I received a card from the Post office saying that I had to pay a £1.24 postage charge. I duly bought stamps and sent the card off wondering what kind of package it was and who had forgotten to pay. It was a card from an old colleague who had omitted a 24p second class stamp with a £1 handling fee added on.

One pound, to tick a box on a card and post it with the rest of my mail and then to repost the original letter?

Later I stopped at a chip shop for a portion of chips (sudden craving for a chip butty) but only had a twenty pound note. The shop owner did not have enough change so gave me the chips on the house.

After quietly seething and trying not to, about the post office, the gesture really cheered me up.

It’s not the money but the attitude behind it that makes the difference. Restaurants who cheerfully serve jugs of iced water versus others that insist you buy their overpriced bottled water. Taxi drivers who wait, late at night, to ensure lone females enter their premises safely, versus those that zoom off the moment her stilettos’ hit the pavement. Banks and credit card companies that charge exorbitant overdraft or late payment fees versus…… banks and credit companies that charged exorbitant fees but who have had to pay an enormous amount back to customers who have claimed the charges unlawful, but who continue to make the charges…versus those that realize it is time to revise their charges.

I’m going to invent some charges of my own.

• Wasted time charge, whenever I  wait  for a tradesman or delivery for three times as long as promised.
• Queuing charge, whenever I have to queue up for longer than ten minutes.
• Rude staff charge, when I don’t get served because they are chatting about who got off with who the night before.
• Wasting civilian’s time charge, when the police do not respond to a call within a reasonable time.
• Phone rage compensation for every automated, ‘press this button,’ ‘held in queue’ message, every operator I cannot understand and every cold calling sales call that comes through.

We don’t have the best reputation for cooking but we certainly have an obsession with food.

Every time I turn the TV on there is somebody cooking, demonstrating cookery, teaching somebody else to cook, competing in cookery competitions or celebrity chefs promoting supermarkets.

We have wide chefs, country cooks, open air chefs, la-de-da cooks, bad mouthed chefs and sexy cooks. They all have unlimited funds and time with which to produce their amazingly original recipes which look so easy to accomplish in theory and are almost impossible to attain in practice.

Gordon Ramsay would get a following without food, just by doing his ranting and swearing routine. For Nigella, any accessory would work as well as food for her to ooze and drool over, while Jamie O is so enthusiastic people would be hanging on his every word if he was chucking black beetles into lightly fried cowpats.

Supermarkets now offer ‘ideas cookery cards,’ in case we’ve shoved random products in our trolleys with no idea as to how we might cook and serve them.

Meanwhile the country is heaving with sub standard food served in the pubs, restaurants and fast food joints that need the advice from these chefs and never take it. Still everybody is obviously buying food from them and going home to eat it while watching a superchef programme, so maybe watching good food compensates a bit for eating crap food. Who knows?

I went to the supermarket this morning and was shocked to find that there is a national food shortage.
Appearances are deceptive because the shelves, freezers and refrigerators seem to be heaving with delights especially created for the Christmas period, such as the ‘Extra Special’ ranges, birds within birds or liver pate with cranberry and orange.

Obviously they have been laden with the last of the food because hoards of people are squashed into every aisle, piling their trolleys up so that they survive the forthcoming famine.

People who currently roll in to the stores well insulated with extra flesh, against the winter frosts are stocking up to ensure that they will be one of the survivors.

Exactly when the stocks will run out, is slightly unclear but from the heaving rush of people it cannot be far away.

Not only are people stocking up with foods but they are elbowing others out of the way to grasp bargains that have ten pence knocked off.

Manic Christmas music is played continuously on an endless loop which is designed to calm people down but which in actual fact adds to the general panic.

Drivers who have filled their cars with provisions try to escape as fast as possible before they get waylaid and mugged by the starving. This is leading to frequent cases of car park rage.

Still it will soon be Christmas and the season of goodwill!

I went to the theatre recently, and everybody stood up for the National Anthem. They only played the first verse but here it is in full, together with the modern interpretation.

1. God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the Queen!
(YEAH WE HAVE A QUEEN. GOOD ON HER.)

2. O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.

(DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GET TO HER)

3. Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign;
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen!
(GIVE HER LOTS OF DOSH, LET HER LIVE TILL SHE’S OLD
AND SHE’LL STICK UP FOR US ALL.)

4. Not in this land alone,
But be God’s mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world over.
(ANTI WAR SENTIMENT)

5. From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
God save the Queen!
O’er her thine arm extend,
For Britain’s sake defend,
Our mother, prince, and friend,
God save the Queen!

(PICK ON ME, I’LL TELL THE QUEEN

AND SHE’LL GETCHA!)

6. Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!

(ERM…CAN WE WIN EVERYTHING,

AVOID FLOODS, AND BEAT THE SCOTTISH AT RUGBY

AND FOOTBALL AND TOSSING THE KABER?)

Thirty odd years ago everyone would stand proudly and bellow the verses lustily. Now some are surprised to hear it and to be expected to stand, and although everyone complied there was a sense of avoiding eye contact and feeling embarrassed. Despite the flaws in the Royal family we are incredibly fortunate to have our Queen and many won’t realise it until she has gone. She has given her all.

Children used to look forward to opening a window each day and trying to guess what was behind the window. Every picture was something to do with the Nativity story.

Gradually the pictures behind the window also started to show toys, sweets, decorations, Christmas pudding and other things we associate with Christmas.

Then chocolates appeared behind the windows so that children who have advent calenders with just pictures now feel deprived of the treats that their friends are enjoying daily. Even more luxurious are fabric wall hangings with a pocket for a gift.

What will be the advent calender of the future I wonder? Has somebody produced one with money behind each window, or maybe a lottery ticket or a cheque? Animated computer advents may offer holidays to Disneyland or Lapland for getting the ‘prize’ picture under a special date. Maybe life sized advents in town centres will have real Santa’s popping out to give a present, and interactive TV may have a different cartoon behind each window.

As childrens’ Christmas lists are fast becoming similar to wedding lists in the assumption that all demansds will be met, maybe future advent windows will come with a pencil and a blank space behind each window for children to write something they want behind it. Then they close it and give the whole thing back to parents/relatives on Christmas eve, ready for them to rush out to get all the little darlings ‘must haves.’

Before anyone says this is far fetched - so were chocolate treat advent calenders not so many years ago.