My mum’s not one for giving out a lot of advice, but she’s always said to never fall out with your neighbours.

As a result, there have been many grievances over the years that I’ve kept to myself. Like the aforementioned time a neighbour stuck down my windscreen wipers with chewing gum. (I perhaps should’ve addressed that.)

There used to be a family who lived next door that I sometimes suspected were in the hearing aids industry and determined to get more business by deafening me with their everyday life.

There was the usual stuff like loud parties with bad music. (I’m okay with good music ones.) But also stuff like letting their kids roller skate up and down their wooden floor hallway at 6am every morning.

But of course, I never said anything. I was friendly to their faces and then would seethe and fantasise about living in a remote detached house.

At the time, my young son was very friendly with another boy on the same street whose garden was behind the noisy neighbours. Because we’re not allowed fences on our street (a weird by-law that I’ve never seen any evidence of), he could easily reach his friend by cutting across the very back corner of the noisy neighbour’s garden.

He was very much just skirting the boundary of their property and the noisy neighbours were fine with this whenever I checked. They’d say, “Let him do what he wants, we love kids, he can come into our whole garden too anytime he wants.” And they’d let their children go in the other little boy’s garden, too. It was a bit of a free-for-all.

Or it was. Until the noisy neighbours started putting up barricades to prevent my son from cutting across. First, it was just a bench and so I wasn’t quite sure because he could still get around. But then they added one of those big outdoor heaters. And when he could still squeeze past, they moved their big BBQ to block the passage.

Obviously, I was outraged, so I dealt with it by doing and saying nothing. Just internally hating them.

A few weeks later, my boyfriend came home holding a box of Milk Tray. This surprised me as he’s not one for bringing romantic gifts home. And then I was confused as he didn’t hand it to me, he started wrapping it up.

When questioned, it turned out he’d bought it for someone else. But it wasn’t a lover. No, worse. It was for the daughter in the noisy family next door, who was celebrating her eighth birthday.

Strangely, my first thought was, "Why are you buying our enemy a present?” But it was swiftly followed by, "Why are you buying an 8-year-old girl a box of Milk Tray?” Didn’t they have a Curly Wurly? Or a finger of Fudge or a Milky Bar? It’s a box of chocolates you’d buy for a lover. Not an 8-year-old girl. Just look at the ads. All because the lady loves Milk Tray. With that man all in black on a daring mission to deliver them to the home of a glamorous woman. Not a primary school-aged child.

Honestly, I checked every day after to see if her parents had put bars on their daughter’s window to stop him from climbing through in the night, dressed in black.

It was the creepiest present that anybody has ever bought. I did ask him why and he said he wanted to get Celebrations, but there weren’t any.

But while I was nervous that next year he’d get her a dozen red roses and a bottle of perfume, I didn’t really mind. As he must’ve creeped them out so much that my revenge sorted out. We were even now. Barricade away!

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Greed was good in the Eighties and as a kid of this era, I had plenty of it. Most of these things I wanted could well apply to other decades. There’s one that could’ve been spawning envy from 2830BC onwards. But this is my experience of all the things I was insanely jealous of, which were also actually insane.

I’ve got no evidence that these desires were in any way universal. But I can’t be alone. (I hope not.) Here are five things I coveted for no good reason.

1. Asthma inhaler

How I longed for that little dusty blue inhaler when I was in primary school. It was the ultimate gadget before anyone really had gadgets. (I’m not sure I can count the Speak and Spell and Major Morgan.) And it was a lifesaving gadget. What could be more exciting to everyone, apart from someone who actually has asthma and their family?

Obviously, I didn’t want asthma. I just wanted to be able to take my little lifesaving gadget into school and have everyone look at me in envy when I took a little puff after rounders.

2. A plaster cast

I can see that there’s already a pattern emerging here of desire for the accessories of terrible medical conditions. But I can’t change the way I felt that day Clare Hepburn rocked up to primary school with a plaster cast on her leg. And when the following year, someone had an arm cast. I was barely able to contain my envy.

