Lorne and Catherine slept in until shortly past nine, having been active well into the wee hours before they fell asleep. They woke to loud foul language out in the anchorage. "Sounds like mister macho is blaming his stupid, incompetent mate for his own foul-ups." He turned his head to kiss her. "Good morning, Gorgeous."

They lay in a tight cuddle, touching, teasing and kissing. "We must be. I had no desperate craving for you to come last night."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I've stopped monitoring my balls."

"Ooh! Listen to that. Now, she's an idiot."

"Why do some men choose stupid, incompetent idiots to sail with?" He chuckled.

"They're the men who end up single-handing after they've run out of willing crew. Dad used to point them out. Derelict men in derelict boats in backwater bays."

"But I single-hand."

"Different. Very different. This isn't a derelict, and you certainly aren't. I can't think of a woman who wouldn't give her soul to sail with you." She rolled on top of him. "Pee first?"

"Yeah. What's second?"

"I can do some more talking."

"Fuck!"

"Yeah, but pee first."

After a casual brunch, Catherine sailed off the anchor and pointed Tastevin out of Plumper Cove toward Shoal Channel. "That's amazingly easy. Why doesn't everyone do it that way?"

"Sometimes it's a bit more difficult. The wind isn't always favourable."

She laughed. "The wind must have been very unfavourable in here earlier this morning when the other boat weighed."

Five minutes later, once they had cleared the point, they set-up the vane and pointed to the deepest part of the shoal. "The tide's risen enough now to make it easily across. If you tweak the sails, I'll bring up our computers."

She looked up at the main, then headed to its sheet winch. "Yeah, I'm dying to start my blog entry."

"I've mine half-written in my head."

They sat on the settee and wrote, Lorne monitoring the plotter and instruments every few minutes while Catherine made the horizon sweeps. 

Half an hour later, they fell off around Paisley Island to a new course to clear Cape Roger Curtis. Lorne looked up from the winch. "I've thought of what to do with the GPS transmitter. Let's head into Coal Harbour, to the Royal Van. Pause there long enough to leave it taped under the edge of a guest float."

"That'll be fun. I wonder why he wants to track us. How's your blog coming?"

"Finished the draft, and I've just started the editing."

"I'll read it with you. We'll edit together as we go."

The Unknown Diner

This article is a departure for me. This will be more editorial than review. I'll describe a trend I find disturbing in the dining scene. I won't mention any names or locations here... Yet.

"Why not in the first sentence: This article is a departure for me semicolon it's more an editorial than a review."

"Yeah, that's better." He corrected the text.

Marketing is a huge industry with many businesses relying on it to remain profitable. For restaurants, marketing may be promotional coupons, two-for-one deals, lower prices at unfashionable hours and other price-related themes. Another thrust is advertising be it online, on radio and television, in magazines and papers, or with mail flyers. These all have their costs and their levels of success.

"You need a comma after the advertising."

"Thanks, added."

By far the best marketing for restaurants is positive reviews. These can be online, on-air or in print, it doesn't matter. The dining public sees them, then repeatedly sees the better ones on the restaurants' websites and in all their subsequent marketing.

"Hmm... Is it is positive reviews or are positive reviews?"

"Yeah, I played back and forth with that. The word is agrees with best marketing, so it's correct, but it's too close to positive reviews, so it looks and sounds wrong."

"Tumble it."

"Yeah. Positive reviews are by far the best marketing. Done."

Fine, I review restaurants and have for many years. Those who have followed me will know I dine unannounced and anonymously, I always pay my own way, I never write a review on a restaurant unless I've dined there at least three times in the weeks leading to the review. Also, my loyal readers know I never write a negative review. If I have little or nothing positive to say about a place, I say and write nothing.

"Good. Direct."

