Is restaurant tipping a moral issue? For my late sister, Ursula, it was. She was, I thought, a wild over-tipper, always adding 20 per cent to the cost of any meal (and to any taxi ride, good, bad or indifferent).
“It’s far too much!” I’d protest. But she’d insist that it was a Christian duty to be as generous as possible to those who had performed a service. And sometimes waiters and waitresses didn’t get paid much. Indeed, for this very reason, there was a left-wing view that you shouldn’t tip at all – whether generously, averagely or parsimoniously, because, by tipping, you were aiding and abetting an employer to under-pay the staff. If an employee was dependent on tips, that too was wrong.
And there has been another common wrong. Too often, when an obligatory gratuity is added to the bill, the waiter or waitress doesn’t benefit directly – or not enough – when the proprietor takes a considerable cut.
Now Theresa May has weighed in on the restaurant tipping issue and promised, at this week’s Conservative Party conference, that big restaurant chains will henceforth be made to hand over the full amount of gratuities to those who perform the service. Restaurant businesses like Bella Italia, Cafe Route, Giraffe, Prezzo and Strada, which add an automatic 10 per cent to the cost of the meal, will have to ensure that the full percentage actually goes to the staff.
Theresa May is probably morally right in insisting that gratuities left for staff should genuinely go to the staff. Whether this will accord with the business or economic thinking in Tory circles is perhaps another matter.
I’ve also been advised, by a gourmet veteran, that it’s better for the staff if you leave the gratuity in cash, rather than adding it to the credit card bill. So, if I eat out, I try to do so. And as I delve into my purse to fish out the 10 per cent, maybe the 12.5 per cent, I hear my late sister’s voice at my elbow. “Don’t be mean! Make it 20!”
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You will have observed that the word “wife” (and “husband”) has fallen somewhat out of favour – being largely supplanted by “partner”, which is considered to be more equal, but is also rather prosaic and sometimes confusingly businesslike (Marks and Spencer were “partners”.)
But now the actress (or female actor) Glenn Close is being recommended for an Oscar for her lead role in the movie The Wife. It’s a compelling performance and she well deserves the award. It’s also nice to see a 71-year-old woman on screen who is carrying those few extra kilos that accrue with the years.
In the film, Ms Close is, indeed “The Wife”, and the storyline suggests that wives are neglected characters behind the scenes of a marriage, and often the key ingredient in a husband’s success. The film also suggests that women couldn’t become successful writers themselves in America in the 1950s and early 1960s, because it was a “boys’ club”.
But Flannery O’Connor, Harper Lee, Mary McCarthy, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Susan Sontag, Ayn Rand and Hannah Arendt were all powerful figure of American letters in this period. In the popular genres, Jacqueline Susann and Grace Metalious dominated the bestseller lists. The film of The Wife plays to the current contention that all women are victims of a male conspiracy. Would The Wife have quite the same success if it had been called “The Partner”?
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Why are Catholics less likely to have harvest celebrations than other Christians – notably Anglicans and Nonconformists? You would imagine that any faith with a strong connection to agriculture would celebrate harvest as a religious rite, but it doesn’t seem a major feature of our year. Or it occurs in a slightly weak form. Or dutiful shape, like contributing to Cafod.
My parish priest, Fr Duncan Lourensz says that harvest festival is basically a Victorian invention and not rooted in any theology. Perhaps not, but it’s a good way to express gratitude for those who provide our food. In Bandon, west Cork – Graham Norton’s home town – the local Protestant ladies produce delicious market food for harvest time. The Catholics like the fare, but don’t quite embrace the tradition.
Follow Mary Kenny on Twitter: @MaryKenny4
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