WASHED AND READY TO EAT

Ok, so I gave ChatGPT the following scenario: "Imagine a theatrical script for a situation comedy set in a hotel in Torquay, England. The proprietor is called Basil, an eccentric man who believes the calibre of guests to be low. His wife, Sybil, is often frustrated by Basil's incompetence. They employ a Spanish waiter called Manuel, who struggles to understand English. Basil suspects that two guests, who claim to be married, may be lying." Here's what our favourite AI came up with: Scene: The hotel lobby in Torquay, England. Basil is standing behind the reception desk, looking at a piece of paper. Sybil is standing next to him, looking annoyed. Manuel is hovering nearby, trying to look busy. Basil: (to Sybil) I don't know why we get such low-calibre guests at this hotel. Look at these two - Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They claim to be married, but I suspect they might be lying. Sybil: (sighing) Basil, it's not our job to judge the marital status of our guests. Just m...

If something didn’t smell right about the UK handling of the pandemic, the British public was never going to notice. But they knew that if they couldn’t smell something, they really ought to get a Covid test sent to them in the post. There has been something incredibly British about the DIY swabs and their delivery via the gig-economy workers of Amazon, hasn’t there? Touch of corona? I’ll pop something in the post to you. Should be with you tomorrow. I suppose it was inevitable that we’d need some new kind of system. After all, the coronavirus outbreak was the first thing in the history of the NHS that couldn’t be cured by paracetamol, rest and plenty of fluids. This understandably left GPs flummoxed and anxious. The UK decided pretty early on that if you were ill with a novel pathogen – which proved deadly in maybe 1% of cases – you really shouldn’t go to the doctor. You should STAY AT HOME and spread it quickly to your flatmates or family members. And because they were now at ...

If you exclude Caractacus - a small fish given to me as a present in my early 20s (complete with bowl) - I'd never had a pet before Lil. This rescue cat was a lovely little creature, but never one for sitting in someone's lap. Perhaps her early experiences had taught her to be wary around humans. But over time, there was plenty of affectionate marking, nudging and purring, as she grew to know and love the members of the family. A poisoning incident affected her kidneys back in 2016. We still don't know what it was she ate or drank, but ultimately it's led to a very hard decision today. We agreed that to stop her suffering - and because of a fairly obvious deterioration - that it was better for the vet to put her to sleep. She died very peacefully. I cried a lot more than I anticipated. Earlier this year, Lil had benefited from a couple of days on a drip and then seemed to get a new lease of life. But just over a month ago, she had to spend a whole week as an in...

The letter from Donald Trump to Kim Jong-Un, which cancels the leaders’ proposed summit in Singapore, will certainly go down in the political annals. Of course, it’s entirely possible that commentators will remember it as a prelude to some catastrophic conflict on the Korean peninsula. If we’re honest, it may signal the end of a brief window, early in 2018, when people naively thought that war might be averted. I sincerely hope it doesn’t have such grave historic significance. But as a copywriter, I can weep a thousand tears without a single shot being fired in anger. What’s extraordinary about the text is that it’s clear Trump actually played a major part in writing it . We can tell because it is so atrociously and bizarrely constructed. There can be few jurisdictions in the modern world where Presidents and Prime Ministers still draft their own correspondence. And if your President was one Donald J Trump, you’d sure as hell keep him the f*** away from Microsoft ...

There is something so bizarrely British about the health response to the assassination attempt in Salisbury on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. A week after the event, everyone who was in the vicinity of the deadly nerve agent has been urged to wash their personal possessions. Now, let’s think this through. This chemical was so toxic that it left two people fighting for their lives. A police officer involved in the early response was also hospitalised and made severely ill by it. The table in the restaurant visited by Sergei and Julia was reportedly so contaminated that it had to be destroyed. But if you happened to be nearby – perhaps even dining in the same part of the restaurant sometime after the unfortunate victims departed – no need to worry. Run a baby wipe over your phone. A week later. What about clothes? The Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies recommends washing them. In a washing machine preferably, she says. Err… as opposed to the o...

At one level, the woman on BBC Question Time who expressed concerns about who was going to make her post-Brexit coffee at Pret was rather silly. She should have realised that her comment was going to paint her as a pampered and affluent London Remoaner. It’s an easy trap to fall into. I remember being in the audience 25 years ago for one of those terrible daytime TV discussion shows – Kilroy or The Time The Place or similar – and we were discussing childcare. Some lady started prattling on about nannies and I had to remind her that this wasn’t actually most people’s experience of childcare arrangements. So the message is clear: think before you open your mouth. On the other hand, you can’t help feeling the Pret lady had a pretty valid point. Virtually no one, as far as I can tell, who works in frontline hospitality in London comes from the UK. Many will be citizens of other EU countries and have the name badges with the flags to prove it. These are indeed the peo...

