MODERN RESTAURANT'S...FOR THE YOUNG ONLY!

First the young

The council in the Welsh city of Cardiff has installed yellow lighting at selected spots to prevent teenagers from congregating. The coloured lighting highlights their pimples, making them look unattractive. They move on.


Now for the mature people

This action may seem unfair on the young, until you realise the rest of the world has been busy installing equipment that moves on middle-age people in just the same way.

Have you noticed they have they ripped the carpets and curtaining from every restaurant, so the whole place becomes an echoing box, which makes it impossible for anybody over 25 to have a conversation?

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I realise that people like me 40 and over are unattractive, our teeth fail to sparkle when we bite into the bruschetta and our hair doesn't  glint in the sunlight like it used to and the smart remark  just dropped by our twenty something Cocktail swilling companion could not be heard.

But our money is good. Can't  they find a little curtained room out the back, we could sit quietly and eat our meal?

Perhaps we'd be happy for something on a tray, which we could eat on our laps, nursing-home style.

Instead of catering for us, we have to sit amid this horrific cacophony, we are perched upright and attentive at the table like startled meerkats. Why so attentive, we are just trying to catch a single word our companions say.

The other night, I had dinner with a school friend who said he has been appointed to some position with the Queen. Maybe he said he was moving to Queensland, really I have no idea what was said.

The only thing that was eligible was when the waiter managed to say clearly "This is your bill sir". "Come back soon".

I don't think I'll ever go back, it depends on my specialist, he tells me my hearing has deteriorated considerably, and surprisingly fast.

Maybe a meal in front of the Telly is the future for me, at least there is a volume control.