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With an increased demand for allotments in the UK - a waiting list of up to 40 years in some areas - the government have announced, this week, that they may consider tax incentives to people who allow parts of their land to be used as allotments.

The report also revealed something about The Queen and the Royal Family. And it wasn't that the Queen is secretly an Essex girl, born and bred.

No, the report stated that The Queen owns over 600,000 acres of land. And this statement was included in the report as if someone was trying to drop a hint with a certain Monarch.

It seems that growing vegetables at home or in an allotment is fast becoming the new craze and being hailed as the saviour for the future of food supply. As though it has only just been invented.

There have been flashbacks through history towards the Dig For Victory campaign during the war. Except this time people are Digging for Financial Security, Health Benefits, and for that Global Warming thingy.

It's as though everything's turning full circle. It's 64 years since the end of the Second World War - when tins of Spam were considered to be exotic, and it looks as though people are turning back towards the idea of living off the land.

In a survey carried out in the early '90s, it stated that 58% of people said that they would only garden if they had nothing else to do. When the same survey was carried out this year, it was stated that the figure had now reached 34%. It also stated that there used to be a stigma attached to gardening that it was something old people did.

And it's about to become big business. Many garden centres all over the country are thinking of ideas to get people back into gardening and also growing vegetables.

One of the ideas proposed was to eradicate the Latin names for plants. Probably to avoid the snobbery and the scoffs from the person behind you when you try to pronounce Chrysoplenium glechomaefolium without them turning and laughing in your face when you get it wrong.

Also, some garden centres have even thought about getting rid of the large metal trolleys that are usually common in garden centres. This is likely due to the fact it's difficult to choose what you want to buy when someone who is in a rush to get across to Epilobium anagallidifolium, manages to ram the trolley into the back of your legs.

In a rush to get out, you'll probably just end up panic-buying and leaving a store with a plant that can't be planted in your garden unless it's north-facing, the soil is alkali, the wind's really strong, and you live on the remains of an ancient Indian burial ground.

Even if you do manage to plant it, it will either grow into a small pathetic-looking stick or it will grow into something so large that it's determined to make its way towards your satellite dish and turn off the signal during the opening credits of East End Coronation Farm.

It used to be thought that all plants grow towards the sun, until it was proven as a law of physics that all plants actually grow towards the nearest satellite dish.

But something else that was said this week was that people who do grow their vegetables at home often end up not eating them. The report says that people find they just don't taste as nice as store-bought produce.

The only good thing about growing vegetables at home is that there's a small chance that something that you grow, like a marrow, may just turn out to look like Winston Churchill. Then you could go to the local newspaper and, if it's a newspaper in an area where nothing much happens, you may just make the front page.

Food is always an interesting topic. There's much conflicting information regarding food going around and it's difficult to know what's true and what isn't.

Although, it does look as though the way we get our food is going to have to change. Intensive farming and produce pumped full of chemicals looks as though it's the way we're going to have to go in order to feed everyone in some years down the line. So we may just have to grow our own food.

While at the moment in the western world we can get food almost anywhere apart from commercial airlines and hospitals, there'll be a time in the future when that probably won't be the case.

And everything these days seems to come with a vegetarian option. Quorn or soya.

In fact, there was another report out this week (where would we be without them?) that said that while the sales of soya and quorn are on the increase, 74% of those people who were asked said they had no idea what quorn or soya actually was.

Little did they know that quorn is a protein-based product made from fungus and egg white, and soya is made from grinding the bones of witches under a full moon and then heating them to 200 degrees until a paste is formed. Add sugar to taste. Serves 4.

And these meat substitutes are supposed to be a tasty alternative to meat. In the same way you can convince yourself that rice cakes are a tasty alternative to crisps. When they really taste like polystyrene. Only less filling.

We're in an age obsessed with food and eating as much varieties of it as we can find. If the media isn't full of lots of new foods to try with cooking programmes cropping up every day of the week, then there's the government telling people to stop eating too much sugar or saturated fat.

