Re: Wogan

[Gardian]

Mrs G read Terry Wogan's piece in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph: she reckons that it sums up my grumpiness to a 'T'.  Anybody else like me?

It’s always the little things: wasn't it a mayor of New York who discovered that if justice came down like a ton of bricks on the petty criminal, information was discovered that enabled the law to nail the big boys? My concern over the tiny things that drive you to drink, you might regard as more trivial: the person in front of you at the supermarket checkout, who, having painstakingly spent 10 minutes unloading their trolley, suddenly comes to the realisation that the goods need to be paid for. An apologetic search in the pockets. first of coat, then inner clothing, produces no result followed by an evermore frantic rummaging in handbag, then purse, before - hallelujah! - the cash or card is produced.

Or, if you haven't made any plans for the rest of the day, it could be the slow emergence of the chequebook, the laborious signing, and then, the even slower decanting of the goods back into the trolley. The rest of the world, having ground to a halt, can move wearily on again.

A similar time-worn and draining phenomenon can be freely observed at the passport desk at any airport. Having spent at least a couple of hours uncomfortably seated in a plane, and then walked for the obligatory 20 minutes along endless corridors, you join a queue that drags its slow length alone for another mind-numbing period in which the world appears to have stood still, again. Finally you make it to the yellow line, which, under pain of death, may not be crossed, and the person in front of you, who has also been standing in line for the duration, wakes up to find that they have to produce their passport.

What they were thinking of for all that time, or why they thought they were standing so long in line, must remain one of nature's little puzzles, but there they stand, bemused, and the frantic search begins: the apologetic patting of pockets to no avail, then an ever more panic-stricken search through travel bag or backpack, before, with a huge sigh of relief, the missing passport is discovered. Another numpty re-enters the country.

 

[Clarkkent]

The knighted Tel comprehensively sums up the frustrations that afflict my benighted life.

[Chancer]

I have been at the other end of it, well pretty similar anyway, I was waiting in the queue for passport control at Porta Vila in L'archipel de Vanuatu, passport having been retrieved from its secure location in my backpack when something made me pat down my back pocket for my wallet (the pocket is usually zipped), not there, dont panic Chancer, consider your options, right you are stuffed, no bank cards, no money and in a place without a British consulate, now you can panic [:-))]

I told the guy at the desk which got a groan from the passengers behind thinking I was the numpty, luckily being a small airport even though international I was still airside and he just walked me across the tarmac, we walked up the steps and retrieved my wallet where it had fallen under the seat.

A month later on another island I was sharing a room with a girl who looked familiar, then I realised she had been beside me in the queue that day, she told me that I had burst out to her "I have lost my wallet!" and she was too frightened to say anything as she thought I was a nutter! 

[Russethouse]

Well I've seen Mrs Wogan shopping several times ( she is always perfectly dressed and groomed even for a trip to the supermarket) but I've yet to spot Tel himself......and in any case I bet he 'scans' [:)][:)]