It's difficult to know what to make of this claim from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. He adds greater texture to his pasta so that it 'holds more sauce'.  This begs a number of questions: Does more sauce really cling to his enhanced pasta? Is sauce being clingy really such a good thingy? And if the sauce weren't 'held' by the pasta, what disaster would befall the diner?  Surely they could just spoon it up from the plate or lick their bowl clean?  

If you were a retail store, how fussy would you be about who worked as an assistant on the shop floor? I reckon you're entitled to be choosy. After all, you probably have quite a few applicants. And these people are going to be ambassadors for your business and have direct contact with your customers. So would you be interested in a personable young woman, who's just started in the Sixth Form and is looking for a Saturday job? Someone who got eight A*s at GCSE, is currently studying for A-Levels and is bright and ambitious? A person who has already gained shop experience on a voluntary basis with a charity and has direct experience of retail customer service? Given that she'd be working for minimum wage, I'd say this was a pretty good deal, wouldn't you? But when one of my daughters recently applied for a part-time role advertised at Boots, she couldn't even get an interview. Why? She was rejected on the basis of bizarre online tests. The first set of ...

The decision by Transport for London to encourage people to talk to each other on the tube has met with understandable derision from citizens of the Smoke. The first rule of the UK capital - and the very glue that holds together its social fabric - is that no one makes conversation. Or eye contact preferably. If you are feeling remotely tempted to wear one of the new badges that signals your willingness to engage in idle banter ('Baby, I'm Bored'), here are some suggestions to help suppress your urges. It's a process a Hampstead psychotherapist would call sublimation and it can come in very useful. 1. Isn't there another level of Candy Crush you could aim for? 2. If that's not your type of crush, go back and and re-read Rush Hour Crush in the Metro . 3. See if you can find a mouse on the platform or tracks. Hold a conversation with them instead. 4. Ostentatiously do your make-up - a process which can often last quite happily from Theydon Bois ...

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is in the news at the moment, as she’s been elevated by the Vatican to sainthood. I admit that I’m not fully up to speed with the criteria for canonisation, so I’ve visited the Saints for Dummies web page to check whether Jeremy Corbyn also qualifies. (It’s written by a couple of priests, so it must be kosher.) My mission has been prompted by the way in which some of Jez’s loyal supporters talk about him online. Take this example, for instance, of someone writing to the bizarre Corbynista blog Vox Political and comparing the Islington North MP to the author J K Rowling. The Harry Potter author is noted as having the ‘Judas Trait’ about her, which stands in stark contrast to the Labour Leader.  The correspondent notes that Mr Corbyn is a man ‘who did not let fame go to his head and instead, rather than paying lip service to human suffering, was actually willing to do something to alleviate it’. It’s certainly a touching portrait of a...

Traingate is the kind of political flashpoint that has all the hallmarks of a peculiarly British farce.   The Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition camps out on the floor of a Virgin carriage making a propaganda film about nationalising the railways. He claims his predicament is due to overcrowding, but the billionaire entrepreneur who owns the train company (and presumably doesn’t much like the idea of nationalisation) releases CCTV footage to show that there were, in fact, empty seats. And from that starting point, what’s our ultimate destination? Who the hell knows? But we have all kinds of fantastic station stops to visit along the way. Perhaps the empty seats were reserved? Maybe they had bags on them? Or young kids? It may have been that Jez was keen to spend time with Mrs Corbyn III, but couldn’t find a double berth in which to chit-chat about his anti-austerity policies. The train, according to Mr Corbyn, was ‘ram packed’. But when aides tried to con...

I remember visiti ng Gruyères in Switzerland some years ago – home to that rather tasty cheese you can buy in upmarket stores. It was an extraordinarily well-preserved medieval town, crammed with history and atmosphere. But somehow or other, it had managed to transform itself into a theme park, complete with shops selling toy cows that yodelled when you pressed a button. It would be a little harsh to say that Èze – a heavily-marketed village in southern France – has enveloped itself in Swiss cheese too. But it’s surely just a yodel away. The tumbling, ramshackled and ancient streets spiral around a hill. It’s a little like a miniature version of the neighbouring Principality of Monaco, as no matter which way you turn, you end up in the same place over and over again. But instead of superyachts, casinos and Russian oligarchs, Èze boasts endless shops and eateries – each catering in one way or another for the tourists that it attracts. Every nook contains a nick-nack tha...

