La cash machina

Date night last night was a roaring success in many ways and a damp squib in others. The place we went to dinner, El Rincon Latino on Clapham Manor Road was very good…we over ordered tapas, ate far too much garlic and drank too much wine which led to come inevitable bickering, the topic of which was far too disgusting to share on a blog, but Sam and Lindsey (and no doubt whoever I’m out with tonight- sorry lads) will hear about it when we meet up next week and it’ll give them a damn good laugh…..no doubt Gavin will have something to say on the matter as well.

Anyway, the obvious highlight of the evening was the fact that we didn’t actually have to pay for our dinner. Well that’s not strictly true, but we did leave without paying. Basically at the end of dinner when we asked for the bill we were told that the not very trusty Barclays machine was not working and that we’d have to pay by cheque, or we could ‘run to the nearest cash point ten minutes away’. Two problems- it’s not 1994 anymore, and I actually have never ever carried a chequebook with me in my life. Infact, even in 1997 my friend Jo used to pay with a cheque book and guarantee card when we went shopping and we’d practically be spat at everytime. 2nd problem- run to a cashpoint with a belly full of tapas and wine…I think NOT!

Anyway, Steve being Steve, one of these, ‘I know my rights people’ he told them that under no circumstances would we be getting cash out for them and that it was their issue if the machine didn’t work and we shouldn’t be put out as a result of it. They stood firm and said we would ‘Need to go and get money out if we wanted to leave’ and Steve gave them his business card (very ‘professional as the card in question had been doodled on!) and told them to phone him tomorrow and he’d pay over the phone and we left. Quickly. I ran actually, and we leapt into a cab pronto.

I wonder if we caused a revolt as at the time when we made our statement, and dash for freedom they were holding about 40 diners hostage.