So it’s actually Fifty Things Restaurant Staffer Should Never Do. Oh man, where to start? Some advice seems directed at high-end restaurants I can’t afford to go to, but in a nutshell this lists tells us what we’ve always knew: portuguese restaurants are pretty crap. And so are the bars, and the coffeeshops. Some highlights:

2. Do not make a singleton feel bad.

8. Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason.

17. Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course.

18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, “Who’s having the shrimp?”

25. Make sure the glasses are clean.

33. Do not bang into chairs or tables when passing by.

Most restaurants I’ve been to, even the more expensive ones, easily break twenty of the fifty recommendations. (via Kottke)

Update (Nov.5): And here’s part two. So one hundred things it is.

Useful. Really.

This year’s winners include an Economics Prize awarded to the executives of Icelandic banks “for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy” and a Peace Prize awarded to the scientists of Bern, Switzerland (the city where Albert Einstein devised his Theory of Relativity, no less) who discovered full bottles of beer do less damage in a bar fight than empty ones.