Obviously, I didn’t consider the terrible pain and itchiness and other stuff that I don’t even know about, as I’ve yet to break a bone. The thrill was that we were all allowed to write stuff on it. I’m not sure what empathetic nine-year-old me wrote. Probably something like, ‘Cool plaster cast!’

And how exotic did Plaster of Paris sound? So continental! As continental as a continental quilt and my first one of those was exciting enough.

I might be wrong, but I don’t think the writing happens anymore. I’ve not seen a plaster cast covered in writing for years now. They look less fun now, like a giant boot.

I also can’t stress enough that I’m no longer jealous of plaster casts.

3. Crutches

Okay, there’s definitely a really firm pattern. Another medical accessory. Although I promise I didn’t feel the same way about callipers or an iron lung etc. etc.

This one usually went hand in hand (LITERALLY!) with the broken leg. But how cool was it to have crutches in school? I’d beg to have a go on them. The desire for crutches without pain is still so strong that when my partner had some last year for a dodgy knee, I secretly had a go when no one was around.

I think maybe what I’ve learned from my list so far is a desperate craving for attention and to be different. But without any of the inconveniences of these differences. I won’t delve any further to avoid facing any hard truths about myself. So, here are some non-medical ones for balance.

4. Matey bubble bath

Kids of the 70s and 80s could be divided into two categories. Those who had Matey bubble bath and those who wanted it so badly. It was one of the most coveted things of this era and yet it was a pretty bog-standard toiletry. How were we duped into this strong desire?

I’m not sure there was anything special about the bubbles, so it must’ve been the bottle. Maybe we hadn’t seen a bottle before that had been designed to look like a person. In this case, a sailor, with the lid being the hat.

I cannot imagine a bubble bath being such a status symbol today. I was so jealous of kids who had it. We had it sometimes and it was honestly a dream come true.

5. Colgate Blue Minty Gel

When Colgate blue minty gel toothpaste arrived in 1984, it was like a whole new exciting world had opened up. Like we’d been living in black and white, and colour had just arrived. A blue toothpaste! A blue gel toothpaste!

The adverts made it seem even more exciting. This was surely the first family toothpaste marketed at kids. And it really worked. I was incredibly jealous of anyone who had this fun new world in a tube. It’s hard to imagine now being jealous of a toothpaste. This is even less exciting than a bubble bath. But after some severe pestering, my mum bought it and it didn’t disappoint in any way. The good times had begun.

If you felt the same way about any of these as a kid, please let me know. As well as any other weird things you were jealous of.

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I love animals. I won’t eat them or drink their milk. I should be one of their favourites, but the evidence is building that I’m very much not. I’m basing this on two incidents, where a creature persecuted me. One involving a camel and one involving an elephant. (Plus the time a pigeon held me hostage in Cards Galore.)

The camel

I’m still confused as to why I ever rode on a camel. I’m now well aware of the poor treatment of these animals in tourist destinations, but I can only think that this was 20 years ago, when it was less well documented. And it just felt like an extension of pony trekking as a kid. (Which also always went badly.)

It was on holiday in Lanzarote. And I’d never had any real desire to get aboard those humps, but I think it seemed like something to be experienced if you’re living a rich and varied life. Something to tick off your list, but nobody gets any pleasure from. Like photocopying your bum.

So I wasn’t overly enthusiastic and I became even less keen when they told me the name of my camel. “This is Tor-NAR-do,” they said. I wasn’t fooled by the pronunciation. A placid, gentle camel is not called Tornado. It’s called Maria or Hugo. A violently destructive camel is called Tornado.

I was also quite suspicious that Tornado was at the end of the train of camels. I felt sure that the sweet-natured one wasn’t put at the back but got on in an unparalleled bout of optimism. And then for the whole ride, this camel spent every millisecond trying to turn its head around to bite me. Which was not easy, as the camels were all tied up in a line. But it was making such a good attempt that eventually it had to be untied from the others and led individually by one of the camel people.

That camel hated me. And perhaps life in general. And to be honest, knowing what I know now, fair enough. I hope he was retired soon afterwards and went to live on a lovely camel farm with his friends Riot, Lucifer and Hurricane.

