Random rants

1) Look, Mr Conran, what's with your peculiar booking policy? I reserved a table for 8pm. I was told you didn't book outside tables, we would just have to take our chances based on what was available when we arrived. Fine.

Due to an unfortunate chain of events, we arrived two hours early. Clearly this sort of undisciplined behaviour cannot be indulged, so you told us no, we could not have one of the outside tables that were standing empty. Because there were reservations. Not that the *tables* were reserved, but they were nonetheless being held for people who had booked for 6.30 or 7pm, not 8pm like us slobs.

So I think I've wrapped my head around your peculiar "tables are neither reserved nor unreserved" policy. I think I understand how it works, if not why. But sir. What I do NOT understand is why nobody explained it to me when I phoned and expressly ASKED if I should book for a particular time in order to improve my chances of getting an outside table. Because dinner by the river was my entire motivation for eating there. (And frankly the "cricket pavilion" interior? You might want to rethink that. Unless a 1970s dining experience is really what you're after.)

I'm just saying.

2) Dear Potters Fields People. £3m to tidy up a bit of grass? Seriously? How much does a new kiosk and a few benches cost? THREE MILLION POUNDS? I guess it's because you're putting in "high quality grass". Not just any old muck. After all, it's not as though it's going to be withered by the drought and trampled to death within a couple of weeks by the millions of tourists thronging the Pool of London...

Oh, wait.

3) Dear Thames Water. That "this is how much water our new pipes will save every 12 hours" ad campaign. You do realise that what you're really telling us is "this is how much water we're presently wasting because we put off replacing the Victorian pipes as long as we possibly could", right? Do you really want to draw our attention to that?

4) Dear lastminute.com. What misogynistic swine is in charge of your advertising? Look, the "hard decision: sell the wife for a camel?" ad is stupid and offensive. But whatever. I'm actually much more worried about the "hard decision: Brazilian or Hollywood?" one. When did those become the only two options?

You sadistic bastards.