I’m in London this week, and have been lucky enough to be invited out to dinner a few times to some very swank places. My rule about expensive restaurants is simple: if you invite me, I will come. I’m not particular or fussy about the food — or even, if I’m being honest, the company — because in my experience the best meal is the meal someone else is paying for.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, about London restaurants — and this may apply to pricey places in other cities, as well — is that wherever you are seated, you are never too far from a table where three very fashionably dressed women are eating with a short, fat guy who spends the whole meal scrolling through his phone. This seems to be a rule for big-city restaurants, sort of like how there’s always one crying baby on an airplane or a person wearing a backpack on a crowded subway car. Modern urban life has a cast of characters — real-life television series regulars, we might call them — and the fat guy on his phone in the restaurant is one of them. Always on-screen, or just off-stage waiting to make his entrance.