Best Hangover Cures

“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” – Frank Sinatra

Most people like the odd alcoholic drink and most of us are guilty of occasionally having one too many. Yeah, at the time we feel great, the party’s in full flow and so are we. It’s just a pity it all has to end but unfortunately it always does.

The next morning, the first thing that hits us is our banging headache, we open our eyes and eventually the room swims into focus. We experience flashbacks of the night before and if the memories are good ones we smile or even laugh at them but this only makes our headache worse so we turn over and try to get some more sleep.

Our bodies natural reaction is a good one and if we have the time we should go with it and try to sleep off the hangover. Alternatively here are the best hangover remedies:

1. Do not make it worse:

Hangovers make us dehydrated but we must avoid caffeine and orange juice at all costs. Caffeine will serve only to make us more dehydrated and the acid in orange juice will play havoc with our digestive systems. It’s also unwise to eat a fry up for similar reasons.

“It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.” – George Burns

2. Water:

Water is the main antidote for a hangover. Alternating alcoholic drinks with glasses of water is not always fun but drinking a pint of water before we go to bed is a good remedy. If it makes us need the loo in the middle of the night we should use the opportunity to have another drink of water, our bodies will be extremely grateful for it come morning time.

Drinking water the morning after the night before is also beneficial but has nothing like the effect of the bedtime drink.

3. Food:

Eating plenty of food with our alcohol definitely has a positive effect but we must avoid eating late on because our systems will have to use up a lot of excess energy digesting it whilst we sleep.

Best foods to combat a hangover are eggs wich help mop up left over toxins and bananas/Kiwi fruit which replace potassium lost to alcohol’s diuretic effect. Also all non acidic fruit juices are good hangover remedies.

4. Freshening up:

It can seem like a real hassle but showering and general grooming will always make us feel better, the worst thing we can do with a hangover is mope around the house in our dressing gowns all day

5. Fresh air:

Get out of the house, and take a little light exercise, the endorphins produced by the exercise will automatically make us feel better and the fresh air will help to clear our heads.

6. Herbal remedies:

Most are a load of rubbish but one that does ‘exactly what it says on the tin’ is ‘Milk thistle liquid extract’ If you take the recommended dosage mixed with WATER just before retiring you will feel one hundred per cent better in the morning.

“I spent most of my money on alcohol, women and fast cars, the rest I just squandered.” – George Best

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

How to Act in an Emergency

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.” – Charles Dickens

Most of us don’t like to contemplate the thought of being involved in an emergency situation, parents tend to concentrate more on teaching their children to avoid such situations rather than how to deal with them.

This is understandable, no parent likes to envisage their children having to cope with an emergency, however a few simple tips could one day help save their lives and possibly the lives of others.

What are the most common emergency situations?

1. Car accidents
2. house fires
3. invasion of home
4. personal attacks
5. severe weather
6. Bomb scares

We would all like to think that we would remain calm in a crisis because we all know that this is the most vital thing we must try to do.

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming you…The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.” – Rudyard Kipling

The main thing that gives us confidence and helps us remain calm is knowledge and preperation. In an emergency the most vital commodity is TIME. The more effectively we act the better the outcome will be.

We should always keep important numbers written down and in a place that all the premises’ occupants are aware of. Important documents should be photocopied and kept in a safe place.

Example of simple preperation – Fire:

There are several simple things that we can learn about fire that will prove invaluable if we are ever unfortunate enough to be confronted by it’s wrath.

1. Never throw water on an electrical fire.
2. Pan fires are best dealt with by smothering with a damp towel.
3. Never give fire extra OXYGEN by unnecessarily opening doors/windows.
4. If confronted by smoke keep as low to the floor as possible.
5. Prevenative: Fire extinguishers and smoke alarms are a must.
The GOLDEN rule of emergency situations is:

Safety comes before material goods, we must never, ever risk our welfare or that of others for the sake of our posessions, they can all be replaced. The successfull outcome of any emergency situation is judged solely by the prevention of death or serious injury, anything else is regarded as a bonus.