The elephant

This incident happened when I was a small-ish child and when I’ve since recounted this tale, I’ve been told I’d got a cartoon confused with real life. But this very much happened.

I was at the circus with my family. And as this was a circus from many years ago, it featured animals. Different, crueller times. But eight-year-old me just assumed they were all having as much fun as I was. I was having a wonderful time and enjoying my can of R Whites Lemonade, which I kept on the floor beside me when I wasn’t having a lovely, refreshing sip.

A troop of elephants came out. How wonderful! The first I’d ever seen in the flesh. My enthusiasm tapered slightly when one elephant broke off from the line and started heavily plodding towards us. As it came closer and closer, it seemed to be making a beeline for me and showed no signs of slowing down. I was terrified and began shrieking and clinging to my parents, while the audience stared at us in silence.

As the elephant came within touching distance, it stopped, extended its trunk towards my legs and then wrapped it around my can of R Whites lemonade. I watched in horror as it went on to pour every drop into its mouth.

The audience was now laughing hysterically, but I very much did not see the funny side. There must’ve been so many others there with drinks that day. And yet it selected me as the weak link. Fair enough. And in retrospect, I’m glad he had a nice drink. And I hope he gets regular R Whites lemonade at the lovely elephant farm I’m sure he now lives on.

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In 2018, I had an Amazon bestseller. (For one hour in the, admittedly, obscure category of Computers and Internet Humour.) It wasn’t the novel I’d occasionally dreamed of writing but a compilation of a series of challenges I’d undertaken while co-presenting a radio show.

It was far from a success. The radio show had hundreds of thousands of listeners. But many, many, many of those didn’t want to buy my book. So I was very interested to read a viral post on Substack about the state of publishing called No one buys books.

It featured some eye and mouth-opening stats. Like how 96% of books sell less than 1000 copies. And in 2020, only 268 sold more than 100,000.

I also learned that the big advances go to celebrities and only about a third to half of books make a profit.

But what I really want to know is how much money authors make from their work. So here’s some transparency from me. Here’s how many copies I sold and exactly how much money I made.

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Over the past few years, I’ve figured out the only way to visit a supermarket and stay sane. Go weirdly early or late. Don’t take my small child. Use the scan-as-you-go app. These three things form a perfect triangle of success.

So it’s far from ideal that I’m forced to go on a Saturday mid-morning with my son. Two sides of my triangle are broken. And then I learn that the app isn’t working as ‘systems are down across the store’. If this were the opening credits to a film I’d be screaming at the protagonist to leave immediately. Go home. Go back another time!

For some reason, I don’t. And I become the most hated person there.

The thing that I’m most stressed about is that I don’t have a physical loyalty card; it’s integrated into my app. And I’ve noticed that supermarkets have done this thing where they put up all the prices and then do discounts on some products for loyalty card holders. So if you don’t have the card, your shopping is about £20 more than it should be.

I ask a member of staff what I should do and they tell me not to worry, they’ll sort it out at the till. I don’t 100% believe this, but I carry on and get my full trolley of stuff.

The queues at the tills are a nightmare. I can’t believe how bad Saturday mornings are. I’m waiting in my one for 45 minutes. So as it approaches my turn, I’m wondering if I should mention the loyalty card thing. There is a huge queue behind me and people are visibly and audibly fed up.

I should just pay the extra £20 or whatever it is. But I’ve got a real bee in my bonnet about these new supermarket prices. So I find myself explaining the situation to the checkout woman, who says she’ll get someone over to help. I’m wondering now if the system being down is affecting more than just the app. Everybody seems very busy.

I really, really should just tell her not to worry about the loyalty card. But for reasons I don’t fully understand, I don’t.

By the time she has finished scanning all my stuff, nobody has come to help, so I find myself asking, “Is anyone coming about the loyalty card?” If I could mind-read, I would now have hearing loss from everyone within earshot screaming inside their head, “Shut up about the bloody card!”

Somebody does soon come over, though and tells me that as the app doesn’t work, there is nothing she can do. I admit defeat, but because I’m the worst person in the world, I say, “Okay, no worries, I’ll talk to head office about refunding the difference.” Possibly the worst sentence I’ve ever said. Even my son is embarrassed by me now.

