I know it’s rude to stare, but I cannot keep my eyes off what’s happening on the next table. A waiter in a waistcoat with a medallion around his neck is brutally but meticulously dismantling a barely cooked duck for a table of four Frenchmen to my left. I find myself unable to look away, except to check on the dog who is – predictably – also enraptured by the lesson in aquatic bird anatomy.
I tighten my grip on Arty’s lead in case he decides to pounce, and try not to worry about the medieval-style torture device cast in silver that’s clamped to a trolley nearby.