Whether it's the government or a charity or a diet agency that's telling everyone to lose weight, it's all over the screens and all over the leaflets.

Even during the recession, the diet industry is becoming more and more profitable.

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, there was only one theory for not getting fat. It was revolutionary for the time. The theory was called 'Don't Eat Too Much'. The only problem was that it was carved into a gigantic stone and therefore it didn't sell very well because no one could lift it.

Then, many years later in 1850, a man named Dr Fred Calorie came up with a revolutionary idea after realising he was bursting out of his trousers. His idea was to come up with a system in which people lost weight by following a set of guidelines. Fred Calorie invented a single scientific unit that could be used to measure how much food someone was eating in a day in proportion to the type of food. Those units became world famous and were named, in honour of their discoverer, as 'Freds'.

Or something like that.

Then the whole world's dieting program was based around this. It was very simple and it basically meant that anything that tastes nice, you were not allowed to eat.

And anything that tastes nice means it's full of fat.

That's why we eat chips and pies and crisps. And hamburgers - because they are from cows and cows are fat. I promise you'll never see a cow using a rowing machine.

And it's for the same reason that we don't eat ants - because ants appear to have very little fat so we leave them to the birds.

And the birds leave the hamburgers to us because, due to an unfortunate design flaw, birds cannot use the drive-through at McDonalds.

Also, it was confirmed this week that many up-market restaurants have had to close during the recession. Eating out is said to be one of the first things that people turned away from when money was tight.

The Recession Guide to Restaurants:

1) If the word 'cuisine' is used in the menu, the main course is about the size of a mouthful of food. They call it À la carte, it costs about £99.99 and you'll go home hungry. Unless you stop for fish and chips on the way back.

3) If the word 'eats' is used, it will be very cheap. But the money spent on prescriptions for antibiotics and diarrhoea medication will be high.

Also, last week, a new fast food lobster restaurant opened in London.

Usually anything that sounds or looks terrible probably is. Except for lobsters. People only eat lobsters because they're ugly. You wouldn't imagine going into a restaurant and having to choose a puppy from the pen in the corner before sending it into the kitchen to be dropped into a pan of boiling water while it's still alive. But if it's something like an ugly lobster, that's no problem.

Many restaurants are trying new things in order to beat the recession. Fast food venues are beginning to exploit the failure of the up-market restaurants. The only problem with that however, is that many restaurants are trying to be something they're not. They're trying to outdo the competition by giving the customer more choice and trying to introduce new types of food.

Going to a drive-through at a fast food restaurant in the future is set be a nightmare.

'May I take your order please?'

'Er...yes. I'll have the Cylindrical Drinking Vessel Filled with Nature's Clear, Odourless, Extra-wet liquid. And for my meal I think I'll have the pizza. With no toppings. Oh, and hold the cheese. I'll wash that down with a glass of the house soya milk and then, for my main, I think I'll have the toast, medium rare please, with the Grilled Panda Groin and a side of Sautéed Bat's Nipples.'

'Would you like rice cakes with that?'

'Oh, yes please. And a diet Coke.'

'If you believe the press, it's a difficult time to be a parent'

There has been a lot of news this week targeting parents. Firstly, there was criticism of parents on Monday when it was announced that more and more parents are calling their children peculiar names.

There's an unwritten rule that as soon as a couple have a baby and you know whether it's a boy or a girl, you must first ask how much it weighs. Then, when you've thought about what the equivalent weight is in bags of sugar you can move on to the next stage; which is asking the proud parents what name they have chosen.

Then you have to smile and look really pleased for them when they tell you that they've named their newborn baby T.K. Maxx.

But apart from the naming of their children, parents have featured in many more headlines over the week.

There has been much in the news this week already featuring the phrase 'Back to School' - a turn of phrase that younger children may not mind hearing, if all they have to do at school is draw all day and spell the word 'cat.' But for those who are older and the phrase conjures up images of The Chartist Movement, 19th Century Poetry and Simultaneous Equations, the world may be looking a little bleak.