The picture painted of the typical Brexit voter is of an angry, disenchanted individual in Labour’s working-class heartlands or a brash right-winger at a market stall in a place like Romford.   I’m sure many do fall into these categories. My hunch, however, is that your average ‘Leave’ supporter is someone far more nondescript and anonymous. They live in a fairly decent house in a little modern development, somewhere a few miles outside a moderate-sized town. They drive to work along the same stretch of motorway each morning and complain endlessly about the traffic they encounter near Junction 8. They usually bring a packed lunch, but occasionally nip out to Morrisons at lunchtime. They try not to spend more than £3.99 and like meal deals. They don’t find their job hugely exciting, but they like the people they work with. There’s a Fantasy Football league and last year half a dozen fellow employees travelled down to London to see a show. There are one o...

Reality TV is a genre that truly has no boundaries. Like the universe, it can only expand endlessly until eventually, one day, it collapses in on itself. We've seen reality TV shows about animals. And we've seen plenty which challenge people to try things they've never done before. But a show which challenges canine contestants to fly a plane? It was thought to be outside the Hubble bubble. Until now. This week, I watched the culmination of the Sky TV show Dogs Might Fly , which ended with a pitbull cross managing to execute a figure of eight in UK airspace. The mutts involved in the selection process - who were all rescue animals - went through an arduous training course involving makeshift simulators on the ground. Lifted up in a harness to prevent them putting too much weight on their front paws, the dogs were taught through Pavlovian-style rewards to turn the steering wheel left and right. The would-be Luftwoofe pilots were then acclimatised to the turbulence of ...

Two stories from different sides of the Atlantic recently highlighted how crime fighting and investigation really can be child's play. In the UK, cops in Surrey were astonished when a group of kids formed a human arrow to point a police helicopter in the direction of two alleged criminals. As the suspects in a farm burglary case made their way across fields to escape the arm of the law, the enterprising youngsters laid themselves on the ground to act as a signal. All it took was a quick radio message from the chopper and the fleeing men were apprehended. As a number of commentators have pointed out, it seems like something straight out of Enid Blyton's Famous Five or Secret Seven stories, to which I was addicted as a kid.  It's true to say that choppers didn't feature much in Blyton. Her young sleuths were from a bygone era in which the village bobby would have been plodding by on his pushbike. And the arrow kids from Capel were on an Easter egg hunt in the...

The desperate ploys of estate agents always amuse me.   One has stuck a letter through the door at Woodford Towers with the message that they are valuing in my street this week. My God! They're actually in MY road. This week! I'd better act while the iron's hot.  You know how it is with estate agents. They're a bit like Google Street View. Once they've done your area, they won't come back for two or three years. 'I was hoping you might be able to value my house.' 'Nah, sorry, mate. We did your street three weeks ago. Didn't you get our letter?' I think they need to be more precise. When exactly are they in the street? During office hours? 24/7 for the duration of the week? Or are they like Mr Softee, playing a tune and parking up for a couple of minutes at the end of the road?

The news that left-wing Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn draws inspiration from the 1980s will come as no surprise to followers of British politics. It was, however, quite special to discover that some of his conference speech this week was actually written in the days of Bananarama and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. According to press reports, the north London socialist had drawn on text from a speechwriter who'd touted the same blurb to every party boss since Neil Kinnock, only to have it rejected. It's difficult to imagine the conversation between Corbyn and his aides, isn't it? 'We've found the perfect form of words here, boss.' 'Excellent. Can you feed them into this new-fangled autocue thing?' 'Well, there are a couple of problems.' 'What do you mean?' 'Well, first of all, it's in Wordstar. And second, we can't find anything to read the five-inch floppy.'

Forgive me, but I not sure I want to get my travel money from a fishmonger. It doesn't sound very hygienic.

My local UKIP candidate, Barry Edwards, opens his leaflet with four powerful words: 'I am a Scientist...' (The upper case his Barry's. For Emphasis.) His profession apparently means that he believes in the 'rigorous scrutiny of information'. So far, so good. We look forward to a level of perspicacity so often lacking in our would-be politicians. 'I know that the other parties are untrustworthy and have lost touch with people,' writes the aspiring MP, no doubt on the basis of extensive scientific research. 'I understand that over-population produced mainly by excessive EU migration is the underlying cause of increasing pressure on our housing, NHS, education, elderly provision and all other social services.' The underlying cause? So science has proved that our housing crisis is the result of immigration? It couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with the fact we haven't built any houses, could it? Or that prices have been ...

A glossy magazine has arrived on the doorstep of Woodford Towers. Strangely, it's not the one that appears every month with ads for all the private prep schools and multi-million pound properties. This one is produced by Mabel Gray on behalf of a company called Jack Brunsdon & Son, which has been installing windows and doors for half a century. As you can imagine, the editors confirm that it has been 'fun bringing this magazine together' and a quick glance at the contents page explains why. Page 10: 'We replaced our PVC windows with timber ones...' Page 13: Which paint finish will you choose? Page 14:  Focus on the new greys - today's popular shades It's clear that I need to set a weekend aside for this. I'll file it between GQ and Take a Break.