The bill for two couples came to 1, 151 euros before my handouts to le maitre and his sommelier.

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Thank the maitre d' by name, give him or her a generous tip and your business card, and shake hands.

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"Nokia's Ovi experience still has improvement to be done, " says Yves Maitre, the senior vice president for devices for Orange, the pan-European wireless network owned by France Telecom.

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Even so, the maitre d' insisted that bar patrons not walk through the empty dining room and instead use a hallway skirting the area -- a hint as to what kind of atmosphere the hotel tries to maintain.

BBC: New York City's classic hotel bars

"Nokia's Ovi experience still has improvement to be done, " says Yves Maitre, the senior vice president for devices for Orange, the pan-European wireless network owned by France Telecom (nyse: FTE - news - people ).

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Nobody who knows me has ever seen me wear a tie except under protest, and the few that I do possess of my own volition are accidental trophies, "given" to me by the maitre d's of places where neckwear is compulsory.

WSJ: Christopher Hitchens on Forced Merriment, the True Spirit of Christmas

The way our society works, you get what you pay for and sometimes we talk about greasing the wheels: a twenty to the Maitre D, ten bucks to the handyman, a two-for-one at the local coffee shop, a single malt to your banker at Christmas.

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