Middle Class Public Service Announcement

Shock announcement: Toptable, London's premier FREE restaurant booking site (because in the old days it used to be, like, soooo expensive to make a reservation), might be a sham.

For those Faithful who have better things to do than scour the internet for 3 courses for £15 deals, the way it works is that you book a table on the site, using their recommendations and other diners' reviews to help you out. Then afterwards, you write your own review. As a reward for writing the review, you get some points. When you have enough points, you get a free meal. Everyone's a winner - the site gets hundreds of up-to-date reviews each week and every now and then, the punter gets to go to Quaglino's (or A.N. Other life-threatening restaurant) for free. Well, free except booze. So not remotely free, then. But still.

Aaaaaaaaanyway. It was all going well, until I went to Bertorelli's with Joanna last month and wrote a slightly terse - but very fair - review. And then I went to lunch with my mum at Luc's in Leadenhall Market, and I wrote a mixed review, saying that the service had been fantastic but the food was a bit meh. Although more articulate than that. Then I was bored at work and, in my vanity, decided to reread my old reviews, and found that none of my recent ones had been published. So, in my boredom, I decided to complain. "I wouldn't like to think that only positive reviews are getting put on the site," I said, in true Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells style.

The email reply I received certainly did little to assuage my concerns. Well-written and courteous, it explained that "restaurateurs are much more open to criticism if we take it to them directly rather than posting it publicly [sic] (have always wanted to do that. God it's patronising)."

I wrote back expressing my bored outrage:
"Thanks for your response. I feel very strongly that all feedback - negative or not - should appear on the site. It is good that you take it up with the restaurant, but this should be in addition to, not instead of, posting it on the site. I wrote that review to benefit other Toptable users. If I'd wanted to complain to the restaurant, I would have. I don't like to think of all the other negative reviews that people might have written that aren't visible on the site itself. What use are the reviews if the only ones that are posted are positive?"

So. There you go. It's not funny. It's probably not even useful for most of you, since the majority of my readers don't seem to live in the UK. But for those Toptable users out there - be warned. Things aren't as unbiased as they seem. I'm quite surprised that I was naive enough to have believed otherwise, but am choosing to celebrate a brief lapse in my characteristic world-weariness rather than berating myself for a lack of cynicism.

In other news: I have decided that, much as I love the smoking ban, there is one element of it that really sucks. The small areas outside pubs have now become absolutely uninhabitable. On a pleasant evening, it used to be enjoyable to sit outside having a glass of wine with a friend. Now it is akin to getting into a bath filled with fag butts while smoking six Marlboro reds simultaneously. I was at the Fitzroy Tavern yesterday and despite the gorgeous, temperate late afternoon weather, I was forced inside by the stench of cigarettes in the congregation outside. When urine cubes are a favourable aroma, you know something has gone badly awry.