Feeding Frenzy

Feeding Frenzy
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday October 3, 2015

I glanced up from my laptop as the cafe door swung open and a draught fanned my face. A spruce gent in a navy blazer entered the cafe and politely closed the door behind him. He squeezed his large frame behind the table next to mine, acknowledging his intrusion with a smile.

I resumed tapping away as he flapped open a newspaper. A waitress soon delivered his coffee and a mound of bacon and eggs. He must have been starving because he immediately shed all gentlemanly conduct and fell upon his plate like a barbarian.

Knife in fist and waving his fork over his breakfast like a harpoon, he stabbed at his eggs and dragged his yolk-smeared knife between his lips. He sawed away at a doorstop of toast and crammed it sideways into his mouth, using his thumb to wedge in the last corner.

When a rasher of bacon refused to submit to the savagery of his table manners, he picked it up with his fingers and gnawed through the rind with his teeth. He chewed with his mouth open, washing down each forkful with a slurp of his coffee. After mopping his plate with a last slab of bread, he swiped the grease off his chin with the back of his hand.

I tried not to look but a morbid fascination with bad manners kept me glancing furtively in his direction. I wasn’t the only customer who’d noticed him: people were staring. That’s when a niggling voice in my head began chiding me. Don’t be such a snob, it said. So what if a bloke makes a spectacle of his breakfast? But I wondered if my neighbour was aware he’d become the centre of attention.

If manners maketh man, then my Great Uncle Andy enjoyed making a mockery of his breeding. He delighted in flouting the politesse at family gatherings. Laced with pre-dinner sherries, he’d bully his peas onto the blade of his knife. With his drinking elbow propped on the table to steady himself, he’d tilt back his head and upend the knife, raining peas into his mouth. Then he’d cast about to see who in the family had taken offence. Most ignored his antics, but as a nine year old, I was agape. I never dared try his trick – it was hard enough spearing peas with my fork.

Uncle Andy found myriad ways to play with his food, mostly for my entertainment. He’d fashion a lumpy volcano from his mashed potatoes and fill the crater with gravy. With his fork, he’d bulldoze a serving of savoury mince into a variety of 3-D shapes. And one by one, he’d herd a pile of limp grey beans off his plate and into hiding in his serviette. “You still have to eat them,” Nan’d admonish her younger brother, already in his 60s. “Don’t think I didn’t see you.”

Uncle Andy was what Mum called a ‘confirmed bachelor,’ using bad manners, isolation and avoidance to keep lady-suitors at bay. Nan maintained he was yet to be seduced by feminine wiles. The rest of the family called him Handy-Andy, but I never saw him build anything. I just admired his cheek.

In our house, table manners are a hit and miss affair. I hear myself parroting the nagging mantras of my childhood: “Elbows off the table, sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed, don’t talk with your mouth full.” And for my teenager’s benefit: “Get that phone off the table!”

My middle lad, aged eight, drives me mad, using his fingers as a fork. I start on him nicely: “Fork in your left hand, knife in your right, darling. You’ve got them the wrong way round. That’s it. Prongs down.” His fingers creep onto his plate again. “For goodness sake!” I cry. “Eat like that, and you won’t be invited anywhere!” Call me a prig but the hallmark of civilisation is that we don’t eat like animals.

These days, too often, we’re eating distractedly in front of the telly. Meals have become solitary occasions instead of social ones. Manners are forgotten as we wolf down a curry watching re-runs of Antiques Roadshow. Dinner-time used to be for round table discussions of the day’s obstacles and adventures. It was a chance to instil the punctilios of politeness in the next generation: the excuse me’s and thank you’s and ‘pass the salt and pepper, please.’

Even on telly, table manners are woeful. As we were watching the final episode of Masterchef last season, celebrity chef Gary Mehigan licked his knife after scraping the sauce off a plate. “Holy cow!” I exclaimed to the corn-fed gourmand beside me on the sofa. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” came the reply. “That pork looked undercooked to me.”

