Silence of the lamb

I recently went out to dinner with my in-laws. It wasn’t a good meal. My mother-in-law’s prawns were frozen, my father-in-law’s lamb was overcooked and my peas were cold. So I decided to do what most people would do in such a situation – complain.

“Oh no, please don’t do that. It’s perfectly fine,” exclaimed my mother-in-law as I attempted to catch the surly waitress’s attention.

So in order not to be outlawed by the in-laws, I held my now twice-disappointed tongue, even when upon clearing our plates, the now seemingly smug surly waitress asked if our food had been OK.

My mother-in-law, still sucking on a frozen prawn, smiled graciously, before piping up, “It was lovely, thanks”, while my father-in-law, still chewing on a piece of the world’s chewiest lamb, simply kept quiet.

No sooner had we reached the street, however, and the silence of the lamb was broken. In a prawn-fuelled frenzy, my mother-in-law let rip, raging against not just the inedible invertebrates, but the split sauce and the limp lettuce; while my father-in-law’s lamb lament lasted the entire 40-minute journey home.

Would they have silently stomached a lamb led to slaughter at their very table? Tolerated broken glass in their boeuf bourguignon? A cockroach in their spaghetti carbonara? Yes, probably.

Yes, the Brits are a nation of closet complainers, keeping schtum about shoddy service in the supermarket, the nail salon, the doctor’s surgery, before venting their spleen to their families, their friends, their Facebook walls, or anyone else who will listen to the beef they have with their, well, beef. Or lamb.

Just the other day, a friend called me in tears, distressed and also angered by the shockingly short and unstylish haircut she had just received from her hairdresser. “Why didn’t you complain? Stop her as she was doing it?” I asked, astonished. “I didn’t like to,” my friend blubbed. “I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

Yes, in the past nine months I’ve heard it all: the moans from mums miffed by the treatment they have received from their dentists, their tailors, their butchers, and the social media rants against unreliable trains, grumpy waitresses and too-hot coffee.

But it’s not simply the ceaselessness, the sheer quantity of British moaning that is staggering, but the fact that such whingeing is so ineffective.

By remaining silent on the lamb to the people who matter, those who can effect change, then how will it ever improve? Well, it won’t, and it doesn’t, which is why service in Britain continues to decline.

Some believe it’s because Brits just don’t want to make a scene. These stiff-upper-lippers like my mother-in-law and friend despise drama, loathe conflict and don’t like ‘to make a fuss’. So much so they avoid trying new restaurants or booking new holiday destinations for fear of something being wrong and then having to complain.

Others believe it’s because the Brits boast their very own special brand of ‘there’s no point’ fatalism – a gloomy perspective, where they believe nothing they say or do will ever change or improve anything, so why would they then bother.

Yes, if moaning was an Olympic sport, Britain would say it’s not as good as it used to be because professionalism has ruined the dream.

Instead, I book a really poor, badly rated Chinese restaurant around the corner, which should give them exactly what they want, and prepare myself for Silence of the Lamb Part Two.