IF ONE visits the United States of America, one is asked a series of questions including: “Have you ever been a representative or member of a terrorist organization or a member of a group which endorses terrorist activity?” Cunning, eh? If Osama Bin Laden ever tried to waltz into the States, he’d be done bang to rights.

But it’s not as stupid as it sounds. The US Government is sort of counting on terrorists to tell a fib about their intentions. Because when they do try their hands at a bit of terrorism, Uncle Sam can say, “Ooh, you big fibber, you promised you wouldn’t let off any bombs. We’re going to prosecute you for telling lies.”

Yes, not as stupid as it sounds, but still quite stupid. The US reduces itself to a wronged wife: “It’s not the murdering we object to. It’s the deceit.”

It’s also a back-covering move. It doesn’t stop terrorism, but it absolves the US authorities.

I thought about this while I watched the FA Cup semi-final between Portsmouth and Tottenham (SPOILER ALERT: Portsmouth win) and, specifically, the electronic advertising hoarding at the side of the pitch during a lull in the match.

I saw an advertisement for beer, just the name of the manufacturer, and underneath, in smaller type was the order “Drink responsibly.” You’ll see the same legend on all alcohol advertising nowadays, along with groups of late- twentysomethings enjoying small quantities of fermented beverages in a sensible way, ie,. not being maudlin or aggressive, or projectile vomiting outside the Jacaranda.

Frankly, if that doesn’t wipe out binge-drinking at a stroke, I have no idea what will. Already we can see the effects of this campaign on the streets of Liverpool on a Saturday night. Around Concert Square, it’s wall-to-wall people having a sensible time and being respectful of each other’s personal space and dignity.

“Charley, what do you think? Should we have another glass of Bailey’s? Perhaps a Malibu?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Jade. I already have a definite, if slight, sense of well- being. If I’m honest, I actually think we’ve overdone it as I’m verging on being a bit tipsy. Let’s just stick to soft drinks from now on.”

“Yes, you’re quite right. That would certainly be the responsible thing to do. We’ll just have a cuppa and, if we’re lucky, we’ll be home in time for Casualty.”

I’m not exactly Oliver Reed, but even I would find it difficult to have just one alcoholic beverage on a night out. I’d prefer to abstain completely.

The “Drink responsibly” campaign has only one guaranteed success. It enables the drinks manufacturers who sign up to it to say, “Not our fault, mate. We’ve been quite clear. We reckon binge-drinking is right out of order.”

And it enables the Government to say, “We’ve done our bit. We’ve had a word with the drinks manufacturers and we’ve made it very clear we reckon binge-drinking is right out of order.”

Even sweet manufacturers have their own SnackWise marque, essentially saying “Sweets are lovely, but if you eat too many, you’ll end up with a big tummy.”

It’s got nothing to do with being responsible and everything to do with the avoidance of blame, as the only people who would heed the warnings are the sort of people who already give a damn. If you don’t know or care that sweets are fattening and beer can make you drunk, then no warning in the world will put you off.

THAT said, I actually had a single glass of wine at lunch last week for the first time in, well, my life. I was meeting a couple of former colleagues and was sitting in a French restaurant and I suppose I was a bit overwhelmed by the occasion. I had a delicious steak baguette with Dijon mayonnaise, salad and thin pommes frites, and felt thoroughly cosmopolitan. If Gerard Depardieu had walked in with Juliette Binoche, I’d have happily invited them to our table and talked about French stuff.

And then I realised, “Hang on. I’ve come to a French restaurant, with all the glories of Gallic cuisine on offer, and I’ve basically ordered burger and chips.”

TUMBLING headlong, as I am, towards the age of 40, I should perhaps be less excited than I am by sitting at the front of the top deck on a bus.

But the fact is, when I climb the stairs and discover the front seats are unoccupied, I feel like the winner of the bus lottery, king of the number 78, Bus Aldrin.

So I was delighted to find myself at the front of the top deck, the public transport equivalent of the corner office. Not only could I see where I was, I could also see where I was going. And how rarely in life can one say that?

I spread out and I put my bag on the seat next to me. Best of all, I had room to stretch out my legs in front of me. At five feet eleven and a half – and you can imagine how galling that lack of half an inch was when I stopped growing. I have the Devon Loch of pituitary glands – I spend most of my time on buses with my knees either side of my ears. It was, in short, ace.

Regular readers of this column, and indeed, students of Sod’s Law, will know that such happiness could only be fleeting. As surely as Knight follows Day on the bill of a Gladys Knight show with Darren Day as support, 12 stones of annoyance planted itself next to me.

