One for the Road: Far from cordial

HERE’S a question that will separate the real political theorists among you from all the jumped-up Nolan Show casuals.

Afghanistan, Somalia, the so-called Democratic Republic of the Congo: At what point during each of these three countries’ respective freefalls did it become clear that they were doomed to degenerate into what university professors call ‘failed states?’ And the answer is: When the restaurants in each nation started charging for dilute.

The other week, while redding out my room – which included dismantling a condemned bed to make way for a new one, dispensing with defunct games consoles, binning celebrity autobiographies I’ve never read and holding onto weighty tomes I plan to read but probably never will, parting with old clothes, determining whether I’ll ever wear my boxing boots again, plus the performance of a dozen other activities that began as menial chores but ended up as questions of who I am and where I am going and whether life is slipping by faster and faster every year – I got a pleasant surprise.

With the bed gone, I was exhuming items from the mass grave of keepsakes, mementos, paraphernalia and missing socks that got buried in this sub-cradle catacomb during my teenage years, when, from amongst the motley mix of tobacco crumbs and faded concert tickets, I spied a piece of conspicuously shiny paper.

“Loving it,” I said, realising the unearthed card to be a voucher for a local restaurant. “30 quid, too. I guess this is the world’s way of rewarding me for the fortnight of frugality I’ve practiced since coming home from South East Asia,” I said, before, with the solemn care of a priest handling a chalice, placing the coupon atop my bedside locker to be used that coming Sunday.

Fast-forward a few days and the weekend has arrived. Friday, Saturday, then, as sure as a decadent dessert follows the gut-busting main course, Sunday.

Blithely, with a song in our hearts and the coupon in my back pocket, my partner Niamh and I skipped towards the relevant establishment to cash in my fortunate find.

“Two turkey and hams, two cranberry sauces, a portion of garlic cubes and two coke zeros,” I told the young waitress who stood over our table.

Then I said, “Actually, on second thought, never worry about the cokes and just give us a jug of dilute instead.”

(Like I said, I’ve been mindful of my money since I came home – though my family would tell you that I was just as tight before I left.)

Anyway, the dinners landed looking like the sort of culinary distraction capable of temporarily taking a death row inmate’s mind off the electrical buzzing sound coming from down the hall. The turkey was tender, the ham was succulent, the veg was fresh and the gravy, a generous pool of dark reduction that completely swamped the lowlands of the plate, was meaty and full.

We got stuck in, our faces sucked into a vortex of deliciousness that didn’t relinquish its gravitational pull until both our plates looked ready to go straight back into the cupboard.

Anyway, after five minutes of allowing the muscles in my digestive tract to squeeze the football of food in my throat half a foot further towards my vitals, python-style, I got up, asked to have my voucher verified and then requested the bill.

“That’ll just be a wee 14 pound on top of the wee 30 pound from the voucher,” said the lady at the till.

“Eh?” I blurted, reflexively defaulting to frustrated befuddlement as older men often do when told something they don’t want to hear.

“Another wee 14 pound,” she jovially repeated.

I examined the bill, mumbling in reluctant agreement as I read each item and its corresponding price.

Then I got to the bottom of the receipt; the jug of dilute.

“What?! £3.20 for a drop of juice?” I exclaimed.

The girl just looked at me.

Softening my tone, I said, “Ye serious? I mean, is that right ‘nough, aye? £3.20 for a jug of dilute?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “£3.20 for a wee jug of orange or a wee jug of blackcurrant juice.”

“I’d hate to see the price of a big one,” I mumbled ruefully, before reluctantly producing my bank card, resigning myself to the pecuniary injustice being inflicted upon me and then lamenting the forthcoming collapse of our society the whole way home.

See, when dilute was free, so were we. Once they began charging for it, we started down a dangerous road.

But now, with restaurants grossing £64 (I did the math) on a £2.50 bottle of Robinsons Double Concentrate, common decency – the glue that holds our society together – is on the verge of being lost.

I mean, say what you want about the North in the 1980s, but at least the juice was complimentary.

What I’m trying to say is this: Remember what happened in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Exactly.

Unless something is done, the liberty-taking restaurateurs of today will be the gun-toting warlords of tomorrow.