I AM not really a touchy-feely person. I am more a shunny-shunny person. I guard my personal space as enthusiastically as the Israeli army.

If you take up position within 12 inches of me, I will lean back, if necessary taking up the pose of an expert limbo dancer. My theme tune is the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, but only the chorus.

I WAS given a belated birthday present a few days ago, and I would like very much to give it back.

I had been for a run and done the exercises I normally do in a futile attempt to stave off my inevitable decline. If I live until 88 – which is unlikely, given my luck in all areas of life – I am now halfway there.

Consequently, I was feeling pretty fit, in the sense that I was exhausted and wanted to die but was not yet dead. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, what does not kill us makes us stronger, although it is possible he had never heard of polio.

THERE has never been a time in my life when I have not had to prove that I was better than I am.

When I was young, I had to prove that I was as good as an older man. Now I am old I have to prove I am as good as a younger man, and I am not entirely sure when that changed.

There must have been a time in my life when I was exactly the right age, but I completely missed it. This is my tragedy, along with all the others.

The main way I prove I am as good as a younger man, now that I am in my late-early-40s, is by walking. I walk very quickly, my scarf flapping behind me as if I am in the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel.

There are, no doubt, benefits to my health and heart associated with walking everywhere as quickly as I would flee if somebody asked for a volunteer. But that is not the issue in this case. I do not wish to have the body of a 25-year-old, I just want to appear to have the body of a 25-year-old.

I suppose if I took it more seriously I would adopt the gait of the walking athlete, with sharp elbows flying and bottom shimmying.

But it must be an awful life to be an Olympic-level walking athlete – all those early mornings training, eating the right foods, all the time they in the gym, and then they turn up at a stadium and speed round a track, and every spectator is thinking: “Ha! Look at those chumps! That is exactly how I would walk if I were half a mile from home and really needed the toilet.”

Nevertheless, often, while tearing along the street, I will pick up the pace in order to pass somebody who is also walking quickly ahead of me, unleashing the sort of competitive spirit which eludes me in all other arenas.

Usually I win these impromptu races, mostly because I have the advantage of being the only competitor who is aware that a race is happening. But occasionally my opponent will work it out and speed up, and before long we are Seb Coe and Steve Ovett in the Moscow Olympics, passing each other several times without acknowledging our joint participation, and hating each other for the rest of our lives.

This is all to explain that my behaviour is compulsive, and, therefore, what happened was not my fault any more than a lion is at fault for preying on a gazelle. If any factors should be blamed, they are the schools of architecture in this country and the laws of physics.

I was heading to work, walking at my usual speedy pace, and talking to somebody on my telephone, behaviour which had I observed it in another person would cause me to hate that person. In my defence, I am wildly inconsistent.

There was somebody walking ahead of me, and I switched without thinking into competition mode. My pace quickened, and gradually I approached the man. I was just about to overtake him on the right when he too veered to the right.

I slowed down to avoid a collision, and then started again, building up pace. I moved to undertake him on the left, and he moved off to the left.

Maybe this always happens, I surmised, and I would normally adjust, and on this occasion I was merely distracted by the phone call. But maybe this man knew he was in a race and he was switching lanes intentionally to prevent me from beating him, in which case I had finally found a worthy opponent.

I redoubled my efforts, and careered to the right. A burst of speed and I was past him. I was triumphant, just as I was reaching the end of the road.

My triumph, as ever, was short-lived. No sooner had I hoisted my victory flag than a woman came around the corner at a speed matching my own. We collided, as was inevitable.

“Sorry!” I exclaimed. The woman glared at me and continued on her way, no doubt constructing elaborate revenge scenarios in her head.

“Why are you apologising?” asked my telephone interlocutor. I could not explain adequately.

It is moments like these which mean I have to prove I am better than I am. I should really learn to act my age.

FOR complicated reasons I spent Christmas Day on my own this year. I do not wish you to feel sorry for me – unless it somehow leads to me gaining financially – and I know there are many people worse off. For example, I know there are those of you who had to spend Christmas with your relatives and loved ones.

I decided to make the best of it. On my way home on Christmas Eve I picked up the last chicken in Tesco, and I had a cracker left over from last year, so I was pretty much set for the best Christmas since the one before Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by the ghosts.