Most of the other reviews online and in print are now written by people who announce themselves in advance. Okay, this has been an increasing trend for many years. The secret diner is nearly extinct. With integrity, the restaurant will show its normal quality and service. With equal integrity, the reviewer will not accept free dining or other gratuity. The result is a fair review. But fair reviews and integrity also seem to be on the endangered list.

This brings me to my dilemma. I have a large file of my unpublished negative comments about restaurants. It's been growing much faster the last several months, so I started analysing the contents three weeks ago, and what I saw disturbed me. I saw similar patterns, I looked deeper, and I grew increasingly concerned.

I recently dined at a place four times, the first three occasions in my usual unannounced fashion. On my fourth visit, I accompanied an acquaintance who also reviews restaurants.

"So I've dropped to being an acquaintance now you've knocked me up." She laughed and kissed his cheek.

Lorne laughed with her, then continued. On each of the first three visits, I received poor service and low-quality food. Some of it was misrepresented on the menu and all of it decidedly over-priced. I have nothing against pub food and pre-prepared foods that are microwave or deep-fryer ready. But this place was not a pub. It was and is a place that has positioned itself in the fine-dining arena, both with its marketing and its pricing. Unfortunately, neither the quality of the food nor the service followed it there.

"You might want to put a was before the decidedly. I like that last sentence." She stood and did a horizon sweep.

"Good... I've inserted was."

The higher-priced selections on their wine list are largely either from poor producers in the famous regions or poor showings from well-known producers. All of them very much over-priced. They were out of stock on each of the lower-priced wines I ordered, but for each, they had their own special-labelled substitution.

On each of those first three visits, I left much of the food barely touched, paid the ransom and left to find some dinner. In the days following each of those visits, I had read the online and printed reviews trying to make sense of my experience. I questioned whether critic had turned hypocritic. Was I out in right field somewhere, alone after the dining scene had gone left?

"Shouldn't that be hypocritical?"

"It could be. But hypocritic is also correct, though a much less common word. Same meaning, but it fits better with critic."

On the fourth visit, my acquaintance was announced and reserved as a reviewer. We were escorted past the waiting crowd, through the packed restaurant rooms and upstairs to a private dining room with a superb view. Only the two of us.

Over the next three hours, we dined in two and three Michelin star style, had superb wines and exemplary service. The food e were served was obviously all made from scratch with top quality ingredients. None of it was on the restaurant menu.

"Dropped a letter, second sentence. The food we were served."

"Got it... Fixed."

At the end of the evening, my colleague was given a thick dossier of papers, which included an overview and the philosophy of the restaurant. There was a packet of interior and exterior photos, all with links to online jpeg and pdf print-ready images. Inside the menu were pages of detailed descriptions of the items, including tasting notes and a packet of studio photos of the more popular menu selections, again with links. There were suggested phrases, sentences and short paragraphs to include in the reviews.

Our dinner cost them much less than the price of buying a small ad in a magazine, or a few spots on the radio. The expected review would reach many more people, last longer and would receive greater positive response.

So, back to the dilemma. Is doing what they're doing wrong? Is this any different from bait and switch, which is illegal under the Competition Act? Or is it simply the evolution of modern marketing?

The restaurant offers two dining options. One is for the restaurant reviewers, the hotel concierges and the inbound tourism operators. The other is for the public these newly recruited marketers suck-in.

Why don't we all become hypocritic diners? Who said there's no such thing as a free lunch? Let's all join the free lunch brigade, and the free dinner brigade while we're at it. Let's swamp them, then maybe we can move restaurant reviews back toward reality.

HOW TO BECOME A HYPOCRITIC DINER

—Start a blog;
—Post a few dining reviews, McDonald's, Wendy's, whatever;
—Use a template to create a restaurant reviewer business card;
—Buy a pack of business card blanks and print your cards;
—Reserve some free lunches and dinners;
—For the best selection, go to highly rated places I haven't reviewed;
—Dine often before the trough dries up;
—Enjoy.

"Wow! You're going to publish that?"

"Needs to be said."

"Yeah."