At £16.95 for two courses the pre theatre set munu looked to be good value and I guess it was. So how, in just over an hour, did the two of us manage to spend a hundred and twenty quid?

I left the bill on the table – to hot to move – so from memory it went something like: two gin and tonics at about £9 each. Two glasses of champagne (well, it was my birthday last week) at about a tenner each and a glass of white wine each with our meal at eight pounds a go. I incautiously ordered two portions of veg at four pounds each and we finished with a single espresso each. They finished by adding a 12.5% service charge.

One hundred and nineteen pounds.

This was the Brumus Bar and restaurant which is part of the Haymarket Hotel. All the reviews describe it as trendy. That should have been warning in itself. The food was OK, the staff were trying – no really, they were fine, only niggle was that the samphire which accompanied my mullet had too much wood in it – it was like eating tooth picks.

Good job my austerity conscious chum insisted on having tap water.