to get his round in early, as others are going to drift in later. I think it’s the scamming I object to most, the smarta*** behaviour of that one thinking he’s oh so cool and clever.

With your own gal or one you have your eye on … different rules of course … over and above the call of duty … but again within reason. Again … you sort of know when she’s trying it on. On the other hand, you have to show willing.

Don’t know about you but I really dislike groups above six, four is best (over and above candlelit twosome of course). Any group more than six, count me out, until it gets up to cocktail party size … thirty, fifty, one hundred … different rules.