We must be brave but not wreckless:

As soon as it is safe to do so we must always call the emergency services. They are the experts and it is always best to let them deal with an emergency. All we can do is keep the situation as contolled as possible until they are able to take over.

This may involve acts of courage and bravery but these must be performed with minimal risk to ourselves and others.

“My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by emergency. When they are needed badly enough, they are accepted.” Richard Buckminster Fuller

Andy.

http://wealthnuggets4u.com

Visiting the Doctor

“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing” – Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

In this day and age the vast majority of people are fortunate enough to enjoy relatively decent health but there comes a time in everyone’s life when they require medical advice and/or treatment. 

Wether to visit the doctor or not is always a tough decision though, the main consideration being, do you feel ill enough to undergo the ordeal?

On the occasions that you do decide to ask for medical guidance, invariably, by the time you have gone through with the whole painful process you wish you hadn’t’ve bothered.

Unmistakeably there are a lot of good doctors out there, afterall the qualification process is lenghy and arduous, (or so the layman is led to believe) but there are a lot of quacks as well.

Before you actually get to see the doctor though you must first make an appointment. That should be easy you may think? – Wrong.

Unless you can prove you are actually close to death, the earliest a doctor will see you is three weeks next Friday.

After much pleeding with the most unpleasant receptionists you could ever have the displeasure of speaking to (everyday’s a bad day for these people) and if you are able to fill the most anti-social part of their schedule, (IE within the next five minutes or five to midnight) you may just manage to get an appointment that same day.

However, before you experience the joy of speaking to the receptionists you must first get through to one of them. This process usually consists of getting aprox 27 engaged dialing tones before finally getting a successful one. (punch the air in celebration – back of the net! – get in there my son. etc)

Of course, this goes unanswered for 5 minutes before eventually ringing off. You frantically press re-dial only to be met with the engaged signal once again… Patience is a virtue.

If patience IS one of your virtues and you have a couple of hours to kill, you will eventually get through. (promise)

“God heals, and the Doctor takes the Fees” Benjamin Franklin  (1706-1790)

When you arrive at the surgery the afoementioned receptionists treat anyone who is not a waiting room veteran with disdain and contempt, as for people who work for a living, they are just looked upon as an inconvenience to the system.

The waiting room experience is another joyous event. Everyone sat there in silence. First you flick through a five-year-old magazine (£1 a day for a few newspapers is beyond the budget – afterall we do only pay 98.4% of our salaries in Income Tax and NI) before reading all the medical literature that’s pasted up on the walls. You then start scrutinizing the room in far greater detail, the colour of the carpet, the type of furniture…

“De dum, de dum, de dum.”

Next you try and guess what everyone else has come for, who looks genuine, who doesn’t, time slows down, and then S-T-O-P-S altogether. Your watch is not broken, it’s just an illusion.

By the time your name is finally called you are aproaching a state of catatonia.

You never see the same doctor twice, unless as previously mentioned you are willing to wait up to three weeks for the pleasure, so most of the actual appointment time is taken up with the doctor familiarising themselves with your notes.

The medical advice you actually receive can be anything from common sense to absolute baloney. Some of the newer doctors have a tendency to read from medical books or consult the internet whilst they’re speaking to you. On occasions doctors will ask YOUR advice on what YOU think the diagnosis is! – Scary.

Invariably you are told to take ‘Paracetamol’ or ‘Panadol’ for a fortnight and return if the symptoms persist, well they do only get paid £150,000 per annum so I suppose it’s unfair to expect too much of them.

In fairness though the system works well because every time you undergo the ordeal of visiting the doctor, it puts you off the idea again for at least another five years, unless that is you become seriously ill and if that happens, God help you.