In the spirit of the season, I put a wash on just before noon, and started peeling some potatoes. Yes, I was a case study for some sort of charity and will probably appear, played by an actor, in an advert which is shown in the afternoon on one of the channels in the bottom half of the guide, but I was not going to let it stop me from having a good Christmas.

“This isn’t so bad,” I thought, the smell of a roasting chicken wafting from the oven, the Christmas tree lights twinkling by the window. It’s possible I hallucinated the carol singers carrying lanterns out in the street, we will never know. I am sure I saw Cliff Richard walking past.

I took a sip of sweet sherry, and started to wash up as I cooked. “Delia Smith never has to worry about this,” I thought. I ran the hot tap to fill up the bowl. “Hmm,” I thought, “This hot tap is taking a suspiciously long time to heat up. It is almost as if it is the cold tap.”

I waggled it to make sure. It was not. And so this Christmas became The Christmas I Spent On My Own With No Hot Water Or Central Heating.
Christmas Day is the very worst day of the year to have your boiler break down, even if you do not have a house full of people, because nobody wants to come out to fix a boiler when there are sprouts, purple Roses, and arguments on offer at home.

Then if the plumber does come out, the chance that he or she will have the part required to repair the boiler is so small that you could hide it behind the bit of Piers Morgan’s brain that deals with self-doubt. And there is no way he or she can obtain the part because nowhere is open for days, because it is Christmas.

The first thing that happens to you on Christmas Day when you have no hot water or central heating is that you immediately feel cold, even if you did not have the central heating switched on anyway.

The second thing that happens to you is you remember that 200 years ago, people managed perfectly well without hot water and central heating and modern day standards of sanitation, and they were all right apart from in the fact in those days if you were 20 you were considered middle-aged.

After my lunch – and one good thing about eating Christmas dinner alone is that you are guaranteed to win the paper hat in your cracker – I became overwhelmed by the need to have a bath, to prove I was not yet a barbarian. Surely that would be all right. I had boiled a kettle to wash the dishes. Admittedly I would probably need a few more kettles to warm up a bath, but how hard could it be, I wondered as I filled the bath with cold water…

I had my answer 56 minutes and 27 trips from the kitchen to the bathroom later. It turns out warming up a bath with kettles and pans is like taking out a jumbo jet with a peashooter.

Eventually I climbed in. It wasn’t really hot enough but I didn’t want to die in my own filth. “This isn’t so bad,” I thought, as I began to relax in the waters. “It’s not so cold outside, and I can manage for a few days. This is nice. I should have a bath instead of a shower more often.”

And with that, I decided the water was not warm enough. I leaned forward, and turned on the hot tap.

And that was why, on Christmas Day, just after the Queen’s speech, you heard that blood-curdling scream.

EVERY so often I like to take the FutureScope 3000 off the top of the cupboard, where it sits next to that juicer I bought that time, blow the dust off it, and take a look at what the days ahead have in store for us.

One from my old Graham Bandage blog…

In the latest of an occasional series of interviews, Graham Bandage talks to Declan Blunt, one of only two socialist magicians.

Graham Bandage: Declan Blunt, you’re one of only two socialist magicians, aren’t you?

Declan Blunt: That’s right, it’s a small niche, but there’s room for the other chap. That’s what socialism’s about, sharing. And magic, of course.

GB: What makes a socialist take up magic?

DB: Well, of course, there’s a long tradition of magic on the left. Marx himself came up with the three-ring trick as an allegory for the separation of legislature, executive and judiciary, then Lenin himself came up with the three-ring trick as an allegory of legislature, executive and judiciary, and Stalin used to cut men in half.

GB: That’s amazing. How did he do that?

DB: Oh, he had a massive saw. I mean, he didn’t put them back together, but it was probably a relief after the gulags. That’s the thing with Stalin – a showman. He used to wear a fez when he did his tricks. That’s where Tommy Cooper got the idea.

GB: Can you take us through your act? I mean, I’m really interested to find out how a socialist magician differs from, say, a conservative magician like Paul Daniels.

DB: Well, for a start, there’s no oppression in my act. I don’t use a magic wand for starters as it’s a phallic symbol and the colour is unnecessarily divisive.

GB: Well call me Thick Jack Clot if you like, but how can you do magic without a wand?

DB: You do know it’s not real don’t you.

GB: Er, yes.

DB: I don’t use animals, so, for example, I would never pull a rabbit out of a hat.

