h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the south of France, if your mixing/tossing the sald, this indicates that you will fall pregnat in the next year.

You'll find too that the french rarely use side plates for their bread, it's perffectly acceptable to place your broken roll on the table cloth. They have a nifty gadgt called a ramasse miettes (Crumb Collector) specifically for this task.

Coffee is not commonly drunk after 3-4pm in france so don't be surprised if you get funny looks if you ask for one. It's not really a faux pas but useful to know.

If you're eating in a French restaurant, there it usual for ladies to sit on the bank/chairs with their backs to the wall and the men with their faces to the ladies and the wall.

When eating mussels, use an empty mussel shell to use as pincers for the others and put the shells in the lid of the pot that they've come in.

Olive pips - put them on the side of your plate - never in the ashtray (the sin of the non-smoker - it's just not eating/smoking etiquette)

Toothpicks - in france, it's perfectly acceptable to use toothpicks (cure dents) at the table. Take your spare hand and hold it on your top lip, covering your mouth, then pick away because others can't see what you are doing. Put the pick on you plate, don't drop it on the floor/put it in the ashtray etc. If there is no plate available, leave it on the table.

Finally, In a tapas bar in Spain all the detritus - pips, crumbs, disosable napkins, cigarette butts et al are thrown on the floor. This breaks years of conditioning but is in fact a part of the tapas culture. The detritus is swept up at the end of the evening.

As was just pointed out, a Ramasse mietees can also be a blade - this is rarer in France as the French waiters hate touching detritus - they'll clear your table so quickly and their hands rarely get in the goo that you've left behind.

Oh and it's perfectly acceptable for owners of dogs to bring their pammpered pets into restaurants....