“My doctor gave me six months to live, but when I couldn’t pay the bill he gave me six months more.” – Walter Matthau

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

The Joys of Supermarket Shopping

Come on admit it, we all love supermarkets?!? Struggling to find a parking space, all the people, negotiating our trolleys up and down the aisles, trainee checkout staff. It’s blissfull.

We’ve not tried doing the food shop on line yet but I don’t like waiting in for people and I’ve never really fancied the idea of someone else deciding on ‘suitable alternatives’ for me. But they say don’t knock something ’till you’ve tried it, so maybe sometime soon we’ll give it a whirl.

Anyway, my wife and I LIKE the struggle and the challenge of doing the foodshop ourselves, it’s extremely satisfying, really, and I want to carry my own shopping over the threshold thank you very much, even if it is persisting it down.

So every weekend, we tootle off down to Tesco’s – the people who insist that they are “helping us save money, every single day”.

Hardly bloody likely, we must put the best part of ten grand into their coffers “every single year” but unfortunately we live in a time when convenience is king. When I think about it though, it would be cheaper to give up work and start growing the stuff ourselves. Now there’s an idea.

So, we arrive at the carpark. In fairness to Tesco’s, it’s large enough, but if you are able-bodied, not a mother with child, toddler, guinea-pig or whatever other restrictions they feel fit to impose on parking then it’s a bit of a struggle.

We’re still calm though, even though we’ve been circling the carpark trying to find a parking space for the last ten minutes. Finally, we catch someone vacating a space, well for the time it takes them, maybe emigrating’s a more appropriate word – Patience is a virtue.

The trolley we choose seems decent enough. Although, after taking on the minutest of payloads ie. one newspaper and a tin of beans it somehow develops a mind of it’s own, and moving it let alone steering it becomes virtually impossible.
 
Why do some people insist on clogging up the aisles?

They bring the whole family, including great aunts and uncles with them, the more the merrier I say. Then they bump into the family from down the road and voila, you’re faced with twenty odd geriatrics, toddlers, pregnant wives and their househusbands blocking of the aisles – joy.

Why do old people insist on doing their weekly shop at the weekend?

They can shop any day of the week, they can shop when it takes half the time to shop, they can divide their shop into five and do it Monday to Friday if they like, but oh no, they wait until the weekend and then descend on the supermarkets in their droves, you can’t move for old dears at the weekend, bless ’em.

No problem though, the aisles are clearing a little, actually, we’re doing quite well for time but hold on a minute, they’ve moved the bread, AND the milk, we don’t mind though, we love a game of hide and seek. When we finally find the new, improved locations (eye-level is buy-level) you’ve guessed it, there out of stock.

The check out experience is just that, an experience. My favourite part is when having just watched you load 115 items onto the conveyor belt the assistant asks “Do you need any bags for those?” I always feel like saying “No thanks, we’re going to carry each item out to the car individually.”

But we always smile and say “Yes please” mainly out of politeness but partly because I honestly believe that if we said we didn’t they would take us at our word.

Supermarkets don’t like us using their bags anymore, it’s another cost saving exercise that they can wave the green banner at but they still feel grudgingly obliged to offer us them, so subsequently they have reduced the quality of the bags to such an extent that they tear if you put anything heavier than a newspaper in one of them.

The assistant looks at you in shock-horror if you ask for a wine carrier, so if you’ve purchased more than one bottle of wine (heaven forbid) then load them into one of their plastic bags at your peril.

Having taken out a remortgage to pay the bill, even though we had 53 BOGOFS, (Buy One Get One Free) 27 discounts and God knows how many special purchases we struggle past all the people who insist on checking their bills right in front of the exits and out to the car.

Finally, ten broken plastic bags later, everythings stowed in the car and we tootle off home again. Having put everything away in it’s rightful place we come to the best part of the day, a well earned drink down the pub, but that’s another story.

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

Why Are We so Obsessed With the Weather?

