… the other one snatches away. Last months pay slip was somewhat skewed in favour of the taxman (remember it’s not the Government’s money when they’re funding war by ego, it’s our bloody money robbed via the means of direct taxation). Actually think of it as a financial mugging which rapidly arrested the development of a tidy little upgrade project planned for one of the bikes. Not actually required of course, rather another tweak in the endless/pointless (delete as applicable) search for component perfection.

On enquiring why the Inland Revenue can rape and pillage my wage packet at will, the response was both complex and barely understandable by a man to whom anything beyond log tables requires the use of an accountant. However said accountant summarised it thus: Because they can, mmmwaaaahhhhhh”. That little financial snippet cost me an additional thirty quid.

As each delivery van roars down the road, removing at source the problem of dog-shit by mowing over the odd dim witted turd producer, hope briefly rises that the great pant crisis” is close to being over. But no, here we are at lunchtime “ hope crushed “ with only the smell of canine roadkill to keep me company. It’s cheering me up but has yet to out-stink the pile of smouldering washing.

So far today, it’s been all demand and very little supply. The only sign of the many and varied products recently ordered has been their descriptions in the debit columns on the credit card statement. What a great business model: pay now, possibly deliver in your lifetime. And then only between 8am and 6pm on any day except a weekend or if the van has broken down, or when the shit hot logistics system has accidentally shipped you a dolphin rather than a washing machine. Easy mistake to make eh?

Assuming you can ever get past the cry to barely restrained violence that is your call is important to us, all of our agents are responding to other customer needs”, your reward is a cacophony of pealing laughter, when enquiring if it’s possible to reserve a slightly less ambiguous delivery slot.

I’m expecting the Milkman to pop round, in a minute, demanding money with menaces to the value of a couple of grand. And we don’t even buy milk off the Milkman but living in the world of less service for more money, don’t even think about arguing. Not unless you want to spend some quality time held in a call queue suffering endless Music to slash your wrists by” arranged for Children’s xylophone.

Anyone had any experience of shelf stacking? Or failing that, what’s the minimum age you can realistically send the kids up a chimney?

Our washing machine has finally expired. It passed away noisily after a terminal illness brought on by repeated abuse from my mouldy cycling kit. In this world of throwaway commodity, repairing it was both undesirable and highly unlikely. Even if we could still locate a balding overall’d bloke further defined by tuneless whistling and sporting a stubby pencil behind a grubby ear, he’d have taken one look at the ruined bearings, pointed accusingly to my innocent person and declared your husband? He’s fecked it”.

Obviously in this Internet age, we were spared the slack jawed base grunt and multiple pearcings of a high street sales assistant. Instead our trawling of the world wide wibbly resulted in a net full of complex variants each proclaiming to offer some USP or at least a nifty start button. Further delving rendered these choices irrelevant as all the brands are made by a single factory in Taiwan. Except the German ones which I was keen to reject on the grounds they may feel the urge to invade Czechoslovakia.

Eventually as with all these things and regardless of the selection process, we bought the most expensive one.£550. Five Hundred. And. Fifty. Pounds. For a drum, a few lights and a hole for water. I was aghast until it was cruelly pointed out that once I’d spent more on a set of forks.

For that much money, I assume it has a some kind of cosmic interface that connects it directly to the laundry basket. Continuing that theme, I’ll be mightily disappointed if a small robotic arm doesn’t winch itself out of the drum and collect the kids discarded and dirty clothing from around the house. Apparently the myriad of programmable settings – although I was disappointed not to find the “locate sock” one – requires more processing power than the space shuttle. I’m not sure I feel entirely comfortable with that fact but it’s certainly shifted any career aspirations away from astronautics

According to the “ and I’m quoting directly here “ up to the minute logistically enhanced stock control system”, one of these beomoths could be delivered at the weekend for an additional£20. Seemed like a small price to pay for laundered smalls come Monday morning, but no in fact the system was representing a stock state last updated during the Vietnam war. We are anxiously (and I do not use that word lightly, I am pant counting as I type) awaiting a new delivery date having so far received nothing other than an electronic version of the sharp intake of breadth.

Remind me “ is the secret of single pant longevity to turn them every day or to air them during my lunch hour? If it’s the latter, the whole property strategy of open plan offices could be thrown into disarray.

Maybe it’s my quasi-liberal bent but I can’t help noticing that the best freebies go to those who can most afford to pay full price.

In February, I accepted an invitation for a “corp-hosp”(sic) day at the rugby. From the moment I arrived until my drunken exit some eight hours later, my wallet remained firmly in my pocket while my nose was stuffed deeply in the trough.

Firstly, pretty girls in short skirts express transparently exaggerated delight that you’ve deigned to honour them with your august presence. Then you circulate amongst social climbers and crocodiles thinly disguised as sales directors. “Oh come and meet so and so, he’s right up the arse of the chief executive at BP” they say and those whose noses spend as much time in the brown as in the trough gleefully explain “I’ve been to twenty England matches and never had to pay, not bad eh old chap? Marvellous isn’t it”

No it bloody isn’t.

At£600 a ticket, I’d like to say it’s killing sport for the common man; the problem with that statement is it is clearly bollocks. The success of the team sees every ticket sold twice (mainly by rugby clubs who use it to fund initiatives such as youth rugby which somewhat deflates my argument) and the small percentage of us frauds troughing it up probably makes little or no difference.

So why do I feel so bad? It’s either pretentious introspection or half forgotten student socialism. I’m really not sure but the majority of my besuited sheep at the trough would fail the no.1 rule of “Life is too short to drink with arseholes”. Obviously I’m far too craven to say so instead satisfying myself with a working class smirk.

After drinks and a four course lunch, in what is essentially a tented double glazing showroom with outside toilets, we perambulate unsteadily towards our seats where reality bites. I’m sat next to a couple of passionate Welshman who’ve spent a good chunk of their own cash to watch their team get stuffed. They are -by degrees -macabrely amusing, incisive and gracious in defeat. Representing the English I’m proud to offer up patronisingly magnanimous, slurringly misinformed and pissed.

We retire victorious to the (free) bar back at double glazing central, for yet more drinks, deep mined bullshit and the odd comment on 80 minutes of barely sanitised violence. I may not approve on a moral level but a healthy dose of hypocrisy sees me nose down in the beer trough only occasionally surfacing for air.

There’s some desultory selling -which is of course the point of these things -but they are not really trying and that’s fine as we’re not buying. Man, we barely retain the power of speech by this time. If someone had given me something to sign, we’d probably own a thousand timeshares by now.

But I’m done with it. I know that even if it’s not me, then someone else will be filling my place. Yet by ascending to the moral high ground at least I’ll feel better while actually achieving feck all. So that’s alright then.

Well when I say I’m done with it, that actually means until the next time. But I’ll console myself that my attendance is contextualised in a post modern ironic framework. I’m a bit worried that no one will notice.

Today I’ve set my moral compass to “idealistically arsy”