MarkW

Letter 1 I'd like to make a claim, because my train was delayed by over an hour. - We're sorry, but your train was only delayed by 15 minutes so a claim can't be made. Letter 2 No, my train was delayed for well over an hour, and the staff on board informed everyone that they would be eligible for a full fare refund. Please look into this again. - We have looked into this matter again very carefully, and your train was only delayed by 15 minutes, so no refund is due. Letter 3 This is your last chance, then I hand the matter over to the regulator as an official complaint. - Apologies - we now see that your train was delayed for 77 minutes. Here's your full refund.

He killed wasps too. How many dead wasps would it take to atone for one ratty?

So, a bit of an odd end to this story. We had a new lad from our pest control company come round today. I asked him how the guy that usually came round was doing, as I hadn't seen him for a few weeks. I nearly fell off my chair when he said that he'd died! He was apparently found dead in his van on a clients carpark, and although a heart attack was suspected the post mortem was inconclusive. He was only 49. He was ex-army, and was always keen to know how many rats I'd managed to shoot whenever he came round. I didn't know him well at all, but he was one of those friendly people who immediately brighten your day when they appear at the door. I shall miss him.

That is obviously the ideal solution but in a work environment not always achievable. It's easy for me - I'm the boss, so I can pretend that my misanthropy is professional detachment.

Exactly. I think it was Hemingway who said he drank not to make himself more interesting but to make other people less boring, but I find that just not socialising with boring people in the first place works just as well.

You have to be very careful doing your own microwave oven repairs. Get it wrong and it'll zap your nads as you're waiting for your Pot Noodle to heat up, instantly turning you into a girl. One minute you'll be standing there, quietly contemplating some of life's great imponderables, like how many tigers it would take to kill a tiger shark, and the next minute you'll be reorganising your shopping list in aisle order and wondering what domestic benefits might accrue from the purchase of a set of stackable Tupperware fridge containers. Well known, that is...

Back to being sensible for a moment, I'm trying to get to grips with jazz drumming, which I really don't understand at all - I just can't get my head around jazz form, and so much of it sounds like pointless and pretentious musical masturbation to me. I'm currently listening to some Miles Davis, which I'm actually quite enjoying, but I've also been immersing myself in Art Blakey, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones (Coltrane), Max Roach and Antonio Sanchez (Pat Metheny) over the last few months. As amazing as they all are I can only listen to so much before I have to stick some ZZ Top on and get a good Texas shuffle going.

Another bus-related favourite of the yobbos I went to school with came back to me earlier: Double-decker busses had a periscope contraption at the front so the driver could see what was going on upstairs. Every so often we'd get a bus where the inner glass and mirrors for this had been removed, essentially making it a tube down which you could drop stuff into the drivers lap. The entire journey would be spent throwing sweets and other stuff like apples and oranges at it from the back of the top deck to see who could get the driver. When that got boring they'd drop lit matches down it. Looking back, it's no wonder Grange Hill had no appeal for us - it was like a load of posh kids poncing about in comparison!

All things in moderation is my motto, except for tea, cake and sex, and despite a few unsuccessful experiments I haven't completely given up on finding a way to combine all three. I got pissed once 30 years ago, and very much like the time in the 1970s when I picked up a hot barbecue coal that had fallen on the patio I decided it wasn't a very pleasant experience and haven't done it again since. I think I'm actually incapable of drinking too much - I know when I've had enough, at which point my desire for it just switches off completely. Anyway, back to today's experiment: I picked up three kits from Wilko - a Cabernet Sauvignon, a black cherry and a Chardonnay, all of which are sitting on their little heat pad in the corner of the room, happily bubbling away. I may also have a go at making a blackcurrant wine from scratch with frozen fruit from the supermarket. All very exciting...

Whoever this guy is, he's a f*cking genius!

Just came in to find my kids rolling around on the floor laughing, listening to this. Someone clearly had too much time on his hands! ">

On the subject of Deep Purple, my kids are enjoying this at the moment: "> Makes a change from Baby Shark, I suppose...

Cola Trillions were the confection of choice for the yobbos when I was at school - essentially cola-flavoured buckshot, a big bag of which could be had for mere pennies. A handful of it lobbed out of the bus window as it sped past pedestrians must have been pretty much like being shot in the face too.

Top tips there gents. At this time of year it'll have to be a kit, not least because the wife and I spent the better part of the morning chopping crab apples to make chutney, so it'll be a while before I have any enthusiasm for more pick-your-own malarkey!