However, the reason the phrase has been in the news lately is mainly down to the idea of cost for parents. 'School Bell Leaves Alarm Ringing for Parents','Parents Unable to Afford School Trips for Children' and 'Parents Struggle to Afford Uniform and Stationery' were just some of the headlines to grace the news pages this week.

And styles of parenting also made the news.

It has been an accepted notion in the last few years that parents should not be 'pushy' and not force their ideals and aspirations on to their children.

Yet, Alan Milburn MP released a report recently suggesting that parents should be more pushy.

And if anyone was interested in what Alan Milburn MP had to say, there would be a stampede of parents rushing out to book piano lessons and elocution tutors. And parents would have their children hooked up on a drip as they slept - supplying them with copious amounts of Omega 3 while they whisper in their child's ear, 'You have the potential to be great!' over and over again.

The response to the report has been that parents always think that their children are better than everyone else's children anyway. Spending time at school in the day, coming home and learning time's tables and how to speak Mandarin before sharing a hot bath with Enid Blyton.

'T.K.Maxx is coming on really well. Oh, and did I tell you that Netto cured cancer last week with the chemistry set we bought him for Christmas?'

If you believe the press, it's a difficult time to be a parent.

Do you encourage your children to play on the street? Should you object if they want watch violent films? Should you make sure they learn French?

Perhaps play in sight of the house? Perhaps the occasional film if vetted by the parent first? And perhaps learn just enough French to be able to say to a French waiter, 'Please tell me this isn't snails I'm eating'.

Should parents give children a push in the direction of studying and passing exams to become a world-famous astronaut? Or let them become a free spirit, live off the land and support charities such as NSPCL (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Lettuce)?

And then there's the issue about what to put in a child's lunchbox. This week, it was announced by The World Cancer Research Fund that feeding your child ham severely increases the risk of bowel cancer.

Put the bacon down, and no one gets hurt! Step away from the spam! Is that a salami in your pocket or are you just about to pay a large contributing factor to your child's death?

The report said that the 3,700 bowel cancer cases each year could be avoided if everyone ate no more than 70g of processed meat per week. That's the equivalent of 3 rashers of bacon or 1 and a half sausages.

Parents will have to compare that with other claims from just this week alone, stating that some of the foods that prevent cancer are; blueberries, carrots, avocados, tomatoes and cheese. And foods that cause cancer are fries, steak, mackerel, sugar-free sweets and cheese.

Of course, cheese has appeared in both lists but, as these were all published in British newspapers, then both claims must be true.

And then there's the latest political correctness that has taken the school by storm.

At sports days, there are some schools in the country that have made sure that no child loses a race. And that's in the schools where they haven't banned sports day altogether.

Some schools that were reported about this year had ensured that pupils that came last in a race were told that they were the 'last winner'. In fact, most of the sports involved running around in circles until everyone was tired and then they all went home with a trophy.

And this leads into the next headline of the week. 'Competition Between Parents Reaches New Heights'.

A new survey (one of the several hundred that are carried out every day) suggests that while competition between children is on the decline, competition between parents is on the increase.

The report stated that while children were running around at their sports day this year with everyone winning and no one losing, there were brutal competitions between parents who stood on the sidelines eating home-made snacks.

Apparently, the latest craze sweeping the schools is to have parents prepare healthy food to bring along to the sports day. And then the real competition begins. Parents at a school in Kent, this year, were reported to have begun a food fight over whose pasta salad was the best.

One parent who was in tears for having their pasta salad thrown into the hedge said, 'It's just not fair. It took me ages to make and Chardonnay's parents just tossed it aside. So I gave them a Chinese burn.'

Another parent made claims that they were called mean names. Apparently, one man was verbally attacked by Reebok's parents who said that he stinks and that he was a pig. He retaliated by saying, 'I know you are but what am I?'