GB: You shouldn’t even put one IN a hat in the first place. That’s just cruel.

DB: Yes, anyway, I don’t put women in boxes and stick swords in them.

GB: Well, yeah. I mean, that’s dangerous. Clearly.

DB: Right, so I don’t do anything that’s oppressive…

GB: You could have a tiny little hat and put it on the rabbit. That’d be OK, but it wouldn’t be much of a trick.

DB: … and I don’t do anything that glorifies capitalism.

GB: So what tricks do you do, then?

DB: Well, I only really have the one. It’s mostly polemic.

GB: One? It’d better be stonking.

DB: Oh, it is. I get an expensive watch from somebody in the audience and wrap it in a handkerchief. Then I smash it with a hammer.

GB: Yeah?

DB: Yeah, and then I take all the pieces and hand one each to every member of the audience. Makes ’em think.

GB: Declan Blunt, thank you.

I HAVE probably mentioned once or twice that I am a bus user. I don’t try to hide it.

Understandably lots of you probably think that being a much-loved and high-profile newspaper columnist means that I am rolling in Apple watches, Twixes, and BMWs, and sleep on a bed of £50 notes.

But I actually donate most of my money to charity, specifically the TESCO – Troubled Ever-present Supermarket Company – which leaves me with insufficient disposable income to enable me to live a lifestyle similar to that of a 1970s Martini advert. I don’t think I even know what colour a £50 note is.

This means I am forced to use public transport every day and to stare out of the window at the same view, as my bus trundles over potholes and people reading their phones as they cross the street.

And so I notice things, small changes in the environment, scratches on doors, a weed growing through the cracks in the pavement, which six-incher is on offer this month in Subway. I am not laying claim to being a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, but if a crime occurred on my journey I would see it straight away.

I wouldn’t be one of those baffling people who sit in front of Crimewatch six months later and say: “Ooh, come to think of it, I DID see somebody being horribly murdered by a person in a red tracksuit top that day. In fairness, I did have a lot on my mind because I had to remember to pick up some milk on my way home.”

So I was fairly amazed to see a Costa coffee shop open up on my route. I had only noticed the day before that the previous occupant had closed down.

“That’s a shame,” I had thought, dismissing the fact that I had never actually been to that shop, like somebody who uses Amazon and then complains that there aren’t any nice little bookshops any more.

But this Costa had appeared apparently overnight, open for business, with customers and everything, seemingly impossibly. I appreciate that I cannot judge the speed of everybody’s progress when it comes to decorating by my own – and yes, it does take me so long to do a room that when I finish the skirting board I have to start it again – but this must have broken the laws of physics.

It was proof once again that Costa has changed science as we know it. We always knew that nature abhors a vacuum, but now it appears that when nature abhors a vacuum it simply slots a Costa in there. I suppose if the big bang theory suggests most of the universe was created in mere seconds, we shouldn’t be surprised that a shop can be fitted with a few tables, a condiments station, and what is effectively a massive kettle in eight hours.

In fact, I just took a short tea break while writing this and walked into my kitchen. I was planning to buy a bread bin in the next week or so with the money I have saved from getting the bus every day, and had cleared a space on the worktop.

And there, not entirely to my surprise, just under the cupboard where I keep my tea bags, was a small Costa branch, filled with miniature people.

I stared through the window, a giant blinking face in the glass, and watched somebody eat a tiny panini, and I thought: “This has to stop.”

Because at some point soon Costa is going to reach saturation point. The firm might be able to beat the laws of physics, but it can’t beat the laws of the market. There are only so many stomachs in this country for coffee to fill.

And eventually, it will meet the same fate as TESCO, closing shops because it had overextended itself, greedily gobbling up profits and estates, assuming the good times would always be there, and never realising that when you are at the top there is nowhere left to go but down.

The expansion will become an explosion, and we’ll all be showered in coffee. Which would probably be a good time to open a chain of dry-cleaners.

In the meantime I have to go back into my kitchen and try to work out how on earth I’m going to get these tiny people on and off my worktop safely. I don’t have the money to buy a little lift.

There’s been some kerfuffle in Britain this year (2014) about Channel 4 losing the rights to show Elf and some genuine upset that this great Christmas film won’t bring the nation together.

