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GOOD DINER'S ETIQUETTE

Everyone experiences bad or indifferent service, but restaurants also have to cope with bad customers. The difference is that they have nobody to complain to.

The cliché that "the customers is always right" is wide open to abuse by diners with bad attitude or just plain bad manners.

Here are 10 top tips for good diners:

1. Cancel if you can't make it. A 50c call is nothing to you but an empty table hurts a restaurant.

2. Money buys you service, not slavery. Only trash treats others like trash. If ou think your roadster makes you a VIP, park and your arrogance at home.

3. Don't talk down to staff. You'll impress you guests more by being a good host than lecturing the chef loudly about how to cook this dish or what temperature to chill that wine.

4. BYO is a privilege, not a right. Wining goes with dining, and you wouldn't bring your own food to a restaurant. Check the corkage when you book, rather than argue over the bill.

5. Leave your problems outside. Other tables want to have a good time and don't care if your boss or husband/ wife is a bastard.

6. Obey the no- smoking rule. Quarrel with the government, don't get the restaurant fined.

7. Check ahead about children. A restaurant is entitled to put limits on age and behaviour.

8. Complain for valid reasons only. Anybody can spot a con artist looking for a free meal.

9. But when justified, do complain. The serious owner or chef wants to maintain standards, so needs to know when things really go wrong.

10. Vote with your feet, not with your mouth. If the manager isn't interested in a valid complaint, a scene won't hurt him as much as deciding never to come back.