Consuming Interest
The Price of Service
By LESLIE ADRIAN
It has been a cherished opinion of mine for Years that travellers always spend too much because their price reactions are slowed down by difficult rates, of exchange (like 13.75 francs to the £). If they round their familiar units like. a 'shilling upwards everything seems cheaper, and then they feel robbed afterwards; if they round downwards everything seems too dear and they feel robbed on the spot. So the tendency is to round upwards, stay cheerful and wonder on the last day but one where the money went.
In France there is another factor which is easy to overlook; the penal 15 per cent service charge. The menu has a prix fixe, the wine is Priced in the list and you know that your coffee will cost you anything from 80 centimes to two. or three francs a cup. But when the bill comes it costs one-sixth more than you had figured, because of the surcharge. When choosing a Wine in this country of fine and tempting vintages, it iS always Wise to reckon that a 15 franc bottle will cost you 17.25 francs, while the surcharge on an ordinaire will be negligible. The difference in the service is also negligible. I never once saw a wine decanted, even in two- star restaurants, and when the wine was 'as °Id as 1929. The service charge is really a way of putting up prices, with the unfair result that those who visit France in a mood of gastro- nomic adventure find that to eat the great regional dishes will entail heavy expenditure °11 five- or seven-course menus, with the alterna- tive, where it is permitted, of paying a cover Charge, an a la carte price that almost equals the cost of the whole set meal and sometimes the service charge and tax that have been waived for the sturdy menu devourers. I found it almost impossible to buy an elegant, small meal.
Why don't the French caterers merely put up their prices and drop this idiotic surcharge which is levied so indiscriminately? I even paid a 15 per cent levy on aperitifs bought at the bar. For self-service they should pay us. Now I know why the French roads are choked with GB caravans and the verges lined, in the wet- test weather, with stolid picnickers.
For one reason or another 1 have been cross- ing the Channel for twenty years. Yet only this year did I discover Calais as a place to stay. I suppose lots of people have known of the quiet and charming Grand Hotel Clement at Ardres, a short drive from the port, with an excellent restaurant. If not, they should be told that it makes a restful stopping-off point and gives, south-bound travellers a flying start.
On the return journey I tried the Meurice in. the rebuilt centre of the town. Very comfort- able and airy rooms at reasonable charges (s.t.c., as Michelin says), and again a first-rate cuisine. The proprietor, M. Maupin, is a Chevalier . des Tastevins and has sdnic line 'Gosh! A knight!' Burgundies bought at the Hospice de Beaune auctions.
I wouldn't know about spending a holiday there. As far as the eye can see the beach is built over with three ranks of huts and chalets. They looked oddly still and deserted in the September sun. The season does not tail off in Frar.:e. They guillotine it. Like the service in most restaurants, where you could drop dead after the dessert and no one would notice- as long, as you left the right amount by your plate.
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Long before those tender teenaged mods took to eye-shadow the cosmeticians were wonder-, ing how to talk the British male into using' some of the doo-dads that they had so success fully sold to his women: talc, deodorants,' wrinkle-straighteners and nice smells. Male cosmetics sounded too madly gay, so the word- smiths hammered out the evocative word: 'toiletries' (though what it evokes is entirely your own affair).
About five years ago the offensive began and failed dismally-one important casualty being Beecham's Mark Vardy, in spite of heavy pro- motional expenses. The big six or seven fell back on to the steadyish sales of hair cream and shaving soap. Now I detect that the flag is being run up for a second assault upon male modesty, the first wave having been supplied by Shirley Conran in the third issue of the Observer's colour magazine. She talks of a 'boom' in these toiletries; now worth £10 million a year, compared with £1 million in 1958, but these figures sound a little odd when they are said to 'include hair dressings and shaving cream or soap, both steady sellers.
The plot thickens when Mrs. Conran adds that 'Christmas accounts for 80 per cent of annual sales.' Surely the necessities are bought all the'year round, and will themselves account for 90 per cent of the turnover in this trade. Christmas is coming, men, so stand by for a stocking full of after-shave, face talcum, eau- de-cologne and anti-wrinkle cream (mainly albumen, says my beauty expert). White of egg will do a nice job on your wrinkles, man, if you don't mind going to work in an egg, and un- washed. 'Are you man enough to use anti- wrinkle?' is 'the tough line' taken by one firm's advertising agent, says Shirley Conran. I haven't done any depth interviews or motivational re- search on this, but I would wager that that ought to read, 'Are you man enough not to . . Won't sell much albumen, though.
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