There is a new type of iPad-based cash register. When customers pay with a credit card, the cashier flips the iPad around so they can swipe their cards. Before they can sign their names, they’re presented with a screen that suggests tip amounts. You physically have to hit “no tip” — and feel guilty — if you want to be stingy. The system is smart. If you buy a single item it will give you whole dollar tip suggestions. However, buy something for several people, such as ice-creams (ice creams? Ed.) and the system, made by a company called Square, suggests percentage tips. This might sound insignificant, but the effect is to greatly increase the value of tips for the staff, sometimes by as much as 50%.

In New York similar tipping technology is being used in cabs, If you use a credit card the tip suggestions can be as much as 30% higher than people are used to paying. There has been a natural backlash to this: those who leave no tip at all has gone up by 50%! Nonetheless, if shops and taxis keep suggesting tips of 15 and 20 percent it could become accepted as the norm in places where tips have never been offered at all in the past. (based on an article on the NPR website).

In France 12.5% is automatically added to every restaurant bill. If you want to give more it is up to you, but it is not expected (except in such places as upmarket restaurants). The civilised option. When I came to the US I found the most irritating thing was the tipping. One shouldn’t have to be faced with a lousy waiter who has chased you down the street to demand money with menaces when his service has been poor.

Were Epicurus still among us I am sure he would advocate paying staff properly and giving tips for exceptional service only. A tip should be something special, which the customer does not have to agonize over.