This had completely baffled me. I’ve seen Elf. It was sort of OK in bits, but mostly a bit rubbish and in no way a great Christmas movie. A little Will Ferrell goes a long way.

I was going to write a piece slagging it off. But it seemed unfair. It’s been a long time since I saw it, and maybe I needed to look at it again. Maybe it was just me.

So I actually bought the DVD on my way home from work tonight, and I’ve just watched it, and I hate to say it…

It’s not me. It’s you.

I wrote everything from the bit where I say, “THIS IS THE BIT WHERE IT STARTS”, until the bit where I say “I HAVE A HEART OF STONE. THIS FILM IS ABYSMAL”, while I watched the film, and everything else afterwards.

THIS IS THE BIT WHERE IT STARTS…

It starts so well. Bob Newhart is so good and droll as a narrator at the beginning. The titles are just like a 1960s Christmas movie, all story book pages and charming animation.

And then it falls off a cliff.

First we have Ed Asner as Father Christmas, who leaves his sack unattended in an orphanage and fails to see a baby crawling inside. Asner is looking positively sinister. It’s hard enough anyway to sell the idea of a sort of benevolent burglar who slides down your chimney, creeps around your living room, and eats your food to kids without this sort of nonsense. I don’t want a sinister Santa, unless he’s Billy Bob Thornton.

We go back to the North Pole, to find elves dancing like Irish people in Titanic. And then Buddy the baby crawls out of the sack.

So Santa Claus abducted a baby and then decided to give it to an elf? That’s pretty dark stuff. I mean, yes, initially it was by accident, but if I find a child in the back of my car I don’t get to take it home with me and hand it to one of my slaves to raise.

And this is Father Christmas. One of the things we know about Father Christmas is that he knows where every child lives. He knows where that baby should be. It’s not up to him to second-guess the local adoption authorities.

And I’ll tell you this, that child would be better off with human parents, where he’ll fit in, instead of living like a freakish giant. What with this and the exploitation of Rudolph, lovable old Father Christmas is starting to look like a terrible sod.

Now the first clanger. Newhart the Elf has just told Buddy (Will Ferrell) that some kids don’t believe in Santa Claus. This is a massively stupid move. It’s fine for a movie aimed just at adults (not an “adult” movie – that would be obscene), but young kids are watching this. This is like that John Lewis ad where they showed parents hiding toys in the attic. This is not the place to open up a few cracks in children’s innocence. Leave that to the little bleeders in school.

And speaking of innocence, Will Ferrell is supposed to look guilelessly innocent. He does not. He looks creepy. Even if he had the correct CRB documentation, I wouldn’t let him within 50 feet of my children.

Anyway, back to the story, Buddy overhears some elves talking about how slow and useless he is and discovers he is a human, and not an elf. It is comparable with the great Steve Martin scene in The Jerk where he discovers that he’s been adopted by a black family and that he’s always going to stay white. And the comparison is this: that was funny and this is not.

And now the killer. Newhart the Elf tells Buddy all about his life and how his mother put him up for adoption and then died, hands him a photo of the deadbeat dad who knocked his mother up, and then tells him where his dad works.

THEY’VE KNOWN THIS STUFF ALL ALONG. That is what the Americans call a “dick move”.

It’s OK, though, because Santa tells Buddy his dad is on the Naughty List, and maybe now he needs someone to show him some Christmas spirit to redeem him. YEAH, SANTA, OR MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN HIM HIS OWN CHILD THIRTY YEARS AGO AND HE’D HAVE BECOME A DECENT HUMAN BEING AT THAT POINT.

So Buddy then has to walk from the North Pole to New York. Bear in mind that Santa Claus has a method of transportation which can criss cross the globe in one night, dropping presents off at most Christian family homes and some Jewish homes where they don’t keep kosher. He could have put the kettle on, dropped Buddy in New York, and been back before it had boiled. Santa Claus is a total swine in this film.

Finally, an unqualified success. Buddy the Elf wandering around New York. I see what they’re doing now. This is going to be a great adult comedy, a satire on selfishness and consumerism. It’s not for children after all.

He’s met his father (James Caan), who does some sort of job where he has to upset nuns, and who doesn’t believe he’s his son, and now he’s wandering around a department store.

Oh, God, I think this slapstick is actually aimed at children, but the tone is all over the place. There’s even a joke about porno cinemas (“Mummy, what’s a peep show”).

