Reading the story with compassion

Subject: Reading the story with compassion.

Well in celebration of the close election and the success of Jeremy Corbyn, I went out on the town. I bought 2 pints of beer £7.15 and a meal at the Coach and Horses for £20
For my money I had a discussion on the merits of Corbyn's success and a sympathetic nuzzle from my old friend the Loucher before being guided to a corner seat in the restaurant where I could watch the patrons and form my prejudice.
I often think thank god I escaped the conformity of Britain, the stultifying small mindedness of people who should know better.

 Across from me three people in their 70s early 80s, two woman and a man, who must in his professional life been an accountant. The wife of the elderly guy was very opinionated and seemed to resent his observations, as if it were a habit she couldn't shrug off. Their friend a much quieter lady was obviously an invitee who was respectful if not in awe of her opposite number who had a husband who she could bully at will.

The bill came and the chap set about dissembling the statement with a forensic drive which one hopes HMRC would apply to Google. Their friend had to pay her whack and it reminded me of the generosity of living in South Africa where one man would invariably pick up the tab and settle it. It was often a contest as to who would pay and there would never have been a situation where the third party had to pay for her meal.
I remember not long ago travelling quite a distance to see an old friend and his wife who were over here on holiday. According to the conversation they were very well off but when it came to the bill I was asked to commit to my own cost. He was a local lad who had left England and done very well for himself but inherent in his makeup was a meanness, a tight control of money which had stood him in good stead but which destroyed my appraisal of him and made him parsimonious, one of life's 10 deadly sins.
Anyway this upper middle class example of penny pinching, a deformity which is prevalent in this country, (other than in the pub where insisting on being allowed to buy a round seems perfunctory) is alive and well if a little disconcerting.
At another table a couple who were not together but were eating a meal together was
an example of the delightful art of innuendo where she was keen to commit and he was wary. " I suppose I will have to get a hotel"", wink wink and a nod, to which he was non committal.  The traditional response in South Africa would have been no  "I will put you up for the night we have plenty of spare room" but in England formal codes of conduct preclude this.
Of course I could have read each scenario incorrectly but I doubt it and I thank my lucky stars that I left here to grow into a wider fuller human being who would read the human story with so much more compassion.