I don’t really like it when people sit next to me on the bus. I was scarred by an unfortunate incident involving a sneezing passenger with a weak pelvic floor. Even if that nice Karen Gillan off of Doctor Who had sat next to me, I’d have been a bit browned off.

But it wasn’t that nice Karen Gillan. It was a stubbly, stubby, swarthy gentleman who started off by reading a text on my phone, which was on my lap.

I tried to angle my body in such a way that it would render my new acquaintance incapable of reading my phone’s screen. But I could not, firstly because my bag, which had been dislodged from its comfy seat, was now stuck between my two feet.

And secondly, more importantly, it was because Mr Swarthy had decided to adopt a Continental approach to personal space. He had attached himself to my side, his left arm against my right, his left foot against my right, and, yes, his left thigh against my right. If he had leant into my face and sung a Spanish song about love, loss and chorizo I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

I am unused to such intimacy on a bus journey. If I have to sit next to somebody, I play a version of the game where one drags a loop around a twisty wire without touching it. I contort my body so as not to touch the other passengers. And I think they appreciate my pains.

I looked around to find another seat. But there were no empty seats. And in any case, I was stuck, trapped by the bag between my feet, the wall of the bus and the barnacle which was now attached to me, a 12-stone barnacle called Miguel. If I had tried to stand up I would have ended up in his lap, which would have been pretty much exactly the opposite of the message I was trying to give.

No matter, I consoled myself. The bus would soon empty and he would move to a different seat. I felt the cool glass of the window against my cheek and relaxed. Then the person behind me got off the bus. My new friend didn’t move. All right, I thought. He probably didn’t notice.

Then another person got off, and another, and another. I realised that we were now the only people on the top deck of the bus, apart from a young woman near the back. And the Barnacle was still clamped to me. I started to come round to the idea of a life with Miguel constantly by my side. 

The bus reached the end of the route. And he still didn’t stand up. I took action. I grasped my bag and rudely barged past him. I looked back as I reached the stairs and saw Miguel slowly realise the bus was going no further. I wasn’t paying attention as I watched him stand. I put my hand on the yellow rail. Right on top of the hand of the young woman.

Her eyes flashed daggers at me as she pulled her hand away.

I HAVE a problem with dairy products. Not as big as the problem suffered by the woman I overheard in a sandwich shop on Monday asking if the cream of cauliflower soup was dairy-free, but it is a problem nonetheless. I’m not allergic, I just don’t really like them.

I’ll take a whisper of milk in my tea. I enjoy a bit of cheese. I’m more than partial to ice cream. But the rest of it can just go away – cream, yoghurt, butter, custard, milk, they are like wasps to me, an irritant which, unlike bees, brings nothing to the party.

This means I’m in a constant state of vigilance for the Sneaky Cream, the bit of swirly cream that restaurants drop onto puddings unannounced. It can happen on any dessert, but mostly on ice cream.

In restaurants of a certain calibre, I scour the menu for the one pudding which fits my, admittedly pathetic, criteria, the only pud which is not drowned in cream or custard. This is usually ice cream. I know it’s inconsistent to like ice cream and not like cream, but awkward beggars like me are the price of living in a democracy.

Once I’ve located the ice cream, I read through the description. “Chocolate sauce . . . good. Nuts . . . yep. Brownies . . . excellent. Toffee sauce . . . gosh, this is going a bit over the top, but go on. Any mention of cream? No. Good. I’ll have the Chocolate Nut Brownie Toffee Sundae, please, waitress.”

Then I remember the Sneaky Cream. “Do you put cream on that?” I ask.

“Ooh, yes. A lovely big swirl on the top.”

“OK, don’t. Don’t put the cream on. It’s like wasps. I know it’s inconsistent to . . . ”

At this point, the waitress usually runs away.

But on Sunday, while I was out with family, I was caught unawares. I read the menu and was lulled into a false sense of security. For all the options on the dessert menu were brutally specific about the presence of a swirly bit of cream. All apart from one. The Honeycomb Explosion. “Cornish ice cream infused with honeycomb shards, toffee sauce and Belgian chocolate sauce.” “What would you like, sweetheart?” our kindly waitress asked. “Honeycomb Explosion, please.”

“You didn’t tell her no cream,” I was reminded as the waitress departed. “No need,” I said. “The menu was quite specific on this occasion.”