All the while, the queue is not moving because of me. All eyes are on me as nobody has anything else to do but hate me. Then the checkout operator has a good idea. To give me a new loyalty card, which she can scan and I’ll get my discount. But does she have one on her till? No. Does the person on the till to the left have one? No! Does the till on the right have one? Yes. Does the person behind me who hates me more than Pol Pot have to act as a courier for this loyalty card? Yes.

The checkout lady scans it. Here’s how much money it saved me. Five pounds. At this point, I’d have paid £500 for none of this to have happened. I’m almost at the stage of having to move house for fear of seeing any of these people again.

But it’s over. I just have to pay and leave. And then my credit card is declined. “Oh yes,” till woman says, “We’re having a problem with Mastercard today because of the system failure.” I try again. And again. It still doesn’t work. She asks me if I have another card. I don’t. I’ve got a contactless one on my phone, but contactless isn’t working because of this systems failure.

She tries two more times. Can you imagine the queue now? They are almost 100% discussing where to buy pitchforks and torches and who will lead the angry mob to kill me.

The supervisor is called over again. She undoubtedly wants me dead too and confirms Mastercard payments aren’t going through today. Very unfortunately, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Why didn’t you put a sign up then?” Which, despite everything, is a fair point.

This is what happens next. I have to give her my trolley and leave. I’ve been there for two hours, I still have no food, I’m now the most hated person in the supermarket and I will now always have to wear a disguise whenever I go back.

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Why are ovens so secretive about when they’re ready? I turn it on and then it’s like it’s thinking, ‘Yeah, I’ll let you know, but I’ll take a long and seemingly random and varied amount of time and then I’m not going to make it in any way obvious that I’m ready. I’m just going to turn off a little orange light so that you keep having to come into the kitchen to check.’

My oven is about 17 years old, maybe more modern ones do make it more obvious. But 17 years ago was only 2009. It wasn’t 3000 BC. What were they thinking?

The time it takes to heat up feels medieval to me. Actually, no, pre-medieval. Pre Homo Erectus, so before they discovered fire. Fire gets hot really quickly. In fact, it’s hot straight away. So is a microwave. But my oven is sitting there lumbering away, trying to warm up for a seemingly endless and unpredictable amount of time.

It also doesn’t help that the moment I open it to put something in, the orange light immediately comes on again. Like it’s going, ‘Not really! Haha! Your things won’t cook right now. Sorry! Not sorry!

I’m starting to see my oven as this lazy, grumpy, contrary beast of the kitchen and I’m not sure that’s healthy.

Then I stumbled upon a video that asked do you need to preheat your oven? And it blew my mind that this question was being asked. What kind of maverick is questioning this? And the fact that they’ve asked it suggests that maybe some people don’t preheat their oven. They just put the food straight in.

This is so wild and crazy that I can’t get my head around it. Preheating the oven is in the recipe or packaging instructions. It’s the first instruction! Who goes - nah, I’ll skip it?

And then I go online and so many people are asking whether it’s necessary that I feel like I must be genetically unrelated to humans and actually a different species. I would never have questioned this authority.

I’ve been told to preheat and they know best. I don’t believe in the conspiracy of Big Electricity wanting to trick me into using more of it or Big Oven wanting me to wear down my appliance more quickly. I’m pretty sure I just made up Big Electricity and Big Oven, but then again, I don’t know anything anymore.

I have to admit, though, that life would be easier if I didn’t preheat. I wouldn’t have to keep checking to see if that tiny orange light has gone out. And it’s also annoying if I’m baking, as the first step is preheating the oven, but it takes me so long to painfully and inexpertly do the other steps that the oven ends up sitting there hot for about an hour.

I look into it further and I’m horrified that there are some renegades out there who absolutely insist it’s unnecessary. They say it’s fine for everything but homemade pizza and you just need to add a bit of extra time. This is insanely vague.

I even read that when the first fan ovens arrived in 1945, a big selling point was that they didn’t need preheating. And they didn’t even have these orange indicator lights. But we couldn’t get out of the habit, so they gave up saying it and the lights then became commonplace.

