Light meal

I went out for a meal last night with some colleagues to a Turkish restaurant near Liverpool Street. It's called Haz, and is one of my favourite work restaurants, serving little fried isosceles triangles of heaven (filo pastry filled with feta cheese and spinach - yum).

Anyway, halfway through this very pleasant meal, the restaurant lights were dimmed. I have never understood this custom. Admittedly I was there with work friends, so the whole dimming-of-the-lights thing was at worst a bit silly, but mostly largely irrelevant (though my little triangles became slightly indistinct). But if you were on a date, what difference would this make to your evening? "Ooh, it's very slightly darker. Actually, you're not quite as ugly as I thought. Will you marry me?"

The thing is, this particular restaurant is in a very business-y part of the city. I would guess that around 90% of its clientel are people out with work. So, other than very-slightly-reduced electricity bills what, exactly, are they hoping to achieve by their light-dimming?

"So, Geoff's promised to have the attrition rates to me by Monday, and Sarah's delivering the 2007 marketing plans."

"That's great; can you confirm to me what you're planning to do about staff training in our Leeds site?"

The lights are dimmed.

"Enough of your work-talk, Terry. Kiss me. Kiss me now."

"I never knew you felt that way, Brian."