Thanks for your reply. May I ask you what you mean by 'short notice' as I'm getting the feeling that this also differs from person to person.
For me if I am meeting someone new with no reference I ask for 30 mins notice. This is relatively short notice and as a rule the shortest notice I would need, unless I had just been let down and then I'm ready and able to take another booking with much less notice, but that is a 'luck' situation more than anything.
For this thread I'm really thinking short notice to be less than 30 mins.