CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Grant]

The Rubiales thing demonstrates that even when women manage a major sporting achievement, they would much rather complain about........a man.

Yes Rubiales is obviously a sleaze-ball, but if England won the proper World Cup would anyone care if the head of the FA planted a smacker on Gareth Southgate?

[Boreades]

Who remembers the era when there was fuss about "Chair-man" or "Chair Person" or "Chair"?

I've only just realised - the England Women's team deftly side-stepped any fuss about a "Man"ager - they don't have one.

[Mick Harper]

It's easy to sneer -- that's why I do it -- but one must never lose sight of the fact that to get the human race off its arse always requires a bunch of people making a fuss about things that are not intrinsically worth making a fuss about. "For chrissake, what difference which end of the bus she has to sit in?" It is our task to monitor progress. Thus

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

She reminds me of Lord Curzon who, getting on a bus for the first time, said to the conductor, "Tell the driver anywhere in Eaton Square will be fine."

[Mick Harper]

I am still coming to terms with these days-of-the-week blister packs. This morning I went to the next pill compartment and it said 'NOW' and I thought to myself, "There's no need to be so peremptory, I know what I'm doing." Too late! It was 'MON' upside down. Now I'll never get back on track.

[Mick Harper]

I always buy sweetener dubries two at a time because it is so aggravating when one runs out. I always put the spare in a safe place. When one runs out I can never remember where the safe place is. Somewhere there is a cubby hole with thirteen sweetener dubries all neatly stacked up. Off to buy two more.

PS Yes, I have considered the possibility that I use the second one each time and only reach this position after the second one has run out. Off to buy three sweetener dubries.

[Mick Harper]

Who can help me with a dumb problem that keeps defeating dumb me? I'm signing up to something and everything goes smoothly until they send me a confirmatory number code via email. In order to find out that number I have to open my email account. I read the email, I make a note of the number, but when I try to return to the page where you have to type in the number I get sent to the start of the process and have to start all over again. Surely everyone can't be suffering from this?

* Yes, I've tried bookmarking the page but that is always the page that starts the process
* Yes, I've tried pressing the arrows backward and forwards at the top, that always ends with the page that starts the process.
* Yes, I have opened my recent internet history but that only has the page that starts the process.

[Mick Harper]

Having leant on my towel rail once too often, it broke off from the wall. This happens regular as clockwork every ten years so I knew just what to do. Go to Lord's Building Supplies under the Westway which always keeps the exact didger that had broken. They may even remember me and be able to lay their hands on it without delay. You then just screw it back in, using the existing rawlplug, and with the other didger and the towel rail unaffected, it's job done. The hardest part of the whole enterprise is remembering where I keep screwdrivers. Or so I thought.

Ten years is a long time in the world of Notting Hill hardware shops so, making a short detour on my way to the Tesco Saturday shop, I was dumbfounded but not overly-surprised to find Lord's boarded up and utterly woebegone. Vexed too since there are no other hardware shops in these parts and they probably wouldn't have this size of didger anyway. It was a major crisis. I googled 'hardware shops, Notting Hill' and discovered Lord's closes at lunchtime on Saturdays.

[Boreades]

Try Screwfix
107 Queensway, Bayswater
or
348-352, Kensington High Street

[Mick Harper]

Thanks, Borry, but I'm going to try Lord's first.

[Boreades]

House of Lords or the Cricket Club?

[Mick Harper]

I gotta rave on medium.com

[Mick Harper]

In my never-ending quest to pull plums from supermarket shelves for your guidance and delectation, I pulled Whole Plums in Light Syrup from the Sainsbury shelves. Snag One: the tin's not ring-pull. I mean, come on, Mr Sainsbury, what's that all about? We don't all have snazzy rotary dubries, though fortunately for you, I do. Snag Two: they've still got their stones in. I mean, come on, Mr Sainsbury, we don't all have teeth to spare. Snag Three: they're plums. I've just got back from a posh country house holiday rental with a plum orchard round the back. Though I accept you wouldn't have known that, Mr Sainsbury.

[Mick Harper]

Front door bell goes. It takes me a bit of time to get up the stairs and as I reach the front hall the letter box flicks open and a wiry thing comes through and starts waving about. I am transfixed at this novel apparition. Wiry thing is slowly withdrawn and I hear movement outside. So I fling open the door to find an unkept man in an orange day-glo overall with GAS on it. "Yes?" I say. He gestures vaguely towards Ladbroke Grove and says in a foreign accent something about a gas leak. "Okay," says I. "And...?" "I better check your gas meter," he says unconvincingly.

Which he does with a machine that makes a strange whirring sound and announces everything is fine. I usher him out of flat and house. Did I do the right thing? It's so difficult to know in these strange times of ours.