The waitress returned with my Honeycomb Explosion – garnished with a lovely unadvertised wafer and the biggest, swirliest pile of cream in the history of catering. It had almost achieved critical mass – one more milligram and all the cream in the world would have been gravitationally pulled towards it.

It meant I had to do the one thing I hate most in the world – complain in a restaurant. And it wasn’t a straightforward complaint. It was a ridiculously petty complaint. I would be asking the waitress to take it back on the basis that she had added cream, which I don’t like, to something almost entirely made of cream, which I do like.

I decided to take the moral high ground.

“Erm, you’ve given me cream. But there’s no mention of cream on the menu.”

“But we always put cream on it.”

“That’s as maybe, but if I’d known that, I’d have asked for no cream.”

“But we always put cream on it.”

“Why do you put cream on it? I had chips before. You didn’t serve them with a scoop of mash on top.”

The waitress looked me in the eye, murder in mind, the words “The customer is always right” ringing hollow in her head.

“I’ll get you another one,” she said.

“Told you to say no cream,” I was reminded when I sat down.

“Why should I?” My dander was up. “Do I have to check for every unwanted ingredient? Oh, can I have that ice cream without mince, carrots, Babycham and arsenic?”

The waitress returned with a cream-free ice cream and departed. No “sweetheart” this time.

“Oh,” I said. “She didn’t put a wafer in.”

I JUST went to the shop. I won’t tell you what I went for, this isn’t one of those confessional columns, but the item I bought cost me £1.09.

I tell you what, I’ll let you in on which shop it was. It was the Sainsbury’s Local over the road. My road, not yours. Unless you work with me. I’m going down a cul-de-sac. Not the road. The road isn’t a cul-de-sac. I’m drowning. Help.

So, anyway, I handed over £1.10 from my back pocket. I wouldn’t normally have change there, but there’s a little hole in my front pocket. 

And then time mysteriously slowed down.

For I was caught in the penny trap, the trap we all fall into when we overpay by a penny.

All the permutations ran through my brain. Stay and look like a miser? Or should I walk away nonchalantly? “Cuh!” my action would eloquently state, “I am far too important to stand here waiting for a mere penny. I wear a suit to work, for heaven’s sake.”

But then the fear of the callback clutched at my heart. The dread of the moment when the checkout assistant would say, “Ey, love, you’ve forgotten your change.” And then I would have to skulk back, in front of the queue, to retrieve my dull penny.

I decided to wait. But the checkout assistant was chatting. And painfully slowly she reached into the till, took out the penny and kept it in her hand.

I immediately switched from “imperious penny change avoider” to “tight-fisted penny change hoarder.”

Now I was waiting, waiting in front of a load of people all watching and judging me, waiting for a penny – a unit of currency so small it doesn’t even buy a penny sweet these days, so small I’d need sixty of them just to buy a copy of the Daily Post.

“Why didn’t I hand over a £2 coin, or even £1.20?” I railed at the heavens. “Nobody would bat an eyelid at a man of my bearing and position hanging about a bit for 11p.”

The sadistic checkout assistant finally dropped the hot penny into my hand. “D’ya wanna receipt?”

Did I want a receipt for my £1.09 purchase? (Oh, all right! It was a bottle of Coke.) I have a £2 limit on receipts.

I can’t imagine bringing anything back to the shop for less than £2. It’s not like a bottle of Coke can be corked.

Equally, I can’t imagine going back to the shop and saying, “Can I exchange this? It looked all right in the shop, but when I took it into the daylight it was very lacklustre. Do you have an Irn Bru in this size?”

Aside from that, I didn’t much fancy being handed my receipt first, and then having the penny placed upon the top.

Incidentally, when did shops implement that ridiculous way of handing over change? You know the one. First the assistant hands you your purchase, then she places any notes flat on your hand. Then she piles the loose change on top of the notes. And then she puts the receipt on top of that.

Frankly, if you can get the money into your pocket or purse without dropping a coin after that rigmarole, you should consider a career in the circus.

Perhaps that’s the point. Maybe margins are so tight, the supermarkets count on bits of change rolling under the shelves, ready to be retrieved and banked later.

I don’t know why the supermarket assistants don’t go the whole hog, hand us our change and then tickle us under the arm. 

“No, no, it’s all right,” I said, desperate to get away from the tills and into safety.

I bustled out of the shop, shoving my change into my front pocket.

The penny fell out through the hole and rolled down a grid.

I DON’T like vox pops – where ordinary members of the public are asked their opinion on a topic so that there are some ‘real’ people in the first 10 minutes of the TV news.

