A further thought on my earlier post: this time on the subject of tips, and so indirectly related.

In the U.S., tipping is an innate part of the culture, so much so that to offer anything less than a 15% tip ina restaurant signifies that you were actually mortally offended by the level of service you received. Accustomed as I am to the rather more stingy attitude of the Brits when it comes to tipping - i.e. 10% if they were particularly attentive or if you fancied the waiter(ess), this has come as a severe shock to the system.

Nowhere is the custom more adhered to than in restaurants. The common assumption is that this is to make up for the abysmal pay per hour - understood to be about $3. Tips, then, go some way towards making a pay packet that makes it worth taking home at the end of the day. So you are showered with the aforementioned blandishments, and, rage of all rages, enquired as to whether you require change when you leave your payment - to which the answer is generally understood to be no, you don't, but that you have left a generous tip for them.

However, in the interests of research, I have just discovered that the minimum wage in Kansas (it varies from state to state) currently stands at $7.25 per hour, or £4.50. OK, so it's not quite the £5.80 an hour that British workers over 22 enjoy, but it's significantly more than the £3.75 than under 18s are entititled to. Which means that either Kansan restaurateurs are paying their employees illegally low wages, or else said employees are actually cleaning up quite nicely, thank you. Given that eating out here is not all that cheap, it becomes quite galling to add an extra 20% on top of the already hefty bill one has been presented with.

One English friend simply ignores the custom, and tips as he would in Britain - i.e. not at all most of the time, and 10% if he feels like it. I am tempted to follow suit. Which means, having established British standards in one area, perhaps I can re-establish them in others - again, see previous post - ?