I went to a restaurant yesterday

[tjh290633]

I fail to see why people are worried about going out to eat.

Same reason as avoiding anything that involves being in a confined space with others.
The govt has worked hard to make us nervous and inform us about suspended aerosols, and we're showing that we've paid attention

V8

But I wasn't in a confined space. You lot are paranoid. Just maintain social distancing and wash your hands.

TJH

[zico]

But I wasn't in a confined space. You lot are paranoid. Just maintain social distancing and wash your hands.

TJH

But it's not possible to maintain social distancing.
Sure, I can make efforts to keep my distance from other people, but I can't prevent them getting close to me, at least not without a taser, and I understand their use by the general public is frowned upon.

My wife and I can visit an empty pub, sit indoors and order a meal, but if a bunch of people then come in, decide to sit at a table that's 2.00001 metres from our table, then have a "who can laugh the loudest at each other's jokes" competition, whilst suffering from hay fever and sneezing in all directions, there's nothing much we can do about it. We're going for a meal indoors in a restaurant with a group of friends tonight, which will be the riskiest thing we've done in lockdown since visiting an Aldi store at the start of the pandemic.

[Wuffle]

The illusion of control.
You are just clearing the way for some other truly horrible way to die and having a s**t time while you wait.

W.

[UncleEbenezer]

It's p***ing down today. But sometime next week, weather permitting, I should like to eat out with a government contribution.

[brightncheerful]

This 50% off a restaurant meal (Mon to Wed) I find fascinating.

Assuming a restaurant meal priced at £9.99, the food cost to the restaurant is £2.50 if that. The difference is the operating costs of the restaurant. plus profit. Under the 50% scheme, the customer pays £4.99 (rounded down) whereas the restaurant gets £2.49 profit on the food + £4.99 (ditto) courtesy of the tax-payer.

[Mike4]

The illusion of control.
You are just clearing the way for some other truly horrible way to die and having a s**t time while you wait.

W.

I presume you are opposed to all medicine then.

You seem to believe all it does is delay you dying, and that is inevitable regardless so why bother?

[PinkDalek]

This 50% off a restaurant meal (Mon to Wed) I find fascinating.

Assuming a restaurant meal priced at £9.99, the food cost to the restaurant is £2.50 if that. The difference is the operating costs of the restaurant. plus profit. Under the 50% scheme, the customer pays £4.99 (rounded down) whereas the restaurant gets £2.49 profit on the food + £4.99 (ditto) courtesy of the tax-payer.

Don't forget the VAT complications*** and many restaurants are doing the calculations manually.


*** I can provide a source if you are interested but not this minute.

Edit: I may have found it in time https://www.icaew.com/insights/tax-news/2020/july-2020/eat-out-to-help-out-scheme-check-your-understanding

[Clitheroekid]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

Assume they make £5 profit on the meal and £2.50 on the wine.

Normal meal with discount:

Cost to customer £10 - £5 discount = £5 + wine £5 = £10.

Profit for owner £5 on meal + grant £5 + £2.50 on wine = £12.50

CK deal:

Cost to customer £20 - £10 discount = £10 + wine (£0) = £10.00

Profit for owner £5 on meal + grant £10 + £0 on wine = £15.

So the customer is equally happy, but the owner makes 20% more profit.

Is there a flaw in my maths?

[Dod101]

The point about getting office workers back in to offices is to support all the sandwich shops, food outlets and pubs around the office premises.

Dod

Yes - Ive heard this before.

And now remove the business instead provided to all the sandwich shops, food outlets and pubs - and corner shops and local delivery fast food places - near to various people's own homes.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul - people have to eat from somewhere, whether its in EC1 or ME9. The argument doesnt stack up.

I am not saying it is right or wrong but that appears to be the reason given.

Dod

[didds]

I am not saying it is right or wrong but that appears to be the reason given.

Dod

And yes, I agree with you there. Personally its just another example of those in charge either being unable to actually think about what they are saying, or hoping that nobody else does.

didds

[didds]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

well this is what i said a while ago when the food dicount thing was annnounced etc ...

why not wet led pubs (ie dont do food, but sell alcohol) sell a plate of bread of marge for £X and each plate comes with a free pint/glass of wine/shirt or whatever?

didds

[servodude]

Presently I'm sitting on my forms for two passports; torn between my natural disposition to get a job done and dusted, and the similarly strong impulse not to spend money on something I can't use!

You can use your passport. You are merely choosing not to. By the end of September I will have taken four international flights this summer.

Airports and planes are fairly empty and quiet but, globally, millions of people are flying every day. You can too.

Congratulations!

I'm sure there might be some academic contrived way that I could find a plane that could travel overseas and route to get home (becoming a diplomat for instance?); but for all intents and purposes it's a practical impossibility.