This is partly because I always hated having to do them as a reporter. If you want to feel loathed by strangers, without actually being Jedward, then stand in a busy high street with a tape recorder and camera and ask passers-by what they think about education policy.

But it’s mostly because they usually contribute nothing to a story. If I want to hear an ill-informed nutter with no access to the relevant facts ranting on about something, I’ll record myself.

Which is why I’m deeply sceptical of our coalition leaders’ plan to get ordinary members of the public to help them decide where the axe will fall in the economic winter ahead. 

It’s not a hopeless attachment to the over-mighty nanny state to expect an incoming government after many years of opposition to have at least a bit of an idea what they might actually do when back in office, is it?

I don’t think we elect politicians so that they can walk into government then turn around and say, “I say, having a bit of difficulty distinguishing elbow from bottom. Could you possibly…?”

But maybe I’m off the pace here. Maybe this is what the country needs. Perhaps it’s time to say goodbye to experts who’ve spent years studying problems from all the angles before coming up with well-considered plans.

Yes, it’s time for people with no idea of the consequences of a policy to have the whip hand.

I can imagine how this big idea could be applied to other situations. And here I am, imagining it…

A GARAGE. TED THE MECHANIC IS HAVING A LOVELY MUG OF TEA WHILE LISTENING TO THE RADIO. 

ENTER MRS HARTLEY. 

MRS HARTLEY: Excuse me. I’m having a spot of trouble with my car.

TED: You’ve come to the right place. We’re always fixing cars here. Just get it onto the blocks. Lovely. OK, let’s have a look. Hmmm…

MRS HARTLEY: What’s wrong with it?

TED: Looks to me as if the big end has gone.

MRS HARTLEY: Gosh, that sounds fairly major. What are you going to do?

TED: I literally have no idea. Hang on a second. Oi, love!

TED STOPS A PASSER-BY, ELDERLY MRS GRIMSHAW. 

TED: How do I fix this?

ELDERLY MRS GRIMSHAW: Ooo, that looks bad. Is there any of that stuff in it?

MRS HARTLEY: What stuff?

ELDERLY MRS GRIMSHAW: The magic brum-brum fire-water.

TED: Petrol.

MRS HARTLEY: Yes.

ELDERLY MRS GRIMSHAW: It needs more of that magic brum-brum fire-water. Cars need it to go. Just pour it over the engine.

TED POURS SOME PETROL OVER THE ENGINE. 

TED: Still nothing.

ELDERLY MRS GRIMSHAW: If it’s fire-water, it needs fire. Chuck a lighted match in.

MRS HARTLEY: Are you sure about this?

TED: No, it’s bound to make an explosion and kill us all, but Elderly Mrs Grimshaw is a member of the public so I am not responsible for the inevitable carnage.

TED STRIKES MATCH. 

ENDS.

IN THE drudgery custard-filled days of Walter Smith’s Everton reign, the monotonous and insistent drone of the vuvuzela would have provided a welcome spark of excitement.

“Oh, look,” spectators would have said, “Another pinpoint Niclas Alexandersson pass has gone straight into the Bullens Road stand. Still, at least we have this grumbling bee noise to distract us.”

But those were less demanding times. Nowadays, the vuvuzela horn is giving non-South Africans the hump on a massive scale. According to the BBC, 545 people complained to the broadcaster about the noise. 

My sympathy is with the Beeb on this one. Damned if you broadcast the vuvuzela noise, damned if you strip out all the sound from the match and replace it with the soundtrack from a completely different match but which has goals, highlights, fouls and controversial incidents at exactly the same points. As the saying goes.

That doesn’t mean I approve of the din. The big problem for me is the fact that it doesn’t seem to do anything, like Prince Edward. If it’s a constant noise, then it’s meaningless. It’s another method of saying, “I’m at the match,” when a more concise and eloquent way of expressing this thought is by simply being at the match, but I am no expert.

It’s a South African cultural thing. But, historically at least, we bear our own shame. The vuvuzela’s howl is nothing compared with the rattles which British supporters used to swing, now mercifully defunct thanks to health, safety and anti-idiot legislation. Although I was delighted to discover this week that John Lewis is selling football rattles in its toy department. Presumably it also sells spats, jerkins and loon pants in its children’s clothing department.

But there is a place in football for horns and other noise-making devices. And I think they can be used to repair the damage wrought to the game’s reputation by the prima donna alpha males marauding around the pitches of the Premiership.