Admittedly, there were other ways of checking back then. But I feel they were mostly, put your hand in to see if it’s hot.

I will continue to preheat as that’s the right thing to do and I don’t want to die of food poisoning. And I’m completely ignoring that I also found out that many say air fryers definitely don’t need preheating. There’s an actual PREHEAT button on it. Am I supposed to pretend it doesn’t exist? Like I do with 90% of the buttons on my washing machine, dishwasher and fridge control panel?

So I will continue to live with my annoyance of the orange light. And it’s not as bad as my annoyance with oven gloves. Never do I feel less in control of my hands. It’s like they’ve been cut off and put in the freezer for six hours and then badly sewn back onto my wrists. I usually risk it with a tea towel and burn myself. I think I’m just going to start only eating salad.

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When I say the greatest moment in British TV history, I think we all know what I’m referring to. It’s not Del Boy falling through the bar, not Dirty Den serving the divorce papers, not even the ‘what a sad little life Jane’ speech in Come Dine With Me.

It is, of course, Guy Goma being accidentally interviewed on BBC News 24, twenty whole years ago.

I have long been fascinated by this and when I’ve really looked into what actually happened, it’s shocking how many times it was nearly derailed. There were seven moments where the gods had to intervene to ensure that Guy Goma became a star. Here is each one.

MOMENT 1

On the 8^th May 2006, Congolese economic graduate Guy Goma is waiting in the reception of the BBC. He has a job interview in the IT department and is dressed smartly in a beige suit and blue shirt.

In another reception is Guy Kewney, a well-respected technology journalist, waiting to be interviewed on BBC News 24 about the verdict of a legal battle between Apple Corps and Apple Computer.

BBC News producer, Elliot Gotkine is on his way to pick up this expert and this is the first intervention from the gods. He goes to the wrong reception. He goes to the reception where Guy Goma is waiting.

MOMENT 2

As Elliot is heading there, he has an image in his head of Guy Kewney. As right before setting off, he’d looked him up. He knew he was a pale-faced, middle-aged man with a ginger beard. To be absolutely sure though, on entering the reception, Elliot asks the receptionist to point him out. She points directly towards the very un-ginger Guy Goma. The gods clearly took control of that finger. It had to happen this way.

MOMENT 3

Elliot is confused, but maybe the image he’d found was wrong. So he goes over to Guy Goma and asks, “Guy Kewney?” This should’ve been the moment that the mistake was realised. Guy Goma knows his name is not Guy Kewney. But he only hears the Guy part. “Yes!” he says. We are still on track for TV history.

MOMENT 4

The producer and Guy Goma make their way to the studios. It’s a route long enough to involve two flights of stairs. The friendly back and forth on this journey will surely reveal the truth. But no. As the producer is in a terrible hurry. Guy Kewney is due to be on air in five minutes, so they have to run the entire way.

MOMENT 5

As soon as they reach the studio, a make-up artist appears to prepare Guy for his TV appearance. As she comes towards his face with a brush, Guy tells her that it’s not necessary, as he’s just here for a job interview. She now has this key information. And what does she do with it? Nothing. She doesn’t mention it to anyone.

MOMENT 6

Guy Goma is understandably quite freaked out now. This really doesn’t feel like a job interview. But he’s told the make-up artist and she didn’t say anything. So he assumes that this is just part of the BBC interview process. A way of seeing how you react under pressure and think on your feet. So he doesn’t say anything else. He really wants this job and wants to prove he can handle it.

MOMENT 7

It’s now one minute until airtime. The presenter, Karen Braverman, greets Guy Goma and immediately senses that something might be wrong. She warns her editor, but they have nothing else prepared and there are now just seconds to go. If another feature had been ready, in all likelihood, the will of the gods would have been thwarted. The editor tells her to just ask a few questions while they get something else ready.

What follows is one minute and seventeen seconds of TV heaven. Karen introduces him as Guy Kewney and a remarkable series of facial expressions pass through Guy Goma’s face.