And even though the children's races have declined in case it hurts their feelings, (even playing Tag is considered victimisation) the parent's race is still in top form, with some parents reportedly training for weeks before the day.

Welcome to the Sports Day Training Programme For Parents. This programme is to prepare parents who are not used to running to be able to successfully take part in the parent's race at your child's sports day. This will save huge embarrassment for you and your offspring.

Rule number 3: No wunning aloud! Wunning is the combination of walking and running and it causes emotional turmoil for the child to see their parent wunning. It's for parents who feel like they're going to lose anyway so they may as well only make a half-arsed effort. Someone who is wunning does not look like they're in a race - they look more like they're trying to find the nearest toilet because they've just pooed themselves.

In fact, even John Prescott took part in a sack race this week for the opening of a new sports centre in Hull. Of course, having the aerodynamic properties of a bungalow and the coordination of an American bombing attack, he ultimately fell flat on his face.

But that's not all. There has been even more news piling the pressure on for parents.

On Tuesday, the Conservatives revealed plans to subsidy pupils by up to £5,000 for those children at private schools whose parents have lost their jobs.

While it's good news for the parents of children at private school and bad news for the taxpayer, the news has once again managed to open the debate about whether children receive a better education at private schools.

We hear stories about students from private schools who have received a million A-levels but couldn't get a place at university because their chosen universities are being told to favour those students from state schools.

But then the media add fuel to the fire by practically suggesting that state schools are only good for students if they want to end up with a degree in painting nails, or burping or drive-by shooting.

It's obviously not true that a private school education leads to a better outcome in later life. Success in life comes down to the type of person you are, not how many chemical symbols you can remember or whether you're able to recite the complete works of John Keats.

That's unless you're not the sharpest tool in the shed - in which case going to state school or private school doesn't matter, you'll still end up as a councillor.

And soon there'll be more news targeted at parents in the coming weeks.

As it's coming closer to that time of year again, there'll be the usual stories in the news about gap years and how dangerous they are. Another student with 'the world at their feet' who's gone missing while wading through some marshland on the wrong side of Somalia.

And the parents will have to stay at home and worry; wishing that their precious children, Diet Coke and Toyota, had stayed home and experimented with bull fighting and sword swallowing instead. 'It's much safer,' they'll be saying.

'You can no longer recognise a criminal'

There was a time when talking about crime would automatically conjure images of burglars climbing through windows, suspicious-looking people on street corners, and having to come back from purchasing a kebab with your buttocks full of lead.

We're told that all children practice criminal activities on their video games to ensure that in real life, by the age of six, they have enough experience to bump off anyone who threatens their drug empire.

But the fastest-rising types of crime in today's society are not coming from thugs in the street. Modern technology has allowed criminals with a higher IQ than that of a daffodil to proliferate. Now corporate and bureaucratic corruption from the top of the hierarchical scale is beginning to dominate - as well as that of identification fraud.

The latest news from the government's National Fraud Strategic Authority last week was not that they have been exposed as a gang of imposters secretly controlled by the Russian Mafia, but that they are launching a cyber security strategy in order to combat information crime.

Information and ID fraud are on the increase and with the latest warnings that it's costing the country £1.7 billion every year - almost as much as MPs - and so planning strategies have been stepped up. People are terrified that someone could be using their identity to take all of their money, carryout illegal activities or worse - order books by Katie Price in their name.

People hate the idea that someone could go looking through their rubbish bins, find their organic yoghurt cartons and past editions of The Polo Times and decide they have far too much money and that they are going to help themselves to some.

The main problem with identity fraud that comes with the advancements of technology is that you can no longer recognise a criminal. You can't just see someone dressed in a black and white striped top with a woolly hat on their head and a sack over their shoulder containing next doors' Kenwwood Smoothie Maker. Today's cyber criminals may wear a suit, call their children Doughnut and Banana, and have a fondness for caviar.

