No tips please, we’re British

I hate tipping, not because I am intrinsically mean but because of the anxiety it induces. You pitch up at some glam hotel, after a gruelling flight, then the guy next to the concierge takes your bags to your room, and, as you go, you fumble in your pockets, searching for the mysterious notes and coins, even as you try to estimate the right amount to tip the porter.

This is a complex equation at the best of times, as it involves so many imponderables: the state of the local economy, the likely wages hereabouts, the emotionally correct sum to give – not insultingly little but not so much that you look like an oligarch. At the same time you often have to calculate this amount in a foreign currency (Heck is a shekel? What else can I do with my Vietnamese dong?).

On top of that, you’re asking yourself: is this a country that tips? Because some countries don’t like tips at all – e.g. Japan. A tip in Japan can actually be insulting. I’ve experienced this: they look down at your proffered yen with a mirthless smile, and a terse little headshake, all of which says: ‘I do my job well because I want to do it well, not because you grace me with small change.’

Some countries expect tipping all the time. By which I mean: the United States of America.

Anyone who has spent a day in America will grasp what I am saying. In America you are expected to tip everyone perpetually. Such is the obscene scale of tipping there, I am always thankful to leave the country (much as I love it) and get back to relatively sane, relatively tip-free Britain.