The ate O'clock rules

Stop hunching over your phone screen at dinner, stop showing up with uninvited friends, say thank you more. It's not hard

- SEEMA GOSWAMI

Having dinner with some acquaintances the other night, I came up against the bad manners that seem to characterise all human interaction these days.

Two of the men on the table simply could not be parted from their phones no matter how interesting the conversation on the table. Their phones kept pinging and they kept picking them up to answer messages, check their WhatsApp, scroll through Twitter and reply to emails. The message was clear. They were far too important and doing far too many important things to waste their time with unimportant beings like us. By the end of the evening, I was wondering why they had bothered to come to dinner at all, given that they had no interest in the company and none in the food. They may as well have spent the evening at home with their phones and a sandwich.