Like it or not we are all obsessed with the weather. Granted, us Brits are more obsessed than most but our excuse is our climate is probably the most miserable. The weather does affect each and everyone of us though and it affects virtually everything we do.

information on the weather is available in every form of media but the most annoying ‘forecasts’ are the ones that proudly declare what the weather HAS actually been like! (We know that, tell us something we don’t know)

Invariably the forecasts are innacurate but that does not stop us from listening to them and even trusting in them time after time, it’s so frustrating. (Do old people talk about anything else but the weather? Okay, hospitals – fair point)

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.” –  Kin Hubbard

“I cannot command winds and weather.” –  Horatio Nelson

# the weather affects our mood, we all feel better when the Sun is shining, it puts a stride in our step, a smile on our face. Some people, my wife included claim to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D., not for them that’s what it stands for).

Basically sufferers become depressed throuugh a lack of sunshine (my wife’s excuse for booking more holidays! – Us men are not fools you know, I promise)

# Many peoples livelihoods are dependent upon the weather, fishermen, farmers, gardeners to name but a few. Snowfall can bring a nation (well the UK anyway) to a grinding halt. Seriously though, droughts have wreaked havoc across the World and caused large scale famines and untold deaths. The forces of nature are invincible.

The UK is the only country in the world that has an annual rainfall in excess of 35 inches but still has to suffer a hosepipe ban if it doesn’t rain for over a week. Last summer we couldn’t’ve watered our lawns if we’d wanted to, because for the most part they were submerged under two feet of water! but was the ban lifted, not on your life.

# We all wish for clement weather during our leisure time, we want it to be sunny when we are on holiday, when I was a child I used to holiday with a friend whose mother used to insist that ‘we looked like we were enjoying hot weather’ for the photographs (us Brits – scary people)

# outdoor sports and events are always better when the Sun is shining, I always love the start of the football season (mid August) there’s nothing like watching a game of footy in the sunshine.

# Our clothing choice is dependent on the weather. Will we be warm enough? cool enough? do we need to protect ourselves with Sun cream?

“There’s no such thing as bad weather only innapropriate clothing.” – Billy Connolly

# Most importantly the weather and forces of nature are all powerful. The recent events in Japan are all too commonplace in the World and we are virtually powerless to do anything about them.

We are at the mercy of the weather.

# Climate change is a big concern for all of us but I think we are exageraring our impact on the Earth, yes we should all respect the environment and do all we can to reduce our own personal and corporate carbon footprints.

However these actions are necessary for our own wellbeing and that of our children because the Earth was here a long time before we arrived and it will be here for a long time after we are gone.

“No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.” Michael Pritchard

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

Why do We Buy Things?

We buy things for many reasons, we buy lots of things we need and lots of things we don’t need. If you have serious designs on making money it is vital that you understand why people buy.

# Necessity:

We can’t live without things such as food, water, shelter etc, so we have to aquire them. However there is a subtle difference between actual necessities and perceived necessities.

Human beings can be extremely impulsive and exposure to products and services can make us think that we cannot live without them. Furthermore we are very susceptible to the power of peer pressure. ‘The kid next door has got a new bike so our kids have to have one.’

We actually feel guilty or bad if we don’t buy our kids everything their conmtemporaries have. Thus, we as a society leave ourselves wide open to exploitation by the advertising industry.

“An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.” –  Pliny the Younger (62 AD – 114 AD)

# Emotions:

Our emotions play a great part in our shopping habits, lots of people comfort-shop, they buy things to give themselves a boost. Our mood is easily manipulated and our senses our susceptible to music, visual displays, enticing smells etc.

We buy for fun, we buy things that give us pleasure, we buy things that make us feel good, we buy to escape reality.

Mementos are also big sellers, there is nothing we like more than something that reminds us of a cherished memory – The power of nostalgia is immense.

We are all capable of greed, we all love a bargain, we all buy bulk items that we will never use.

# Real benefits:

We are fortunate to live at a time of great technological advancement, the labour-saving devices that have become available to us over the last 50 years have been astonishing.