Like the clappers

Like the clappers
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday January 24, 2015

Rough landings test my nerves. Belted tightly into my window seat, I stared at the wing tip flexing violently. The rain sheeted in grey gusts. My bird’s eye view of the city was a blur. As the cabin jolted and jerked, the young woman next to me clutched our armrest. She caught my eye, searching for reassurance. I returned her a half-hearted smile and stiffened for the landing.

One set of wheels slammed onto the runway, then the other. I gasped as we lurched sideways and the overhead lockers groaned. The engines roared into reverse and the air brakes on the wing bit into the thick air.

Above the dying screech of the engines, I heard the sudden but unmistakeable sound of someone clapping a few rows ahead of me. My neighbour glanced sideways at me and began clapping too. I felt compelled to join her. A moment later, the cabin erupted into brief applause: we passengers united in our appreciation for our pilots’ skill.

It was still raining as I clambered into a cab. En route to the city, transfixed by the rhythmic arc of the windscreen wipers, I thought about clapping. Why do we clap? Why is it so infectious? What if that passenger had decided not to applaud our pilot? Would our landing have been met only with grateful silence?

I decided clapping is a social contagion – the more a crowd begins to clap, the more pressure there is to join in.

I learned about clapping protocols from my grandmother. We had season tickets to the Concert Hall, stalls, row G. Seat 16 belonged to me, aged nine. Nan, in her fox stole and smelling of lavender talc, squeezed her bottom into seat 17. Even better than the plush crimson seats was the packet of Allen’s Fantales that appeared from the depth of Nan’s handbag. As she turned to discuss the programme with the cognoscente in seat 18, I hastily unwrapped three Fantales and crammed them into my mouth.

My euphoria at having achieved this feat undetected was shortlived. Two toffees were a manageable deceit, but three cemented my jaw shut. I could feel my molars straining at the root as I tried to force top and bottom teeth apart. After a minute of lockjaw and unable to contain the toffee dribble, I tapped Nan’s arm in panic. She turned, frowned at my bulging cheeks and my stained dress and passed me her hanky: “Clean yourself up!” The conductor will be out in a minute. You’ll need to clap hard.”

The maestro, in suit and tails, swept onto the stage with his halo of wild hair and took a deep bow. I clapped furiously, but wondered why, seeing he hadn’t performed yet.

I thought those concerts would never end. I got tired of examining the orchestra so I rubber-necked my fellow concert-goers instead, daring them to return my stare.

And then the conductor let his baton rest, and the music stopped. People rustled and coughed. I started to clap but Nan pinned my hands firmly to my lap. “Not now,” she whispered, “it’s the height of rudeness to clap between movements.” Not clapping mid-symphony became my mark of sophistication.

Nearly an hour later, when Mahler was spent and the maestro rejoined us mortals, I was allowed to clap. I made as big a racket as I could, desperate to release the tension from sitting still for so long. My ears rang and my palms stung but I kept clapping, because everyone else was. Who decided when the applause should stop?

Since then, I have discovered several ways to clap: flat-palmed, hands cupped, thumbs locked, two-fingered (for smart-alecs). My favourite is the fingers of my right hand smacking the palm of my left. If I reverse hands, I feel awkward. (A limp clap is as gauche as a flaccid handshake.)

Historians say clapping descended from the Roman legionnaires who banged spears against shields to applaud a commander. Roman audiences added clapping to their repertoire of finger and thumb clicking, toga flapping and handkerchief waving to express degrees of approval. A disappointed crowd would stay conspicuously silent.

Now, I fear clapping has become rote and ritualised, often an expectation rather than a reward. I blame television for manufacturing applause the way it added canned laughter. In the late 50s, the clap-o-meter purported to measure the popularity of quiz-show contestants. It was a sham, given the producers had already pre-selected the winner. Now, floor managers and warm-up guys whip audiences into raining applause onto even mediocre performers. (Everyone else gets a standing ovation.)

I once went to a performance at a school for the hearing impaired where we were taught how to flap our hands above their heads to signal our approval. Clapping soundlessly took a bit of getting used to. But I’ve never forgotten the rapt silence that accompanied a hundred pairs of hands waving their congratulations. The most deserved applause is not always the noisiest.