A WEEK in London inevitably includes a leisurely hour or six on a sun terrace overlooking the Thames, rekindling exiled memories, quenched by cups of the latest American take on Italian coffee or something stronger, while café society waiters and waitresses flit between tables, hover, dispense libations and effortlessly scoop up tokens from departing guests.

In Paris, and indeed most of France, menus and bills now normally state ‘service compris’ — although out of tradition, patrons still tend to leave a pour-boire, which funds little more than an extremely mini tipple, for the grateful serveur to slip into his or her pocket. If it’s really small, it’ll be dropped with a grand flourish in the small glass near the till.

In the UK, in establishments large or small, you’ll also observe the small receptacle placed strategically by the till accompanied by a less-than-subtle ‘Thank you for your custom’ or even straight forward ‘Tips’ — to enhance what is generally accepted to be a less than generous wage for being on your feet all day attending to the pleasure of your clients.

When it comes to tipping, I think I’ve been labouring under a long-held misapprehension. I have always believed that there are two methods: either place cash in the saucer, or add to the credit card bill — the crude expectation being that the first method ensured that it went to the individual server; the second, that it would be shared among the staff by some kindly establishment accountant. But all is apparently not so egalitarian in the state of service-land.

Well-known names in the restaurant trade have apparently been flouting customer generosity and squirreling away the tips to underwrite the meagre wages they pay their staff, even just bringing them up to the legal minimum. Obligingly, the government has used the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the minimum wage to outlaw the practice.

Policing it will be another matter. Exploitation is unprincipled and cruel since it targets the most vulnerable and is, ultimately, illegal.

Even before the Independent newspaper embarked on a front-page crusade to expose the worst perpetrators and shame them into paying a decent living wage, there were many stories doing the rounds about the inequality of distribution and the whole principle of tipping.

Does it offend? Why is it just waiters, taxi-drivers and hairdressers who are rewarded this way? Why not bus drivers, care workers or nurses who surely qualify on the grounds of giving a very personal service for a relatively poor salary?

It’s as close as we get to the ‘black economy’ in which rewards are passed surreptitiously, and it focuses on the service industries that would traditionally be staffed by workers grateful for patronage or employment. However, it doesn’t explain the £20 note slipped into the back pocket of plumber or garage mechanic whose hourly rate can easily trump the comparable salary of those employing them. Professional service providers — doctors, dentists, financial advisers — get around it all by charging inflated ‘legitimate’ fees into which they can bury whatever extras they wish.

So does it make us feel good to leave a tip? Are we dragooned into doing it whether or not the service has merited it — and should we be doing it anyway?

Surely in the restaurant industry, service is part of the package which deserves appropriate reward, not the sharp practices now being exposed. It must certainly be hard for staff attending to ademanding group of gra-zers — forced to keep their cool if food is thrown back or they’re treated with disdain. Maybe then the menial tips serve as conscience money — recompense for ego-trip humiliation meted out by expense-account diners, vacuous celebs, crooks or anyone with the time on their hands to be seen consuming overpriced delicacies with ‘publicity opportunities’ on the side.

At the same time, there is the ‘value for money’ brig-ade, whose cohorts will justify their reluctance to part with any token of appreciation on the grounds that they feel that the practice is degrading, and refuse to cough up what they feel to be an underhand subsidy. But then they happily accept a quote from their builder — who, to be competitive, will have failed to add VAT until the ink is dry on the contract — or book a cheap flight before examining the hidden surcharges for seat booking, luggage or paying by credit card.

The problem is, of course, that the tipping game is just so undisciplined. When do you do it, and who benefits?
Curiously, the restaurants once inadvertently regulated levels themselves during the affluent years. When it was the norm to levy a 10% service charge, customers may not have liked it, but they got used to it. Then, when VAT arrived, it tended to disappear as an identifiable line on the bill, and became ‘discretionary’, although there was more than a suspicion that many restaurants had taken canny marketing advice and simply rolled it into an overall increase.

However, many patrons still used the old 10% calculation when it came to leaving a tip for the serving staff — whether deserved or not. By the way, when it comes to accounting for the ‘little extras’, interpreting the rules is pretty elliptical too. Should they be faithfully declared on income tax returns? Do they incur GST?

After 30 years of London cab and café culture, and a few spins round the international circuit, I can reveal that I have never experienced a tip being declined. Whether it was ever treated with disdain, I have no evidence — although once, back in 1980s Romania, I was politely asked whether, next time, I would mind if it were in Camel cigarettes.