No tips please, we’re British

I hate tipping, not because I am intrinsically mean but because of the anxiety it induces. You pitch up at some glam hotel, after a gruelling flight, then the guy next to the concierge takes your bags to your room, and, as you go, you fumble in your pockets, searching for the mysterious notes and coins, even as you try to estimate the right amount to tip the porter.

This is a complex equation at the best of times, as it involves so many imponderables: the state of the local economy, the likely wages hereabouts, the emotionally correct sum to give – not insultingly little but not so much that you look like an oligarch. At the same time you often have to calculate this amount in a foreign currency (Heck is a shekel? What else can I do with my Vietnamese dong?).