| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Facetiming noise in a Barnes Restaurant | |
| Posted by: | Dan Murphy | |
| Date/Time: | 06/09/15 08:57:00 |
| A while back I went for dinner with a friend to MASH in Brewer Street. It's a fantastic steak restaurant, but not cheap. An occasional treat - the dining rooms, cocktail bar, and food are absolutely superb and a wonderful way to spend an evening. Ambient music is very low and does not detract from dinner table conversation. I love it. But on this occasion all I could hear was various whistles, bongs, beeps, and whooshes coming from what sounded like an amusement arcade. As I looked around, I saw a family of 6 sitting at a nearby table. Their ages ranged from about 12 to 60, so I was guessing a multi generational family dinner out. Then I noticed that every single one of them was staring into a screen - the older ones checking email on iPhones and the younger ones had iPads standing up on the table, playing games with volume turned up. None of them was looking at or speaking to any of the others. They all had the "blue screen glow" on their faces. It was surreal. I called the waiter over and told him that we were being disturbed by a lot of unpleasant noise coming from somewhere. He raised his eyebrows and pointed to the table and said it was them (I knew who it was, of course). So I politely asked him if he wouldn't mind sorting it out, or would he prefer if I went over and had a word? He went over and explained that they had to turn off the noise. Their look of shock was the same as if he had asked them all to strip naked. What sort of people think it's OK to sit in a busy restaurant and behave like this? I can understand it in Nando's, full of teenagers. But in an expensive restaurant? World's gone mad, I tell you. |