I’ve been thinking about time travel… let’s hope that it’s impossible. If they ever invent it, it could be VERY embarrassing. Can you imagine going back forty years and explaining to someone what life was like in the 1990s?

So, in the 1990s do you all fly around in helicopters?

Uh no, no we don’t. We walk, drive cars, catch trains and…

What, just like in the 1940s?

Yep.

So what’s different?

We have more cars. So we build lots more roads.

Ah, I see, to make sure all the cars flow smoothly. And do they?

No. So we knock down lots of houses and trees and build really big roads, called freeways.

And do they make all the cars flow smoothly?

Umm, not really, look, I’ll get back to you on this.

Okay, what technological breakthroughs have you made?

We’ve perfected technology such as lasers, magnetic media, infra-red…

And what are they used for? Healing the sick? Feeding the hungry? Stopping pollution?

Ummm.. they’re respectively used for playing hiss-free music, making sure you don’t miss a movie when you’re out, saving having to get up and walk over to the TV to change the channel…

Haven’t you done anything useful?

Oh, we have got a new thing, called the Internet. It’s a global network of computers. It can transmit information to anywhere in the world in seconds.

That sounds good. What’s that used for?

Lightbulb jokes, mostly.

In my secondary career as a first class gourmet cook, I’ve come to a little conclusion about cutting onions.

I think onions have a defensive mechanism. Like plants that are poisonous, so nobody eats them. Onions make you feel guilty… poor little onion… wasn’t doing any harm… not its fault it’s such a good ingredient… I won’t hurt you little onion… Boohooohooo…

Garlic has a defensive mechanism too. And the human race has now learnt that if you eat too much garlic, people will keep their distance, and the dog might drop dead from the whiff.

Why do people crossing at traffic lights push the button half a dozen times in quick succession? Do they really think the lights will change any earlier? Has anybody ever in the history of the universe got across the street earlier by pressing the button multiple times? Perhaps they think the traffic light software will figure that lots of people are waiting to cross, and change sooner.

Do me a favour people. Push the button. Once. The little light next to it will go red to let you know you’ve pressed it correctly. And it won’t get any redder.

Sewing mystifies me. And I think it’s something genetic. Because whenever I find myself in a sewing shop - Spotlight, Lincraft, any of those shops I never even knew existed before I got married - I see the pattern. The genetic pattern of behaviour.

Women who go to these shops know where everything is. Instantly. They can walk in the doorway and within five seconds determine whether or not what they want is in there.

The men are bewildered. They walk around slowly, perhaps looking at things, perhaps not, but certainly wondering what it all means. Strange devices adorn the shelves. More varieties of different brightly coloured material than was used in the entire career of the Village People. And in the corner, rows upon rows of patterns. Patterns for clothes.

Wait, you mean clothing is MADE? I thought it just grew on coat-hangers.

Actually, when I was at school I used to work in a menswear shop. That’s where they sell clothes for men, not where men come in to swear.

It was always a battle to keep everything tidy in the shop. Don’t believe the cliches that men aren’t fussy about what they wear. And even if they aren’t, their spouses or mothers are. Almost everything in the shop got tried on by someone at some stage in time. Except perhaps for that rogue pair of flared jeans that had been at the bottom of the Levi’s pile for fifteen years. Generally, the trick was to be folding things back up while the customer was trying on the next piece of clothing.

There was one customer who used to come in regularly. After a while, we all got to know him because every time he came in, he’d try on everything in the shop. Well, not everything, but certainly a large proportion of the garments on offer. But he never bought anything. It was absolutely impossible to sell anything to him. So after a while, we just tried to look busy when we came in.

One day he came in, and one of the newer people served him. He didn’t know, poor guy. Sebastian, by some miracle, had never served this bloke before. The rest of us just stood back and sniggered.

But we were all amazed when half an hour later, Sebastian reported that he’d actually achieved the pinnacle of his sales career, and sold this man a pair of underpants. Incredible. We were suitably impressed.

Ten minutes later, the man came back, and returned them. And I never found out why. Sebastian just didn’t want to talk about it.