Horror, blind panic and then finally mischief. It’s the last one that kills me. He’s clearly seeing the funny side.

Karen, to her credit, goes on to ask two very simple yes/no questions and then gives up on questions and just makes a statement for him to agree with. Goma, to his credit, gives some fairly coherent answers, considering he’s live on TV and doesn’t know anything about the subject.

And then it’s all over. Although not entirely for Guy Goma, as he now has to have his actual job interview. He didn’t get the job. But that was not his destiny. His fate was TV greatness and it scares me how close we came to this not happening.

Happy 20^th Guy Goma anniversary.

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A few years ago, we had three power cuts in a week. The first one affected our whole street and spanned my child’s bedtime, so it felt like I was doing bedtime in medieval times. If they had bedtime routines in medieval times. They probably just fed the livestock until they collapsed with exhaustion next to a chicken or something. And to be honest, when I say medieval times, what I actually mean is my son had to watch TV on the tablet instead of the television.

The second power cut was much more widespread. It happened as we were driving home and all the traffic lights stopped working. I had to get through two four-way junctions and it was like the apocalypse had come. Or the Wild West. Or actually, maybe just a world where a lot of cars slowly edged forwards. When we finally arrived home, I had to get the matches out again and we were about to huddle around the gas stove when the electricity came back.

So when the following evening everything goes off for a third time, I think, “Here we go again. That’s annoying.” But I’m used to it now. I heat some water in a pan to give my son a lukewarm bath and he watches TV on the tablet instead of the television.

Two hours later, it’s still off, so I get the candles out and start really worrying about the food in the fridge and freezer going off. And then my partner says, “Oh, that’s weird, I can see some lights on next door.”

A not entirely unfamiliar feeling of unease bleeds through me and I go to check on our electricity meter. And find it wasn’t a third power cut, our prepaid electricity meter had run out of money.

We went without electricity for two and a half hours. When all I’d needed to do was re-insert the key to activate the emergency credit.

I really should’ve known, as the meter runs dry with some regularity. All I’ve got to open the cupboard and check how much money is left every now and then. But I don’t. Because it’s the cupboard with the hoover and the ironing board, so it’s always a nightmare to close.

I have tried twice to get it changed to a normal meter. But I was told they need to have access to my upstairs neighbour’s flat, and I couldn’t face having to ask him for this. He’s something of a difficult customer. By way of an example, he once told me he didn’t have a phone. Even though I hear his landline ringing all the time and a few hours prior to this bare-faced lie, he’d got out his mobile to show me a photo of something. He also used to regularly complain that I turn my taps on too loudly and once stuck my windscreen wipers down with chewing gum. Apart from these incidents, we are on good terms, which says a lot about what a great person I am.

I can’t even get a smart prepaid meter, which you can top up online. I have to take out the green key, walk to a local shop, top it up, walk home and remember to insert it back.

It’s a massive hassle. So I like to put a big chunk of money on there each time. But what I don’t like is how often the retailer mishears £80 as £18 and then keeps repeating £80 back to me as they’re worried I’ve lost my mind, as most people just want a fiver.

I honestly think I’m the only person in the country with both a mortgage and a pre-payment electricity meter. They’re generally only for people with a horrific credit history. But I’ve been here fifteen years now, so I’ve accepted that nothing is going to change. I’ll add it to the long list of oddities about my flat that will never get fixed and continue to be briefly plunged into medieval times every few months.

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What should I do in the following situation? I’m outside in the world and have some rubbish to dispose of. In this particular instance, it’s the wrapping of a snack I’d given my son, as children have evolved to need to eat hourly. Whereas in my day, it was every five or six hours. I’m probably remembering that wrong, but I also don’t feel like my mum left the house with anything edible in her bag other than Polos. And my dad didn’t even have a bag, just pockets full of cash. I didn’t even know wallets existed until I left home.

Anyway, I have a snack wrapper that I want to get rid of. And I can see a bin. But also, right by the bin is a street cleaner, who’s pushing what is essentially a bin.

Which do I choose?