Buddy has just met Zooey Deschanel. She is clearly going to be the love interest, although she is about 15 years younger than him.

Ugh, she is in the shower, while he’s sitting in the bathroom. It’s meant to be sweet, but it’s CREEPY.

Another funny scene, where Buddy confronts the store Santa, and exposes him as a fake in a scuffle. But then again, AT WHOM IS THIS FILM AIMED? Is it children? Then don’t let them see behind the curtain. If a child questions the existence of Santa because of this film, or works out that the Father Christmas in the local department store isn’t real, then it’s appalling and, probably, counter-productive.

After the scuffle, James Caan bails Buddy out of prison, does a DNA test, and takes him to meet his wife and other son. At this point, Buddy explains about the four major food groups – candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup. I am going to come back to this later and you are going to think about how clever I am. He captivates the wife, because this is a film and not real life. In real life, the wife would wave goodbye to Buddy and tell the father he is never to bring that freak into the house again.

James Caan’s boss just told him to do a job on Christmas Eve, and he’s said that’s OK. I reckon that’ll be important later.

Buddy takes part in a snowball fight with his half-brother and then finds out what a terrible man his dad really is. Apparently he works really hard. That is what a terrible man is in this film.

The half-brother tells Buddy to ask Zooey Deschanel out and Zooey Deschanel says yes, even though Buddy is the shower-room pervert and wears tights, so she can probably see EVERYTHING. This is the most ridiculous thing about the whole film. Zooey Deschanel could have her pick because she is Zooey Deschanel.

Buddy gets dressed in normal man clothes to visit his dad in his office and finds out what his dad does for a living – it turns out it’s something to do with children’s books. Children’s books and nun disappointing. This is really clever irony, because he’s actually terrible with children.

I’ve been hoping that at some point Buddy is going to stop being really irritating, but it’s not going to happen, is it? This is for two reasons:

1) Because he is cloying and juvenile and has a high-pitched voice which goes through me.
2) Because he is played by Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell is like Marmite. A brown smear.

Zooey Deschanel goes on a montage with Buddy, and finds him charming. Everything is great for Buddy, but then he turns up at a meeting on Christmas Eve by his father, insults a dwarf by calling him an elf, and is disowned, just in time for the end of the second act.

Buddy runs away. His half-brother goes across town to his father’s office, and walks into a pitch meeting his father is giving to his own boss just to tell him his 30-year-old adult son has gone missing.

The boss is all, “Look, kid, you’ll have to wait five minutes. I’ve just flown here on Christmas Eve to hear this stuff.”

And this leads James Caan to quit his job – ON CHRISTMAS EVE – for the sake of five minutes. Because nothing tells your family you love them more than making yourself voluntarily unemployed from your well-paid job ON CHRISTMAS FLIPPING EVE.

Buddy ends up on a bridge, staring out at the sky, just like Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life, while James Caan and the boy sort of wander about the place looking for him, until he spots Santa’s sleigh in trouble.

Buddy finds Santa, whose engine has fallen off his sleigh. It turns out there’s just no Christmas spirit any more, and Christmas spirit is what powers his sleigh. This is all well and good, but he’s got at least eight reindeer tethered to the front of his sleigh. If Christmas spirit is what powers the sleigh, why does he need the reindeer? This makes absolutely no sense.

In fact, I’m starting to think that this entire film is the brainchild of Richard Dawkins and his ceaseless efforts to prevent children from having any sort of imagination.

For example, a crowd and media descend on Central Park, where the sleigh has crash landed. And the TV reporter is chuckling at the idea that it might be Santa. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS AT ALL. This is a world in which Father Christmas delivers presents. Why do adults not believe in him? Where do they think the presents come from?

Anyway, coincidentally, Buddy and his father and brother find the engine at the same time, and have an emotional reunion, which given he’s only been missing three minutes seems a bit excessive. I have longer toilet breaks in work and I don’t even get a sarcastic round of applause when I return.

Santa tells them they need more Christmas spirit, so some stuff happens and there are all sorts of coincidences and, to build up this spirit, Zooey Deschanel makes everybody sing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, which is silly, as it’s been established that he’s already there, but there you go. And Buddy’s family join in, followed by the rest of the crowd, and eventually ALL OF NEW YORK, even the atheists and the Muslims, presumably. But only one person isn’t singing.

