If you have the strength and are not permanently doubled up, raise your right hand at once for the manager and clearly gasp out your symptoms. Unless owner run, most eating establishments will be covertly supercilious about your displeasure at the table. Knowing as they do that normally a few hours must elapse before food poisoning gets a real grip on their victims, who will then usually be some distance away yawking on someone else’s carpet.

However, complaint, upon reaching a chef’s ears, is always instant incitement to these highly temperamental gentlemen who have been known to rush from backstage to slap a face with plaice or slosh antique sauce over customers. But count yourself lucky at such a forthright venting of feelings. For chefs, who remain in the privacy of their culinary castles, and to whom you have returned food, wiping their feet in your steak will be the least of it.