Bit of a Situation

So we went on a wee trip to Berwick (Upon Tweed, not North), primarily to see a concert, here at The Maltings but also to have a bit of a look around the place before coming back up the road. We drove down late afternoon and after checking into our hotel went to pick up our tickets before looking for something to eat. 'No, not Jason Manford, we want to see the Don Patterson Situation.'  Tickets duly collected we asked at the venue restaurant but oh, no they sadly had no free tables. 'not tonight, it's Jason Manford' she said apologetically, pointing at the reserved tables. So we headed out onto the street. Where should we go, Siri? (Modern technology, eh?) Siri directed us to a place down one of the lanes. It looked promising with several empty tables. But no, they couldn't fit us in until seven, fifteen minutes wait. Fine, would we be able to eat by ten-to-eight? Ah, going to the Maltings? I'll need to check? So she went away again, only to come back moments later, 'no, we couldn't guarantee that - all our food is cooked to order' was the excuse. Or was it really you didn't want to waste a table on two diners who only wanted one course and would rather save it in the hope that someone else would appear to stay longer and spend more? Thank you Grill On The Hill, British tourism doing its best to remove the need to worry about repeat business once again. We ended up at an Indian restaurant instead and had a very good meal at the Magna Tandoori.  We were finished nicely in time to walk back up the hill to The Maltings for our concert. Don and his band were excellent and we had an enjoyable time listening to their jazz tunes before heading back to our hotel, via a town centre pub. Had we known, we'd probably have just gone straight back to the hotel bar but we'd got the impression it shut at 10pm.