I am advocating that the kazoo make an appearance in the stands. Imagine the joyous kazoo fanfare that would greet a goal. Obviously, the supporters would have to get together before the match to decide which tune and tempo to use for the fanfare, otherwise there’d be a terrible cacophony.

And there would have to be some sort of conductor who would decide when to start, as it would be dreadful if the kazoo chorus started when, for example, Emile Heskey took a shot which then sailed harmlessly past the post before turning into a beautiful butterfly. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a kazoo player fade into embarrassed silence, but imagine hundreds of them doing it at once. Awful.

But the musical instrument I would most like to see in the stadiums is the swanee whistle. For those not in the know, this is the whistle with a sliding attachment which raises or lowers the pitch. And this would be used whenever there was a foul or missed shot.

This would take the sting out of a two-footed tackle. Instead of the players having a big fight on the pitch and threatening to asphyxiate the referee, they’d all be standing about laughing at the comedy pratfall. Even the poor player rolling about in agony on the grass with a broken leg would have to smile.

And instead of supporters getting irate and shouting abuse at the hapless, for the sake of argument, Emile Heskey, they would be chuckling and demanding that the funny missed shot be repeated on the big screen. “We’re not very good,” one set of supporters would sing. “No, you’re not, but at least we’ve all had a good laugh. Shall we have a pint after the game?” the other set of supporters would reply.

You might think this is an impossible dream, but I’d venture it’s a lot more likely than England winning the World Cup.

I RECENTLY had occasion to visit the Institute of Modern Etiquette. This is a fine organisation which has provided me with the wherewithal to navigate through 21st-century social interaction without which I would no doubt be either shunned, arrested or murdered.

But so much of its work goes unnoticed, so this week I interviewed Simon Flatley, the director of the Institute, to get an insight into its valuable role.

GARY BAINBRIDGE: Why don’t you tell me about the Institute’s history?

SIMON FLATLEY: Well, it became apparent, following developments in sexual politics . . . 

BAINBRIDGE: Sexual politics, heh. Sounds like something Chris Huhne would do.

FLATLEY: . . . .and information technology that the world had changed and etiquette had to change with it.

BAINBRIDGE: What are they doing over there?

FLATLEY: Ah, that’s our IT team. They’re exploring appropriate responses to the news that one’s mother has added oneself as a friend on Facebook. Early findings are that sticking fingers in one’s ears and shouting “No, no, no, please, mum, no!” is ineffective.

BAINBRIDGE: And that one?

FLATLEY: Ah, that’s the middle- class guilt team. They look at the best ways of dealing with tradesmen and the working classes – how many times one has to make a cup of tea for the plumber, how to ask a cleaner to do a task without blushing, that sort of thing.

BAINBRIDGE: And taxis?

FLATLEY: Oh, that’s a sub-section of its own – we’re exploring whether one can get away with rounding one’s tip up to a pound if the meter has only just that second gone to 40p, and what to say when the taxi driver asks one which team one supports.

BAINBRIDGE: And what do you say?

FLATLEY: Early indications are “Cuh! What do you think, mate?” works best. The ‘mate’ is, of course, very important when dealing with the working classes. Also, ‘pal’ and ‘love.’

BAINBRIDGE: Erm, it’s funny you mention football. I’ve got a query of my own. Erm, imagine you work in an office with a load of tellies, a newspaper office, say. And the World Cup’s on all of them.

FLATLEY: Yes?

BAINBRIDGE: But you really want to see Roger Federer playing at Wimbledon. How do you broach that subject, without looking like a weedy big girl’s blouse? Hypothetically speaking, of course.

FLATLEY: Ah, that’s easy. Use this script: “Hey, lads. Venus Williams is on in a sec and she’s completely nude. Well, I say nude, she’s actually wearing an all-in- one body suit which is painted exactly like her body, because she thought that Ann Summers outfit she had the other week wasn’t quite saucy enough. In the meantime, let’s kill time by watching this boring Federer match.”

BAINBRIDGE: That’s genius. Simon Flatley, thank you.

NEWS that an American prisoner was executed by firing squad led to thoughts of last requests. If I were to be killed by firing squad, I would want the man from the Go Compare TV ad to serenade me.

Then, when the squad reloads after shooting him, I could say, “But look what I have delivered unto you.” And the governor would say, “Yeah, fair enough, off you go.”

You might think this is bad taste, but I suggest you take it up with the US Government. I only joke about shooting people dead; they actually do it.