I feel like if I put it in the street cleaner’s bin, I’m going, “There you go, servant.” But if choose the bin, he will see this and it looks like I’m dissing his portable bin. Plus, I’m making more work for him, as he’s got to empty that bin and it’ll be a tiny bit heavier.

If you’re interested in which option I chose (which is probably unlikely, having got this far), I went for the unmanned bin. Obviously, I didn’t entertain the third option of dropping my litter on the ground as I like to Keep Britain Tidy.

We’ve had this slogan, if that’s the right word, drummed into us since birth. But I’ve never known its history until recently. When I discovered that this campaign was started by what seemed like a very unlikely group. The Women’s Institute. I want to see a film of this, not that Calendar Girls one.

I’d only ever thought of the WI ladies stripping off and making jam. But they’ve done so much more. Like campaigning for equal pay, cervical cancer screening, family allowance, free family planning, women’s refuges, the Fairtrade Foundation and so many environmental issues.

Including littering, by starting Keep Britain Tidy in the Fifties. I do wonder what litter they actually had then. People’s old ration books? An empty tin of evaporated milk? Stubbs from Woodbine cigarettes? People didn’t seem to eat in the street then and surely about 90% of litter is food rubbish.

Their campaign really took off in the 1970s, though, when they got the influencers of the day involved. The likes of Abba, Marc Bolan, Morecombe and Wise, the Bee Gees, Ronnie Corbett, Frank Bruno and the cast of Coronation Street. And the country was so obsessed with picking up litter, the number one kids’ show was about Wombles who pick up litter.

I love the logo. The man with scalene triangle legs who’s putting something in a bin. He’s actually got a name: TidyMan. I wonder how much brainstorming that took?

In America, they have Keep America Beautiful, which was advertised in the 60s by Lassie. An unlikely choice, seeing as dogs are so bad at littering that they litter their own faeces. At least they didn’t feature the Littlest Hobo, as who was picking up after him?

It’s sad we need a campaign. But the average person holds a piece of litter for twelve steps before dropping it, if there’s no bin around.

Maybe we should be like Singapore, where they have really strict laws. A £600 fine plus community service for littering. And the streets are prowled by plainclothes officers scanning for offenders. And if you urinate in a lift, it automatically locks you in and calls the police.

Or maybe we could be like the capital of Rwanda, where on the last Saturday of every month, the whole city gets together and tidies up for three hours.

Keep Britain Tidy was enough for me, though. I just need a campaign now to instruct what to do when faced with a bin and a street cleaner.

If you liked this snippet of history behind the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, you might like my social media stuff. I uncover the stories behind the unsung icons of Britain, like the Meal Deal, Colin the Caterpillar cake and the giant Sports Direct mug. You can find me here:

INSTAGRAM: theotherbritishmuseum

TIKTOK: theotherbritishmuseum

YOUTUBE SHORTS: theotherbritishmuseum

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Say what you like about Google: concerns about tax avoidance, an unhealthy monopoly on the information we receive, privacy violations, the significant carbon footprint and causing the death of the butler from Ask Jeeves. But its Maps has massively reduced my need to ever ask for directions.

Which is a very good thing. But sadly, there are still places it hasn’t reached. Like the insides of hospitals, which have all been designed by the same person who did the layouts of IKEA, the Hampton Court maze and the Marrakesh Medina.

At my most recent visit, it was very unclear where I was supposed to go, so I asked the receptionist and prayed that there were no more than two steps to follow.

There were not. It was something along the lines of, “Turn left, walk to area ten, turn right over the bridge, then right again and then when you get to the white door, take the lifts directly behind you and go down to the ground floor. Come out of the lifts, go straight on, then left at rheumatology and up the stairs and then it’s just second left and third right.”

Here was the information my brain received. “Turn left, walk to area ten.” That’s it. The end. After that, each direction deleted the one before it.

And it’s pointless to ask for it to be repeated. Nothing is going to change the second time around. But I don’t want to admit that I can’t follow what they’re saying. So I do a face that suggests everything is being taken in. Like I’m really concentrating and there’s a lot of nodding and saying ‘a-humph’ and curt ‘yeps’ as I’m focusing too hard to say a full ‘yes’.

