Years ago, I had a meal with a girlfriend in a restaurant in New York, called, very simply, the Broadway Diner, hidden somewhere in the cluster of streets around the high west forties and Third Avenue. Unremarkable as an eating house, but, nevertheless firmly in the tradition of the Great American Diner, busily churning out the classics of American cuisine: meatloaf, burgers, ribs, chilli, turf 'n' surf. The food that built America. I've no idea whether it's still there, or if it's morphed into the local Gap now, it's some time since I've been in New York. But if it's still there, and even if it is n't, it still carries a memory.

We finished our meal, lingered for a while, drinking coffee, idly watching the world go by, then finally called for the cheque, paid the cashier, and opened the door ready to jump back in to brassy, blaring Manhattan. We were, in fact, already one foot out into that world, when our waiter yelled across the restaurant in a voice that could have comfortably sliced through steel or stripped paint from walls, that: "... in New York, no one, but no one, ever leaves less than 15% tip ! " Some rebuke! Had we? Definitely seemed like it from his aggrieved reaction. But neither of us could actually remember, whiplashed into silence by his outburst, and thrown straight into one of those wild animal caught in the headlights moments. Each of us frozen. Stunned. But let me explain that in a little more detail in my case; it was n't his eccentric, left field approach to customer relations, I've seen worse things, seen them go physical even, harsh words, a fist, although, thank God, I've never personally experienced that particular level of...uh... service. What got me was that I lacked, completely, the wherewithal to send a zinger back. There was nothing hot and sizzling to throw off the griddle of my righteous indignation his way. Nothing.

Exit Archimedes and girlfriend like two embarrassed and forlorn sheep, abandoned by the flock. Oh to have been able to call down the soul of Oscar Wilde or Churchill, or even a stand-up comic, and be handed just one custom made retort, a catch-all for use at a time like this. Nope, not a thing. Yet another instance of that sad, unbreakable rule of life that only after the event, and usually too long after, is it that the perfectly formed barbed reply takes shape. Why the time delay? Why could n't I have spun back on my heel and archly flung back that we were two location scouts busily eyeing up possible venues for the next Bond movie, and the Broadway Diner had looked good, but really, what do you think I'm going to be telling Cubby Broccoli now...