Most of us like to improve ourselves, we will buy something if it will educate us or our children. Education is now available to a large proportion of us whereas less than a hundred years ago it was only available to a priviliged few. Furthermore the internet has made it possible for us to access information like never before.

We also buy things that we hope will make us money, we invest in all manner of things from jewellry to stocks and shares.

“To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed.
Lao-tzu.” (604 BC – 531 BC)

# Image:

Everyone loves to look and feel good. image and prestige are both key buying motivators, if something makes us look good in the eyes of other people then we will buy it.

# Health: If we don’t have our health then we have nothing. People will pay to become healthier. Too often though we think we can get a ‘bargain’ a ‘quick fix’. Prevention is always better than the cure, moderation in all things

# Influences:

I started my career in retailing so I know a bit about sales psychology. I think the most important thing you can convey to someone in order to get them ito buy from you is TRUST.

We all like to buy from people we trust, someone that is going to make sure we get value for money, someone who is going to guide us through the minefields of their particular product or service. Trust is a key ingredient of repeat business.

Top advertisers and retailers are extremely adept at influencing our decision making when it comes to buying things, they create the right ambience for their products and services. They appeal to our ego’s, they make us think buying their goods will improve us in all manner of ways.

Personally, apart from life-saving products I think freedom and space are the most important commodities. If we can acheive these things then we owe it to ourselves to find the time to enjoy them.

“Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.” F. Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

How to Get Promoted

How to Get Promoted

When pitching to a group of people it is crucial that we ascertain as early as possible who the decision maker(s) is. A good way of doing this is to ask the group a key question and look who they all turn to for the answer.

It’s very similar when we are looking to advance our careers. Find out who the key people are in your organisation and start getting to know how they tick. Find out as much as possible about them and what you have in common with them. Nurture this common ground.

‘My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people’s.’
Oscar Wilde.’ – (1854 – 1900)

# Empathy:

Don’t kid yourself that your boss will promote you just because they think you are a wonderful person or even because you’re good at your job.

They’ll promote you because they think you can help them realise their OWN ambitions, they want someone who will act as an extension of themselves. Thus, if you want to get promoted you must learn to live and think like your boss.

# Responsibility:

Ask for more responsibility, be honest, don’t bite off more than you can chew, but do everything well. Produce quality work that has impact, not mass output that anyone can do. Keep asking for more and more responsibility and if you keep doing a good job then eventually you will become indespensible.

*If your boss refuses to give you additional responsibilities ask why and what you have to do in order to be considered for more important tasks.

# Image:

Act as if you’ve already been promoted, not in a conceited way but simply assume the position you are aiming for. Dress smarter, walk faster, this conveys importance, stand up straight. Convince yourself and those around you that you are capable of greater things.

‘I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.’ – John Cleese (1939 – )

# Knowledge:

Be in the know, not just about your own business but about business in general, I read the financial pages on teletext every day, it takes less than 5 minutes.

# Confidence:

Don’t be afraid to be a bit cheeky but know where to draw the line. Ask for a better car/package/salary. If they turn you down on one thing ask for another. It’s hard for people to keep saying no.

# Determination:

Don’t give up, you’ll keep improving and learning, eventually you’ll get to where you want to be and if you don’t then at least you can rest easy in the knowledge that you gave it everything you had.

# Patience:

All good things take time, rather than hopping from one career to the next, find out what you’re good at and keep doing it.

‘In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.’ – Warren Buffett (1930 – )

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggets4u.com

Why do We Love Food?

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” –  Adelle Davis (1904 – 1974)

Even though we all need food to survive our relationship with food goes much deeper than that, we have developed this amazing love affair with it. All animals need to eat but we have turned eating and drinking into an art form.

# The senses: Eating and drinking is one of the few things that involves using all of our senses, we can see, hear, smell, touch and taste it. A good meal is indeed a truly absorbing experience.

