LONDON NIGHT-LIFE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24189, 3 February 1942, Page 7

LONDON NIGHT-LIFE

PROBLEMS MULTIPLYING

RESTAURANTS AND TAXIS

LONDON, Dec. 20 The problems of night life in London are multiplying. Finding taxis in the blackout used to be the most difficult feat. Then finding taxis became child's play by comparison with finding a restaurant with a table to spare. Now the major problem is not getting taxis to get to the restaurant or getting a table when you get there; but, paradoxically, finding a restaurant where you can get something to eat. Restaurants are rationed for food supplies on a basis of their peacetime consumption. But, increasingly now, restaurants are attracting more customers than, in peacetime, seemed possible. The result is that unless you arrive early there's nothing left to eat. Some restaurants close down altogether as soon as the food run out. Others remain open for drinks and dancing. The only hope for the regular restaurant user seems to be a revival of the air raids to keep people at home. But although restaurants are overcrowded, food is short, and the service generally is execrable (all the good waiters are now in the forces or doing war work), every restaurateur remarks on the fact that the customers are better behaved than they have ever been before. Complaints to the management have virtually " stopped. The greater the discomfort the better tempered the patrons become. The worse the food the more they seem to like it. The worse the service the more thoughtful they become. Truly we British are an incomprehensible race.