At a party conference in Blackpool, I arranged to meet a friend for dinner. We went to a restaurant that was lauded as one of the town’s best. It was fine dining, sort of. The waitress plonked (they plonk in Blackpool, not put) down our first courses and scarcely concealing her derision at the artfully-arranged, yet somewhat sparse, offerings, inquired: “Are you sure you don’t want bread with those?”