# Provision: Our ancestors prided themselves in hunting down their food. Feasting on the catch was considered a great celebration, a time to be happy and grateful.

# Preparation: Many people love the act of preparing food, and making a delicious meal can be extremely rewarding.

# Dining/eating out: This is a very sociable thing to do, wether it’s in a posh restaurant or at a roadside cafe. Sharing food and conversation is a very important part of our society.

‘If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.’ – J R R Tolkien (1892 – 1973)

# Diet: Obviously a balanced diet is vital for us to lead a happy life. Modern-day life has made the availability of food plentiful for many of us. The down side to this is that we tend to over eat and under exercise.

However, too much is made of dieting, the more we think about something the more we want to do it.

Food is part of our lifestyle, and as such if we want to lose weight we need to change that lifestyle. Starving the body is no good for anyone.

Small portins eaten often is the key to a healthy diet.

Modern-day lifestyles do not lend themselves to ‘not eating between meals’. Once we accept this we will also accept that we can and will eat many times a day. Thus the smaller the portions the better.

The three square meals philosophy believed in by our parents and grand parents no longer holds true.

Let’s hope we can maintain our centuries-old love affair with food because at the end of the day we should eat to live not live to eat.

‘Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.’ – Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

Andy.

http://www.wealthnuggegts4u.com

Are You Stopping Money From Coming to You?

No matter what we think about money it is vital to everone’s existence. Money often gets a bad press but placed in the right hands it can do amazing things.

Money is meant to be fluid, to flow from one person to another, it is not meant to be horded.

“Money can’t buy you happiness but it can buy you the kind of misery you prefer” (Author unknown)

Many people prevent money from comming into their lives for a variety of reasons. Some people don’t think they are worthy of it, it’s not the money they cant handle it’s themselves. To allow more money to come into our lives we have to believe we are worthy of it.

How do we do that?

We must practice what it is like to have lots of money, get used to the ‘feel’ of being rich. In fact if we want to be good at anything we must practice how to do it. Hang out where rich people do, save up and buy quality clothes and products. Start dressing, acting and thinking like a wealthy person.

Ignore your shortcommings:

Too many people get hung up on their weaknesses instead of concentrating on their strenghs. Just because a person has a limited education, comes from a poor background, speaks with a common accent etc doesn’t mean that they cannot become wealthy. On the contrary most rich people have major shortcommings in other areas of their lives.

“Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, it comes in handy.” (Groucho Marx)

Money can come to us from many different sources.

Too many people think they can only get money from their jobs. This is such a limmiting belief. Money can come to you from everywhere if you let it. Start thinking positively about it and it will start to flow to you.

Right out of the blue last week I got a cheque from the taxman for over £1,000, the week before my wife found a £20 note whilst clearing out a drawer, the week before that we received an insurance cheque for £850.

Start expecting it, asking for it, wanting it, thinking positively about it, stop moaning abouty the lack of it, being grateful for it and it will start comming to you.

Yesterday, I dropped a penny down the side of my car seat and spent 15 minutes retrieving it, not because I’m a skinflint but because I respect money and what it can do for us.

Andy.

Things That do not Irritate Me

They say that patience is a virtue. I couldn’t agree more, it’s just one that I dont posess, I try, I really do and I’m not making excuses BUT there are just certain things that people do that would make even a saint swear.

However, this year I decided to turn over a new leaf and not let those little niggles get to me.

I get up at 5am and make my way to the bathroom. It does not irritate me that the toilet roll holder is empty, In fact I smile to my self feeling quite confident there will be some in the bathroom cupboard but nope the cupboard is  also empty, no problem, I go down to the garage and get a fresh pack.

On my way down the stairs I think back to the film I watched last night what a great film it was, just a pity the last five minutes hadn’t recorded but I dont mind, I’d only sat riveted for almost 2 hours, I didn’t really want to know the end.