There has been much speculation in the past as to whether a criminal can be defined by their physical attributes, with the debate still open as to whether someone's appearance can give an indication as to whether that person has a violent nature.

A recent study has suggested that members of a jury base part of their verdict on the physical appearance of the defendant. For example, the defendant, a member of parliament, may have evidence to show they were in their luxury French villa when the £9 million was stolen from the Bank of England, and they may bring out Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela as character witnesses. But if they're not wearing Armani, they'd better get used to communal showers. "Off with his head," the jury will cry, "He has a beard and everything!"

It was confirmed this week that ID cards were going to be optional. The initial £5 billion idea was to reduce ID fraud and to curb terrorism - as though all terrorists would have Occupation: Terrorist on their card and that criminals themselves were going to have the knowhow to fill in the complicated application form anyway.

Dear Applicant,

Please note: The Home Office is a highly flawed department and we cannot be held responsible if your personal data or the details of that embarrassingly large boil on your bottom, that you did not want anyone to know about, is left on public transport or sold to the Telegraph.

'People would trample over each other just to catch a glimpse of a legend'

When the "news" and images of celebrities in the media consist of stories about their lives in glossy magazines, you may just think that everyone in the public eye automatically start marrying goats, drinking their own urine, and throwing phones at paparazzi - only to go home and have cocaine shovelled up their noses by a trio of burlesque dancers.

Seeing a celebrity walking down the street obviously means they're going to meet Meg Ryan for lunch and not just going to the supermarket, and therefore it should make national news. The sky is falling down, Gordon Brown has just declared war on South Wales, and a nuclear power station has just exploded, but Helen Mirren has just bought some new earrings so that is what, of course, makes the News at 10.

We seem to be living in a celebrity-obsessed society where celebrities have a huge influence on people's lives.

A product that could turn saliva into gold would be dismissed as ludicrous unless it's endorsed in an advert with Jane Fonda and then it's flying off the shelves.

But for all the superficial celebrity attention, there's a rare time when one person, can have such a dramatic effect across the globe.

You know you've made your mark on society and on the world when the news channels show images of people of all ages coming together on the streets to sing your songs, people wear a single white exfoliating glove in the shower in tribute, and people all over the planet are trying to moonwalk from the dinner table to the kitchen sink - even if they look like a giraffe with a bowel complaint trying to wipe gum off the bottom of their feet.

The high activity of social networking websites and text messages at 400,000 per second last Thursday evening meant that the news of Michael Jackson was all over the world within hours of his death. Even faster than on the news channels. After the vast surge in text messages, the viewing figures for the Sky and BBC News rocketed as people rushed to confirm if the news was true.

Believing all information received in a text message could be a risk with so many people texting hoaxes like the statue of liberty has come alive and is in the process of terrorising New York or Gordon Brown has gone rabid and has bitten a chunk out of Harriet Harman's ear while dressed as a Nazi.

But either one of these rumours would have been less shocking than hearing that a music legend had died. By 10.30pm, last Thursday, with the news circulating the planet, the news channels still hadn't caught up. You would probably expect no mention of Michael Jackson on BBC News - they usually drag their feet and check the facts before they make any hasty announcements. You would have expected Sky News to be slightly bolder and have quoted the news of his death from another source under a Breaking News headline. And you would expect Fox News, being American, to have seen a rumour on Twitter, which was good enough for them, and to be already holding a live séance in the studio.

The following day, people awoke to the confirmed news that Michael Jackson had died and those at Glastonbury emerged from their tents looking like Worzel Gummidge to the sound of tracks from Thriller, the world's fastest ever selling album. All over the country, news rooms were interviewing people who were lining up to say that they had met Michael Jackson - who had been to his concerts, stood next to him in a lift or was once sneezed on by the man himself back in 1984.

It was in the up and coming days that the focus changed from that of shock to a lament of a lifelong tragedy.