I’m just acting. I’m so good at it that if, for some reason, Steven Spielberg gave me directions and I admitted after I hadn’t retained any of them, he’d sign me up for his next movie there and then.

All I’m hoping by the time they’ve finished is that I’ve remembered the first bit, so I can at least walk off in the right direction. But I’m not always sure I have, so I might repeat back what I think are the first two bits, like “Okay, so it’s turn left and go to area 10 and then yep got the rest of that – great, thank you.”

My sister says I have a poor working memory. She told me this after I confessed I can’t follow when someone spells out a word. I looked it up and was so thrilled that I have a condition that isn’t just called stupidity.

And it’s definitely why I can’t cope with WhatsApp voice notes. To know how to respond, I have to take written notes while listening, like I’m a PA taking the minutes of a meeting. (Obviously, I’d be the world’s worst PA, so this is the closest I’ll ever get.)

I wish it were more acceptable to take notes when receiving directions. Or even recording someone’s voice and playing it back bit by bit.

The only thing worse is when someone asks me for directions and then I’m just convinced they want me to get out Google Maps and steal my phone. And it’s worse in my own area, as I never know and have to pretend I don’t live there.

But I mustn’t grumble. As one day Steven Spielberg will give me directions and then make me a movie star and I’ll just hire an assistant to be my working memory. I’m really looking forward to it.

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You’re probably sick of hearing this, but it’s Sibling Day this week. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF IT? It’s thirty-one years old. I’m not sure why there is a National Sibling Day, as I don’t think we need to raise awareness of siblings. It’s not like someone has had one child and then found out on April 10th that there was an option to have another. “A what? A sibling? Well, I’d never heard of that. Let’s get to work.”

I think the existence of this day only registered with me as my son will probably be an only child. I say probably, not because I’ll be having any more, but there’s always a chance that my partner will leave me for someone younger/nicer/more tolerant of him leaving trails of spilt tea on the floor behind him, and then have more children.

When my son ever complains about his lack of siblings, I tell him that brothers and sisters are really overrated until around your twenties and that’s ages away, which seems to placate him.

Although in childhood my sister did me one favour. She made me impervious to tickling by tying me to the bed and tickling me until I couldn’t feel it anymore. Something which I think she learned from her time in the Stasi.

But it’s really great now when people try to tickle me and get nothing. Admittedly, I can’t remember the last time anyone tried to tickle me; I just don’t move in those kinds of circles. But maybe one day, when I’m finally recruited by M15 and get captured and tortured by tickling, this will prove invaluable.

But here’s the story that I will bring out if I really need to back up my conviction that my son is better off alone.

My family had gone to Scotland and we spent one night in a hotel. I was four and my sister was five.

That night, my parents went out and left my sister and me in the room. I know this sounds like a less extreme version of when you hear about a woman who goes on holiday to Tenerife and leaves her 8-year-old home alone to fend for herself and gets arrested on her return. But don’t worry, there was a baby monitor, and they left the receiver half with the hotel receptionists so they could keep an ear on us.

When my parents returned from their night out, they found the receptionists couldn’t wait to tell them what had happened and could barely get it out from laughing. They’d overheard the following exchange between my sister and me.

My sister: Annabel, do you love Mummy?

Me: Yes.

My sister: Do you love Daddy?

Me: Yes

My sister: Well, they don’t love you!

And then I burst into tears.

I’d like to pick this apart for a moment. First of all, the way she set that up, as a five-year-old, is just incredible. She set up that killer blow so beautifully. Any other five-year-old would’ve just gone, “Annabel.. Mummy and Daddy don’t love you.” This doesn’t have anywhere near as much power. Her version was masterful.

I’d also like to question why the receptionists were laughing so much. I was a four-year-old in a strange hotel room with my quite possibly psychopathic sister. Learning for the first time that the two people I loved most in the world didn’t love me. And they’re laughing.

I should also probably question why my parents left us with some strangers and a baby monitor to get all Cain and Abel. But you know, the Seventies. Different times.

And my concern is that National Siblings Day is just going to encourage more of this, once more parents find out about siblings. Forget I ever mentioned it.

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