I must’ve set the DVD incorrectly because I’d been interupted for the third time that evening by one of those wonderful telesales people who insist on saving you money, they always become annoyed though when I suggest ringing them back an hour after they have finshed work for the day to discuss the matter further, funny that.

I pass the kitchen sink and spot a dirty cup and plate on the side which one of the kids must’ve left out for me to stow in the dishwasher, I’m still smiling even when I discover jam in the butter.

As I leave for work, I glance at one of our neighbours houses and think for the hundredth time ‘why have they not taken down their Christmas lights yet, it’s May for God’s sake.’

As I head for the petrol station, someone pulls out right in front of me, then proceeds to go at twenty miles an hour, I’m a little late but I dont mind. I try to fuel up but the attendant wont switch my pump on, I’m sure he will eventually, when he’s finished his first cup of coffee of the day, after the second maybe? I then go 1p over the amount I intended putting in, no problems, £20.01 is just fine and dandy, well ok I top it up to £25, that feels better.

As I am leaving the forecourt a young lad pulls in, stereo blaring, no one else bar him has the foggiest idea what the tune is, get me out of here, sorry I mean, we all like a good tune first thing in the morning especially when it’s played by someone else at 500 decibels.

At work we hold an early meeting about the effectiveness of yesterday’s  meeting and what we plan to discuss in tomorrow’s meeting. This afternoon we are having another meeting to discuss wether to divert time away from customer support and use it to hold more meetings.

I must dash I’m late for another meeting. Colin the finance director is chairing it and I promise to smile every time he uses the words ‘cool’, ‘dude’ or ‘sweet’. I also promise to laugh politely whenever he mimicks speech marks with his fingers  or says “Let’s not go there”. I’m still smiling…

Thank God, It’s the weekend at last, the alarm clock goes off as usual at 5am because I forgot to switch it off last night but that’s cool, sorry, I mean that’s okay.

We are doing the weekly food shop but can’t move for OAP’s, they have all week to shop but hey, the more the merrier on a Saturday that’s what I say. It did not irritate me or annoy me for that matter that the woman vacating the parking space that I was waiting for spent five minutes on her mobile before leaving even though she knew I was waiting for her spot, no it didn’t, really.

Inside the store, we choose the checkout with the smallest queue but then discover it’s the smallest queue because it’s being operated by a trainee who has to keep calling for assistance.

Whilst waiting patiently I notice the couple in front of us are wearing matching sweaters and make a mental note to get a pair for my wife and I, sweet.

On the way out we bump into someone I haven’t seen in years, I can’t remember his name so I don’t introduce him to my wife, this appears incredibly rude  but what was the alternative?

As we load our groceries into the car I notice someone else has left a shopping trolley in my way but I don’t mind struggling to the trolley park with two trolleys, honestly.

We unload the shopping at home without breaking our necks on one of the cats that insist on brushing round our legs or tripping over the kids’ discarded sports bags.

Finally we walk into the village and reach the sanctuary of the pub, this should be great a few drinks and a nice meal, no cats, no kids just my wife and I, pure bliss.

Wrong, there are more kids here than at the local creche. Their parents don’t appear to be anywhere in sight. When eventually they do materialise they refuse to take their screaming brats out of the pub no matter how loud they cry or complain.

I go to get another round of drinks and to order some food, the guy in front of me proceeds to order food and drink for his party of about twenty people, he keeps getting it wrong, changing his mind, going back to ask other members of the party what they’d ordered. Like I said, bliss.

Eventually 10 minutes later, the order is complete, double and tripple checked by the waitress, I breathe a sigh of relief, the waitress breathes a sigh of relief before aunt Ethel suddenly appears and asks if it would be a great incovenience if she changed her meal.

YES IT WOULD YOU OLD…of course not maddam.

We finally make it home, kick off our shoes and switch on the TV. Up pops Simon Cowell, smiling that all-knowing smile of his – Perfect.

Life doesn’t get any better.

Andy