Last weekend I was at the house of a friend who has started brewing her own beer with the intention of entering (and hopefully winning) a local produce show. Damn good it was too! We've known each other for over 35 years and so naturally a bit of rivalry has to enter into the proceedings, but not wanting to go head-to-head I thought I'd have a crack at making red wine instead. Never done it before, and for our first attempt we thought we'd try a kit. There seem to be several with good reviews on Amazon and in places like Wilko, but you never know if the positive reviews are because the wine was good or because the reviewers were a bunch of degenerate piss-artists. So, if anyone has any recommendations or other advice they can pass on I'd be grateful!

Earlier in the year I took my kids to their swimming lesson at the local leisure centre. As I sat watching them I could see all the super-fit looking blokes in the gym powering along on the treadmill, and thought that I really should start going again to try to get my rancid body back into shape. Then as we were leaving, the gym panic alarm sounded and two first aiders came belting past with a defibrillator. I went home and had a cake, and decided I'd had a very lucky escape.

I had a corded Bosch blue one that rapidly became the tool I didn't know how I'd managed to live without - it was super-useful, plenty powerful enough and well-built. Then some hedgehog-eating pikey nicked it along with all my other stuff, which was a pity, since the ability to cut things off in tricky places would have figured heavily in the retribution I'd have dished out if I'd caught the spineless piece of sh*t.

Well quite! When I was younger I could never understand what people found funny about Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough's Cissy and Ada sketches, because that's what my mother's side of the family were like! We'd go up to Manchester every Saturday to see my nan, and she'd be leaning on the low privet hedge in the front garden, headscarf and house-coat on, gossiping with her neighbour about the latest scandal in the close. Whenever there was anything they didn't think a young boy should hear they'd mouth it at each other rather than say it out loud: "How's your Sid getting on with his haemorrhoids, Phyllis?" It wasn't until years later that I fully appreciated his genius!

Ha ha! Absolutely no apology necessary - I hadn't taken your post that way at all!

I have a friend who likes to think of herself as a bit of an amateur psychologist, and she is convinced that there is some deep underlying reason for my total disinterest in making any meaningful friendships (outside of the one I have with my wife, of course). She has expressed the view that because my old man had planned to take me with him when he offed himself all those years ago, I may have unresolved 'attachment issues'. The great thing about psychology, as opposed to proper science, is that you can interpret almost anything you see in front of you as evidence to support whatever crackpot notion you have formulated. So when I tell her that my disinterest in other people is really down to laziness and not to any painful childhood experience, she interprets that as 'repression of traumatic memories'. When I tell her that I don't hate other people, it's just that I'm usually happier when they're not around, she sees this as 'heeling with humour'. You can't win, so now I don't bother with her much either.

My ex is actually one of about three straight women to have told me that if she was gay she'd happily get it on with my wife! She's not keen though One of these is my wife. No clues...

Here you go: Ghgfgbnjdd gyuhgf fghjkghjh ffbhjj hhjjnhhu - Sorry, just wiping the keyboard...

No, I don't think anyone died when I was there, although I did hear that two lads in our year died of heroin overdoses a couple of years after leaving. No idea if it's true or not - I haven't given a toss about any of them in over 30 years. Well, that's not strictly true: I did give a toss about my best friend, but he's dead too (bike accident), and there was a girl from my year that I used to go out with when we were in our very early 20s. We were at her house on Sunday in fact - she gets on like a house on fire with my wife. To be honest, everyone gets on with my wife - it's me they find more of an acquired taste! So you married a woman who makes you palatable, acceptable and accessible to others and didn’t have to alter your approach at all? Most wise. Nope, I married the only woman daft enough to take the job on! My wife just has a very natural way with people and gets on with almost anyone, which if I'm being honest I do envy. I am fundamentally and irrevocably disinterested in other people at the most basic level. I am pathologically incapable of small talk and invariably say something totally inappropriate, either through clumsiness or just to liven things up a bit. I was invited to someone's house a couple of years ago, and one of the other guests specifically asked if I would be there before making her excuses. I'd only met her once before, at a sophisticated little soirée thrown by the same friend, and had written her off after less than ten minutes as an insufferably tedious, emotionally unstable and self-absorbed drip. She was wittering on endlessly about how stressed out and highly-strung she was, and that despite seeing various therapists and counsellors she hadn't found anything to reduce the symptoms. I nodded in mock interest as I sipped my wine, and then said "Have you tried frenzied masturbation?" She left shortly after that. Job done.