Is there anything more cringe-inducing embarrassing than dining with the sort of

[Burney]

I don’t think that’s the point. It’s related to the environmental impact. I don’t suppose the restaurant minds you ordering tap water if you’re dropping £70 on a mediocre Claret.

Environmental impact my fùcking hole! These people are just mean. And - which is worse - they haven’t even the decency to be ashamed of their parsimony.
And what the restaurant thinks is immaterial. This is about self-respect. If you go to a restaurant, you pay for stuff. You don’t try and wangle free stuff like some sort of fùcking pikey.
Almost as bad are people who want to split bills. I’m not a rich man, but there have been several occasions in my life when, out of sheer embarrassment, I’ve been forced to throw my credit card at the thing just to make the awful, nitpicking, lower-middle-class vulgarity of bill-splitting stop.