That’s right, it’s James Caan. But when he sings the sleigh flies properly and that’s all it needed. And all the children get their presents. But only one each, according to Santa’s book.

Then Zooey Deschanel and Buddy spend Christmas Day with James Caan and his family and she sings Auld Lang Syne, for some unaccountable reason. Maybe she’s rehearsing for the following week, I don’t know.

And then Newhart the Elf comes back and tells us how they all lived happily ever after, and you’d need a heart of stone not to be moved.

I HAVE A HEART OF STONE. THIS FILM IS ABYSMAL.

It has the rigid journey of a sat nav and the emotional heft of a Steven Moffat Doctor Who episode.

And that is because it is so relentlessly sweet, like the four food groups I mentioned earlier. Because a good Christmas film needs grit. You have to earn that happy ending.

Look at A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a monster. But he’s laid low by the four ghosts, utterly destroyed, so that when he’s redeemed it means something, it has weight.

Look at It’s A Wonderful Life. When George Bailey is on that bridge, he’s suicidal. It’s jet black. His life has failed. His business has failed. Mr Potter is going to destroy his town.

That syrupy ending, where the people of Bedford Falls come to his aid, and he has his family about him is earned. It means something.

But when Buddy the elf is on his bridge, it means nothing. He’s been rejected by a man he didn’t even know existed until about three days before. He’s still got a dad who loves him in the North Pole. Boo-flipping-hoo. He’s only been missing half an hour.

I’m not saying it’s the worst Christmas film ever. Clearly it isn’t. That’s Home Alone 2, which is the movie equivalent of being given exactly the same present two years on the trot, but to make up for it they’ve included some Donald Trump.

But it is not a great Christmas film. If you gave a computer a copy of Screenplay by Syd Field, a picture of a gurning Will Ferrell, a book of fart jokes, and the Phil Spector Christmas album, it would come up with exactly the same script as Elf.

It’s by-the-numbers, cod-sentimental, cynical-yet-syrupy guff. And I’m GLAD it’s not on Channel 4 this weekend. Watch a good Christmas film instead.

Here is a sort of repost of a Friday Interview from my old blog, back when I called myself Graham Bandage for complicated reasons. It is quite topical as long as it is still December, but before Christmas, when you are reading it.

In the latest of our series of interviews, Graham Bandage talks to Andrew Andrews, a man who went from being a humble market trader to one of the richest men in Britain.

Graham Bandage: Andrew Andrews, you’ve got a shedload of money.

Andrew Andrews: I should say so. Although I must say, I don’t keep my money IN a shed. Banks are safer and more convenient.

GB: It’s a shame, in a way. Imagine having a big load of money in your shed. That’d be ace.

AA: Can we move on?

GB: Yeah, I suppose. How did you make your money?

AA: Have you ever been to one of those German markets?

GB: Oh, yes. There are loads of them. I like them because they sell bread. But it’s not ordinary bread that you’d get from a shop. It’s extra-special bread that costs £10. Also sausages.

AA: That’s right. You can’t move for German markets in our city centres at this time of year. Gluhwein-crazed drunks stabbing each other. Teenagers off their faces on gingerbread. Bits of rope, the lot.

GB: I know you’re very rich and everything, but what’s your point?

AA: So what was happening in Germany?

GB: Eh?

AA: While all the German traders are over here?

GB: Eh?

AA: I flew over to Hamburg, and there were loads of Germans wandering around the market squares saying, “Was?” and other German words denoting confusion.

GB: Why?

AA: Because there were no stalls. All the German market traders were over in Britain charging £8 for a hot dog. I could see a gap in the market.

GB: Well, just a gap.

AA: What?

GB: There’s no market. Your gap is essentially THE market. You’ve got a market-sized gap in the market.

AA: Anyway, I sent a load of English market traders over to Germany.

GB: How did that go down?

AA: Like a storm.

GB: Did you do the full experience?

AA: Oh yes, tarpaulin, wire coathangers, milk crates, the lot.

GB: That sounds great.

AA: Those Germans just couldn’t get enough of our teatowels and “genuine” Paddington DVDs. And at £47 a pop, who could blame them?

GB: So that’s how you made all your money.

AA: Oh, no, while I was over there I bought a Eurolottery ticket. Won £45m.

GB: Andrew Andrews, thank you.