¡Qué guay!

It's always nice to be reminded that one is getting older and slowly, but inevitably, becoming less cool. And it's especially nice to get a double hit of this delightful feeling.

Everyone knows that, when in a restaurant with a Specials board, it is someone's job to go and stand in front of it, memorise it (ideally in less than a minute) and then return to the table and reel-off said list, with all the customary guess-work, ad libs and mis-rememberings:
"I think it came with veggies or rice… or maybe something else. Oh and there was definitely a pasta thingy… and there was one more… which sounded quite good actually…"

Well no, if you are nodding sympathetically at that last paragraph, then I am sorry to be the one tell you – but you are old. That is not the thing to do at all. If you are a young hipster, you simply stand in front of the board and take a photo of it with your camera phone. Of  course you do, obvious isn't it? (only, it would never have occurred to me to do that).

But even hipsters get out-hipped on occasion.
"Oh no sir" said the waiter "there's really no need!" He placed reassuring fingertips on the young man's sleeve and with a Dickensian smile, that managed to be both cap-doffingly subservient and supremely condescending, he said:
"It's really not necessary to do that! Not at all! The Specials are all online! Simply swipe the code" and he pointed, in turn, to several strategically placed squares, hidden discreetly amongst depressingly similar abstract art prints. "Just swipe the code and the entire menu, along with the Specials, is all there!"

The young hipster returned to his seat suitably chastised, and I made a mental note to never, ever stand up to look at a Specials board, ever again.