Johnny Wants A Burger

The scene is an upmarket Lebanese restaurant somewhere in the stockbroker belt. A large party is shown to a pleasant table on the terrace, where they settle in for a convivial evening meal.

The waiter arrives to take their orders but there's a problem. One of the party doesn't like the menu and wants a burger and chips. “You can’t, John," they tell him, "It's a Lebanese restaurant. They don’t have burger and chips here.”

But John isn't giving in: “That’s what I want,” he insists. The waiter is apologetic but firm; "Everything we have is on the menu. We serve only Lebanese food.” But it seems this won't do, so the waiter is sent back to ask the chef to produce a burger.

We're all familiar with the notion of the child who refuses to eat what's on offer, but the striking thing here is that the spoilt protaganist is not a toddler or even a stroppy teenager, but an adult in a position of responsibility - captain of England's football team, no less.

This edifying tale, related by Alison Kervin in the Times, sums up the situation which has led to the recent bonanza for the gossip columns - a tribe of young men who expect their every whim to be indulged as a matter of course. Her story ends with the chef arriving in person to give the party a piece of his mind, only to capitulate instantly when he realises he's dealing with John Terry.

Update - If you type 'spoilt child' into Google, the search engine obligingly produces a number of images depicting John Terry and his team-mates.