The love of common people

I went to a restaurant on Friday night. I also went to a restaurant last Saturday night. I ate out for lunch yesterday too.

Fat pig.

Anyway, I love eating at restaurants; there's something absolutely lovely about having having a choice of meals that you'd probably not cook for yourself, about having food brought to you, about being waited on, about enjoying the company and conversation of others while having a meal.


Canal Street, Manchester


But a pleasant experience like having a meal out wouldn't be the same without one of the party being slightly annoying; not even annoying, just doing something that I wouldn't think acceptable. For instance, at the restaurant last Saturday, there'd been a mistake with the booking and we had to wait for a table to come free instead of being seated immediately. The waiter gave us each a menu and asked if we didn't mind waiting in the bar until they could free up a table. Forty minutes later, we were seated and given another five minutes until the waiter returned to take our order. It was at this point that one of the party decided to look at the menu for the first time.

I held my breath.

More wine flowed, I enjoyed my Diet Pepsi (no ice) and the starters came. Mine was moules marinere - fuckin' delish, if you like that sort of thing. My good friend, and she is a great friend, then said that she didn't fancy trying mussels because she was scared, but could she dip some garlic bread into the sauce to give it a try? Of course she could, which she did, repeatedly, while I was trying to eat my food.

Don't mind me.

And then my main course arrived. Essentially it was steak and chips, but the chips in that restaurant (Velvet, Manchester) are wonderful. My companions weren't getting chips with their meals, so they took it upon themselves to tuck into mine.

What the fuck?

Is it just me? Would you do that? In the pavilion of etiquette, does that count as being really fucking rude?

I don't mind toooo much because the company was exceptional apart from their unconventional dining standards, and they'd been drinking and I was stone cold sober, so I tend to notice more.

It's like that thing, isn't it? "Oh I don't want any crisps, I'll just have a couple of yours". No you fucking won't! You only get about ten in a packet and you're not touching them, cheeky twat.

On Friday, me and another friend went to a very nice restaurant together (Choice in Manchester), where the ambience is perfect, but the food always gives my friend an excuse to find criticism. She's a bit of a foodie, so she likes things to be just right. I suppose if you're paying, then you've a right to expect good quality. And it's fair enough to give feedback to the waiters when they ask if everything's OK, but there's a certain point where you need to stop, generally when the message has got through, and just before the waiter reached the threshold that makes them instruct the kitchen staff to spit in your pudding.

But it was nice, another lovely night out. Me and Sarah now find ourselves single. She's a good friend and I enjoy her company and I'm looking forward to getting out and about with her as my wingman, although I am slightly scared of her when her confidence is in Rioja-fuelled hyperdrive. We'll see.


Rocky and the Dog Whisperer
Rocky is in remedial behavioural classes. One-to-one behavioural classes at £25 a time. His trainer is quite famous apparently. I arrived at her little yard and her appearance was as I'd expected: rambler clothing; a hat (fair enough since she's outdoors all day).

Lesson 1: The the gentle leader; the dummy and the heart of an ox
We discussed his diet. "Why do you give him dry food? He's a dog! Dogs are carnivores. I recommend this. It stinks, but it's really good. You need to get him motivated by food. One great way of controlling your dog is to control his food and you can't do that if he doesn't like what you give him. He needs to be almost begging for his meal and then you can control him with it".

Fair point.

I wondered how much the smelly meaty food would cost. Jesus, this is going to rack up.

"Let me see him on his lead"

By this point, the little dog had reached ten thousand feet mentally and was bouncing like something on a bouncy castle. She got the message about his woeful lead skills (my woeful lead skills) pretty quickly and went into her little wooden cabin to retrieve a Gentle Leader head harness and double-ended training lead. To entice him to walk on his lead, he was fed bits of boiled ox heart every couple of paces. I had a pocket full of cheese and ox heart bits, my hands were covered in it. Fuck.

After getting him used to walking with the new lead, she had me lead him round a little activity course while she brought out a life-sized dummy dog and stood with it at the other end of the yard. Rocky had already gone mental at a dog silhouette, so he went berserk when he saw what he thought was a dopey looking black labrador staring at him from the distance. I calmed him down by the power of cheese and he was a little better when she brought the next dummy dog out. She moved the head and tail of this one and, while Rocky had a look at it, he didn't jump out of his skin. And when she brought out a real dog, while he was far from perfect, he managed to walk around it without an unmanageable degree of distress.

So, that was lesson one: change his diet (kerching!), get him a double-ender (kerching!!) and a gentle leader (kerching!!!); that's £25 thanks and I'll see you in a fortnight (KERCHING!!!!).

Anyway, I've changed his diet, bought his new equipment and I've been trying to install the new world order on our cheesy walks - he must get through half a pound each time I take him out. Of course, my back is wrecked from all that bending over to give him a treat every four paces, but it'll be worth it, I hope. Today wasn't too good unfortunately - we encountered a jogger being followed by his dog (who then turned round and ran passed us from behind within a minute of passing us in the forward direction); this was followed immediately by two cyclists; a walker; and another dog walker - all in the space of about 2 minutes. Rocky couldn't cope - knowing that pulling would hurt his nose, he defaulted to barking his head off for the remainder of our ten minute walk home.

We'll get there. He's got two years of bad behaviour to unlearn and I've got to train myself to be more disciplined with him.

Yawn.

One interesting thing about Rocky's new therapist is that she trains Police dogs for GMP. I must ask Jo if it was her who house-trained Pigsnout.