For a start there there are no international flights in to the state, and I'm banned from entering another one without an exemption and would be subject to quarantine even then
- Victoria will legally let me leave but I'm not able to enter anywhere else
- that's why I missed my mother-in-law's funeral last month

Lots of info here:
https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/information ... e-covid-19

Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents are restricted from travelling overseas at the moment

or
https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/travel-rest ... nationally

No international passenger flights will be arriving in Melbourne until further notice

At present I need a permit to allow me to travel to my office as an exempted worker given local restrictions, which is why I think having a new passport might be a waste at this time

-sd

[scotia]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

In Scotland, with its lower alcohol limits, you had better not drive after the free glass of wine with your meal. I don't think the police (or poileas as they are now dual-named) would accept the defence of you being a civilized person

[AF62]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

Assume they make £5 profit on the meal and £2.50 on the wine.

Normal meal with discount:

Cost to customer £10 - £5 discount = £5 + wine £5 = £10.

Profit for owner £5 on meal + grant £5 + £2.50 on wine = £12.50

CK deal:

Cost to customer £20 - £10 discount = £10 + wine (£0) = £10.00

Profit for owner £5 on meal + grant £10 + £0 on wine = £15.

So the customer is equally happy, but the owner makes 20% more profit.

Is there a flaw in my maths?

There is.

M&S tried this with their £10 meal deals - buy some food for £10 and get a free bottle of wine. VAT on the £10 food at 0% = £0 and 20% VAT on the free wine = £0.

Unsurprisingly HMRC were unhappy and the courts agreed with them and ruled that the £10 had to be fairly split across everything.

HMRC are operating the Eat Out to Help Out scheme...

[Wuffle]

The restaurant trade is a hotbed of creative accounting.
Or at least it was in the cash days.
I learned a lot.
Part of me hopes the same entrepreneurial spirit remains.

W.

[Dod101]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

In Scotland, with its lower alcohol limits, you had better not drive after the free glass of wine with your meal. I don't think the police (or poileas as they are now dual-named) would accept the defence of you being a civilized person

That is of course a gross exaggeration, unless your wine happens to be whisky, which is not a wine anyway. One glass of wine will keep almost everyone well under the limit.

Dod

[Mike4]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

In Scotland, with its lower alcohol limits, you had better not drive after the free glass of wine with your meal. I don't think the police (or poileas as they are now dual-named) would accept the defence of you being a civilized person

That is of course a gross exaggeration, unless your wine happens to be whisky, which is not a wine anyway. One glass of wine will keep almost everyone well under the limit.

Dod

Surely that depends on the size of the glass and how full it is.

There is a sign up behind the bar in the pub we used to go to after bell ringing, "Nobody wants a small glass of wine". Always makes me smile.

[scotia]

A `sharp' operator offering meals at £10 and wine at £5 a glass might be well advised to double the price of the food and give a free glass of wine with it for those that drink wine with their meal (i.e. every civilised person! )

In Scotland, with its lower alcohol limits, you had better not drive after the free glass of wine with your meal. I don't think the police (or poileas as they are now dual-named) would accept the defence of you being a civilized person

That is of course a gross exaggeration, unless your wine happens to be whisky, which is not a wine anyway. One glass of wine will keep almost everyone well under the limit.

Dod

At our monthly lunch of retired academics, the introduction of the Scottish lower limit changed our behaviour. All who arrived by car moved over to soft drinks. This was done without discussion, and only a minimum of comment. "Expert" advice suggests that an average man would be limited to a large glass of wine, and women to a small glass of wine. But body metabolisms vary - not everybody is average. We clearly decided, independently, that it was better to be safe than sorry.

[Nimrod103]

In Scotland, with its lower alcohol limits, you had better not drive after the free glass of wine with your meal. I don't think the police (or poileas as they are now dual-named) would accept the defence of you being a civilized person

That is of course a gross exaggeration, unless your wine happens to be whisky, which is not a wine anyway. One glass of wine will keep almost everyone well under the limit.

Dod

At our monthly lunch of retired academics, the introduction of the Scottish lower limit changed our behaviour. All who arrived by car moved over to soft drinks. This was done without discussion, and only a minimum of comment. "Expert" advice suggests that an average man would be limited to a large glass of wine, and women to a small glass of wine. But body metabolisms vary - not everybody is average. We clearly decided, independently, that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Must have been a right jolly reunion (not). No wonder the Scots seem more dour and irritable than usual lately.

[Dod101]

Well I was offered a choice of three sizes for a glass of wine at lunch on Wednesday. I chose the medium one 175 ml. Only the one; my companion who was not driving had two. Over a meal and 2/3 hours that is not going to put me over the limit. I do though agree with the sentiments and it is often better simply not to drink at all when driving, well when planning to drive later anyway.

Many many years ago when I first went to Hong Kong, the buses were not air conditioned and the drivers had fairly casual attitude to driving with often enough a can of San Miguel in the cab to help keep them hydrated. There are now strict drink and drive laws but none then.

Dod