A bigger slice

There's a lot of talk nowadays about people feeling "entitled", or feeling they have an automatic right to all sorts of things because - well, because they do. Such people are roundly condemned as arrogant elitists who just want to grab a bigger slice of the pie. The criticism is usually aimed at a certain type of person - well-off, privately educated, right-wing, pompous.

But hang on a minute, shouldn't we all feel entitled - to a decent life, a comfortable home, a worthwhile job, an adequate income, and physical safety? Isn't that the least we can expect as a country's citizens?

What people are really objecting to is not so much entitlement as greed - wanting more than your fair share of whatever's available. Wanting half a dozen houses, an enormous salary, a prestigious job, and the best of everything, from haute cuisine to limousines, private jets and luxury tailoring.

There's a lot wrong with being greedy, but nothing wrong with feeling entitled, if that simply means wanting an enjoyable life rather than a life of constant struggle and deprivation.

As for myself, I certainly feel privileged as my life has gone very well compared to the lives of many others. But I've never felt entitled in any sense. I've never felt greedy and I've never felt that anything should be handed to me. I hoped and expected to have a decent life but I never felt entitled to it. I assumed hard work, luck and sensible behaviour would get me the necessities of life so I wouldn't need any outside help. And by and large that's been the case.

But I quite like a bit of haute cuisine. Not to mention bon vin. I may not be entitled to them but I wouldn't like to be deprived of them.

Dine and whine

An eleven year legal battle over a scathing restaurant review has finally ended in Sydney with the restaurant getting £349,000 damages. But just how did the court come to its decision when the evidence in the case (the meal) has either been eaten or thrown in the trash?

In any case, I shudder to think what state the food would be in if it had actually survived for eleven years. Everyone in the court would need clothes pegs on their noses or gas masks to shut out the overpowering stink of rotten food.

Seriously though, how on earth did the court make their decision? In the end it boils down to one person's word against another's. The journalist who said the meal was crap from start to finish, against the restaurant that insisted their food was the finest haute cuisine. So who's right? Was it simply a question of who sounded most convincing?

Even if the journalist had called on other diners to confirm how disgusting the food was, it would still only have been an opinion, as their meal would also have been disposed of.

As it was, it was all so nebulous that the case went to two jury trials, a trial before a judge, two appeals, two special leave applications to the High Court, a full High Court hearing and a Supreme Court hearing before a final decision was reached.

I also wonder why the restaurant closed down six months later, supposedly because of this one appalling review. Are diners really put off by a single review, however vitriolic? There must have been other reviews (or just word-of-mouth) that were equally damning. Personally, I would regard one dreadful review as an unfortunate mishap - the reviewer was in a foul mood, the chef was having a bad day, whatever. It wouldn't put me off trying the restaurant.

Perhaps restaurant reviews should always have a disclaimer at the bottom - "This is merely one person's opinion on one particular day and may not truly represent the general quality of the restaurant's meals."

In other words, it might be the review that's three courses of crap and not the food.