When images of his transformation from a child star to the 50-year-old, unconventional man that he had become appeared all over the news and on entertainment programmes, the words "misfortune", "pity", and "sadness" cropped up - and they were words that were used to describe the life of Michael Jackson on so many levels.

With mass moonwalks taking place, live re-enactments of the Thriller routine, and thousands of people of all ages meeting in the street to sing his songs across the globe, Michael Jackson has cemented his place in history as the world's foremost pop star who had become a living legend when he was still only a child.

Despite some of the negative opinions of him - distorted by the medium that is the sensational speculation from the media that, ultimately, contributed to his downfall - the fact that people idolised his music, would trample over each other just to catch a glimpse of a legend, and the vast number of tributes all over the world shows that he meant something to a lot of people.

And yet, already, there have been people criticising him and even criticising his fans for their mass tributes as though all of the attention is exaggerated. But it's a rarity that someone's talent is celebrated on such a large, international scale - especially for a performer who, in life, was a troubled perfectionist who would never be satisfied with himself and who heavily criticised his own circumstances - even without the media doing that for him.

For anyone who is not a fan of Michael Jackson, the fact that his work is an inspiration to many people should not be condemned.

Michael Jackson; with his unique style, being the ultimate live performer that broke all music records, created his own genre, performing from the age of 4; gave his whole life to entertaining others and trying to instil happiness into many people's lives. He has developed into an idol, a cultural phenomenon in life and in death. His lyrics and dance moves have become globally renowned, and his songs have become a soundtrack to the lives of multiple generations of people, and will be remembered like anthems that immortalise parts of history in people's minds like the ghosts of a long-gone summer.

'Taxing as a deterrent is highly flawed'

If you'd happened to be living in a cave until recently, before coming out and reading the news; you'd think that everyone in Britain is spending every evening on the pavement outside a nightclub: head over heels, arse over tit - and, due to an obesity epidemic, are using the friction between their two massive thighs to generate enough electricity to keep Burnham-On-Sea powered for a fortnight.

But it's sparked a drastic action plan to get everyone sober and slim.

There's something a little worrying in the news that the British Medical Association conference has voted against the proposal to tax chocolate by only 2 votes.

2 votes.

If we want an example of a dumbed-down Britain, there's no need to look for Katie and Peter: The Next Chapter on ITV2, look towards the BMA. An organisation made up of supposedly well-educated people who think taxing chocolate to the extent of making it around 5p more expensive, is a good idea.

Where do we start? as Jo Brand's dietician might say. Britain is already taxed on wages, pensions, benefits, saving's interest (what's left of them), dividends, property rental, capital gains, stamp duty, inheritance, goods and services, fuel, alcohol, tobacco and betting.

And the same goes for alcohol. Leading medical advisors are suggesting that no drinks should be sold for a minimum of 50p per unit of alcohol.

If it was the case that making something overpriced would stop people from buying it and making something cheaper would make you buy it, then people wouldn't be coming home with Armani shirts and everyone would come back every weekend with a new sofa from DFS.

Admittedly, Gordon Brown has initially rejected the idea of making alcohol more expensive. But, if we're going to live in an age where busybodies are going to say people can't smoke foxes or drive while eating Class C 80%-proof kebabs, and instead; have a national holiday to celebrate parking attendants, it can only go downhill from here.

Surely, making alcohol more expensive is not going to deter people who really want it from buying it.

Earlier this month, hospitals in Staffordshire have had to remove the alcohol hand gels from wards as people were stealing them and drinking it. Apparently, the alcohol gels - as well as being effective against MRSA and 99.9% of all bacteria - also goes well with orange juice.

There is also set to be an imminent attack on supermarkets for promoting irresponsible drinking. No longer are people drinking in pubs where it can be more easily monitored. It's all coffee shops now.

And since people are willing to pay £57 for a small Espresso - just so they can sit and talk about how often they cut their lawn, how far the seats slide back in their new Toyota, and the decline in garden decking since the 90s- it means increasing the cost of something as a deterrent isn't going to make a difference.

