Four legs on the floor, please
On a tour to Strasbourg we were required to dine at a swanky restaurant before a concert, hosted by an ambassador and a minister of culture. Myself and a couple of colleagues were a bit late on arriving, thus pulling the short straw and having to sit at the vip table, candidates for boring small-talk and forced table manners.

Whilst waiting for the soup-du-jour, one of my friends, nonplussed by the formality, decided to assume a nonchalant elbow-on-the-back-of-the-chair pose, accompanied by an ever-increasing seat-back-tilt angle. As the conversation warmed, so did the angle. So graceful was his inevitable arrival to the floor that none of us noticed; wine and conversation were flowing nicely, frostiness had abated, warmth prevailed. Until a muffled "Can somebody help me please?" drifted across the table. We all turned to see a pair of Hush Puppies politely, patiently hanging in the air.
(roysin, Wed 27 Jan 2010, 17:29, Reply)