Restaurants | 10 June 2006

I try to make a booking at Dans Le Noir?, the new London restaurant where diners eat in total darkness and are served by blind and visually impaired staff, although I still don’t think I’ve quite worked out what the point is exactly. Anyway, I call and speak to a very nice-sounding Frenchman who asks if he might call me back. ‘Iz just that I cannot find ze bookings book just now.’ When he doesn’t return the call, I email via the restaurant’s website. No reply. I am beginning to think that this is why blind people, on the whole, don’t make especially good restauranteurs. However, this doesn’t mean I have anything against blind people. God, no.

On the contrary, one of my very favourite Radio 4 programmes is In Touch, which I often find both interesting and moving. Indeed, I often wish I couldn’t see nearly as well, so that I could feel just that bit more part of the gang. Although, that said, who is to say I wouldn’t want a dog that can plump the sofa cushions and make tea and use the cashpoint anyway? Sometimes blind people just can’t see which side of their bread is buttered. They are quite like old people, who are always moaning, moaning, moaning, even though they get stairlifts and mobility scooters and half price at the hairdressers on Wednesday afternoons. Do they ever stop to think that I might like a stairlift, a mobility scooter or half price at the hairdressers on Wednesday afternoons? Well, I would. Old people can’t see which side their bread is buttered either, and they don’t even have an excuse. On the other hand, I suppose it is perfectly possible that they put it down somewhere and now can’t remember where.