This has sparked a Bring Back the Pubs campaign from bearded gentlemen in waistcoats that enjoy drinking in front of an open fire and playing darts: a 'game' where you stand up and do maths. Fun.

But there's not really space for a pub in today's society. There may have been a time a couple of hundred years ago when they didn't have PlayStations and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, and they needed a distraction from diphtheria. People would leave the factories and not bother going home because the toilet was at the end of the garden and their children had rickets.

Off to the pub.

The attack on the cost of chocolate and alcohol isn't going to make any difference. If people aren't in pubs, they've bought a couple of litres of alcohol for 11p and are out on Sainsbury's car park travelling at high speeds in a shopping trolley.

Or they're rambling, sliding in vomit, and a little trickle of alcohol has led them to believe they're about 10 times more interesting than they actually are.

It's these people the busybodies should be interested with. Not the people who drink responsibly. Taxing as a deterrent is highly flawed.

Next, they'll be taxing women for wearing high-heels, people who breathe out too much carbon dioxide, and those who are so skinny they have a tendency to fall down drains.

'People who stand in the cold for hours on a Wednesday afternoon aren't partial to sarcasm'

Walking down New Street is a minefield. No matter how fast you try to walk - looking down and avoiding eye-contact as if there is something incredibly fascinating about the floor - you will always get stopped by someone selling something like inflatable dartboards or trying to get you to sign your life away.

Last week, I managed to get stopped by Scientologists, someone going on about saving polar bears, and another about something to do with organ donation. It didn't really matter who it was because, as humans, since the dawn of time itself, we have the innate ability to suddenly shut down as soon as any stranger starts talking to you. It's fact.

As soon as they open their mouth, I shut down.

I found myself staring at this woman's face not having any idea what she was saying. I could tell you that she had one blue eye and one brown eye, that she had an eyelash on the side of her face, and that she smelt very faintly of broccoli. But I had no idea what she was saying to me.

All I could see was her mouth opening and closing.

This is the same when asking for directions (which should usually be avoided in most circumstances). It's only acceptable in places that look like the local council has let the local children's nursery design the transport system.

If you ask someone for directions and they start their sentence with "Er...", just walk away.

You'll either end up in the wrong place or still be standing there in an hour's time.

But then, even if they turn their head to the side, look off into the horizon and start making hand gestures like an air traffic control warden who's about to break into the YMCA, you won't be listening.

Because you'll have shut down.

And you'll be wondering why, out of all the people on the street, you managed to ask the one who you can't understand.

I'm sure it's the case that every time you ask someone for directions, whoever it is will miraculously morph into the same man with grey hair and a cap who sounds like he's trying to talk with a mouth full of pennies.

Anyway, the woman with the multi-coloured eyes had now stopped talking and was looking at me as though she was expecting me to answer.

In these situations, I usually find it best to either say "No" or say a random number like "234". In this instance, I decided to say "No".

She frowned and then said, "Recent research has concluded that seatbelts can save lives". And she just looked at me.

I then made the mistake of saying, "Wow! You could have warned me I might have wanted to sit down before you give me news like that! You're blowing my mind away with your insight!"

It seems people who stand in the cold for hours on a Wednesday afternoon aren't partial to sarcasm.

In any quantity.

I'm guessing this wasn't what she was expecting me to say, because as soon as I said it she had a look of genuine disappointment on her face.

The kind of look you have when you hear the otter on Animal Park died during an operation, when you've just accidentally let £20 blow away in the wind, or you've just been told you're having fish for dinner.

She then said that she needed to go to the toilet and she was sorry to bother me. I still don't know whether she genuinely needed the toilet or whether it was just the sound of my voice that has an uncontrollable effect on people's bladders.

But she did manage to give me a leaflet before she went. It turns out the questionnaire she wanted me to fill in was funded by some strange company in Russia.

So just in case I'm found slumped in a cold alleyway with a radioactive polonium dart sticking out my back, just forward this story to the investigating officer.