MerrieEnglandCartoon

Newspapers. Magazines. Hobbies, like drawing, painting, learning a musical instrument, building scale models, making huge sailing ships out of matches, sculpting, whittling, decorating, sewing, knitting. The best way to generate creativity is to allow boredom.

All my experiences with them are good. Kindness and respect. But I do hold that some of what we call middle class folk can be vile, poisonous, insulting and entitled.

Not true in the slightest. The aristocracy know who they are, they don't talk down to people and they always observe all the politenesses. They disdain bad manners and thoughtlessness. I think you're referring to what some like to call the 'middle class', who can be impossibly snobbish. They are the ones who think of others as 'little'.

Yes. I am he!

Go and see it. What's the problem? Your mates are weird. Maybe they're gay and don't want to admit it? They're not real mates, anyway, thats for sure!

Not to you, obviously but it is to me. I have loads of banter with my pals but never with strangers. And crowds can be unpredictable.

I've never sung anything at a football match and I never will. And I would never suggest to a stranger that he, or his football team, might be 'shit'. If I'm going to insult someone, I want them to know that I'm insulting them personally for a good reason, not just because they come from somewhere else or support a different team.

Personally, I keep away from tribes. I'm very sociable but I see tribalism as a kind of descent into brutalism. Baiting the opposition fans and all that. It's just bad manners masked in a crowd. I'd rather my bad manners were visibly my own!

It's just a passion. I love football but am not obsessed by any team. Well, apart from England! But I detest all this 'We' nonsense, as though 'we' were out there scoring goals. I also despise those who go to football and, rather than support their team, spend their time baiting the opposition fans. For that reason, I don't go to football more than once every few years. On the other hand, what about people obsessing over their dogs, cats, hair, fashion, weight etc? It's exactly the same and they bore the living daylights out of anybody who comes near! And in relation to pets, what's all this 'rainbow bridge' malarkey? Can't we just accept that the pet died and that it's not capering about in doggie/moggie/goldfish heaven. To me, this kind of thing is a similar obsession. Neither is healthy, in my opinion. But possibly, each is its own form of comfort blanket..

Daily comic strips in newspapers.

I believe that people can make their noise up until ten o'clock. Just the legal perspective, by the way.

An ice hockey match. What utter drivel. And you can't even se the puck most of the time..

I had an employee a few years ago who didn't have the slightest clue what 'ten per cent' meant.

When I had a business there was no microwave. We banned it because the smell would have been dreadful. Ours was a single, large room without a separate kitchen. Lunches had to be cold, therefore. Everything has an odour when it's hot. As the actress said to the bishop! Or vice versa!

Office work usually comes with an hour for lunch. Other work can be very different. I worked in an office all my life and it was always one hour.

Dinner where I come from. My very working class mother was evacuated during the war and was placed with a couple of teachers who were very middle class. By the time she got home to her stepmother, she'd done a full 180 turn, going from a cockney sparrer to a candidate for BBC newsreader. Consequently, in our house, it has always been dinner and it always will be for me. However, at our council estate junior school, we were served school lunches by dinner ladies!

Halifax. I had in my mind that it would be grim but it was great. The Piece Hall is a wonderful place!

Maybe a mugby ratch. And shake a tower afterwards. Then off to church to be told that 'the lord is a shoving leopard..

There's more. If your daughter can work remotely, there. are plenty of cheap places abroad. I was in Lagos on the Algarve recently and met a woman there who's British but has been there about 20 years. She works remotely as a translator. Never gets properly cold there and trips back to the UK are fairly easy.

Of course it's different now but I wasn't talking about that. And Braintree is still fairly reasonable for the area.

Apparently, Spooner himself used to go to work on a well boiled icicle, even when it was roaring with pain.

Duck fat..

In 1985, when my wife and I lived in north London, I literally stuck a pin in a map with my eyes closed and then phoned my mother to ask her to drive me to Braintree in Essex. A few weeks later, we'd bought a house there. It seemed so relaxed compared to Finchley and the crime rate was very low. It still is, by all national standards. It's also 15 minutes from Stanstead Airport! I stayed there for 34 years before retiring and moving to France. Now I'm back here in the UK. I didn't know anybody there but that's the sort of thing that takes care of itself, really. Saturday lunchtimes in the bar at the local hotels and pubs saw me meeting people quite easily. Braintree is to be recommended.

'Back in the day'