An Englisman in a
restaurant found a fly in his soup. He called the waiter. ‘Waiter, there’s a
fly in my soup!’ The waiter looked closely at the soup por a moment and then
relaxed. ‘It’s OK, sir, it’s dead!’
In another version of
the story, the waiter looks quickly at the people sitting at the tables nearby,
lowers his voice and says, ‘Please keep your voice down, sir, or everybody will
want one.’
The surprising thing
about these stories is not the waiter’s response to the complaint, but the
Englishman response to the fly.
Most English people
will go to great lengths to avoid making a fuss. They will accept almost
anything rather than complain-poor service, inferior goods, long queues… even
dead flies.