on-tray

A hand-written notice in the window of our local Indian restaurant (I won't embarrass them by naming it) proudly advertised a new takeaway offer:

"BUY THREE MAINS, GET ON-TRAY FREE!"

I wasn't sure if I was reading it incorrectly, in that they would come to your house and serve it to you on a tray, or whether they were in fact offering entrees free (which is what starters are called here).

I also surmised whether they were doing what my friend Denis in Goa did: when choosing a name for his new beach shack, he came up with Stringfellos, spelt incorrectly with no "w" at the end. His rationale was that arrogant British tourists would delight in coming up to him and pointing out his mistake, at which point he would thank them and invite them to sit down for a drink/lunch/whatever. His gift of the gab would take over at this point, and they would be persuaded to stay at his shack for the rest of their holiday and spend all their beach money there.

You would be amazed at the number of people this worked on...

Anyhoo, the day I stopped my car to take a photo of the aforementioned offending notice, they had discreetly changed the word to "entree".

Now you will never believe me.