The Inspector-General of Misconception Read Online Free Page A

But take the hat. It could be of use later in the meal (see below, under the heading Inaudible Sobbing).
    At the table, the table attendant will also say, ‘Dining alone are we?’ with the stress on the ‘we’, sometimes with less aplomb than the maître d’ because the table attendant knows that he or she will have to ‘put up’ with you, the lone diner, all evening.
    The response to the table attendant is this: In your mind play a favourite piece of music and with your index finger conduct that piece of music.
    Forget about the Christmas cracker
    Unless the restaurant is particularly sensitive and removes it, you will find at the place setting a Christmas cracker.
    Do not under any circumstances pull it yourself.
    Don’t.
    We suggest a prop
    The lone Christmas diner requires a ploy which will go some way to blocking the pitying curiosity of Normal Society there in the restaurant.
    The much revered late Professor Henry Mayer used the best restaurants in the city to dine alone to mark student examination papers.
    That, of course, is the perfect excuse for solitary dining but not on Christmas Day. The Mayer ploy is, therefore, not recommended.
    Reading is essential or morbidity will surely creep in.
    However, reading seems to others to be a transparently sad cover for loneliness. We have a suggestion: The reading matter, book or magazine, or whatever, can be concealed within an official governmental binder which will imply an urgent state duty which cannot pause to acknowledge public holidays or the birth of Christ.
    There is another ploy for introducing a book to the table.
    Have your choice of book pre-wrapped as a Christmas present, with a card attached, and carry it under your arm as you enter the restaurant.
    Make sure the maître d’ sees it and then, when the table attendant is there, read the card, exclaim with pleasure, noisily unwrap the book, and ask the table attendant to take away the expensive wrapping paper, ribbons and bows.
    The fake present will also create the impression that you have a friend somewhere out there.
    If you wish, for the hell of it, you could inscribe thecard with something along the lines of, ‘No one could have greater admiration or affection for any living person than that I, and many, many others throughout the world hold for you, the true and living Braveheart. Signed: Mel Gibson, or whoever.
    Show the card casually to the table attendant with the comment, ‘Mel is a very dear person.’
    It will help reduce the pity.
    Make sure Mel isn’t in the restaurant.
    Why pornography is not appropriate
    If you must read and do not wish to carry out either the Official Binder or the False Gift stratagems, we have only one other word of advice.
    It is unacceptable to read pornography in a restaurant for a number of reasons, and not only on Christmas Day.
    If the pornography is in any way efficacious, the lone diner will find themselves aroused in a situation where relief of that arousal is not readily at hand, so to speak.
    Combined with the loosening effects of alcohol, it can lead to advances being made to diners at other tables by the sending of importuning notes, flowers (purloined from the table decoration), business cards, or by gestures and antics which will surely be regretted the next morning.
    Likewise, it can lead to Servant Love (for a fuller discussion of this subject see Loose Living by Frank Moorhouse).
    Falling in love with servants, the seeking of affection from among service people – flight attendants, bankclerks, bar staff, doctors, dentists, nurses and so on – is socially acceptable if safeguarded by strategic and judicious consideration.
    There are unique disillusionments in such encounters.
    We are reminded of the film Wrestling Ernest Hemingway where Walter, a diner, falls in love with Elaine, his waitress.
    He finally visits her in her home and meets her for the first time out of her waitress uniform.
    He says,