I had a pasty man at the door today (that’s pale pasty not pastry pasty). This pasty man, think Uriah Heep with winkle pickers wanted me ….well actually, I’m not sure what he wanted. His opening gambit was ‘now don’t be scared’. Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone says ‘don’t be scared’, I’m immediately going to be scared but it was ok. He was one of those phone company sales people. Time wasters more like. In contrast, last week I had a man come to the door whose opening line was ‘do you want to do karate?’. ‘What now’, said I, thinking I quite fancied getting busy with a pile of bricks. But no, he wanted to enrol me in a class. Then today, the phone rang. There it was, the empty pause of the unsolicited sales call – and just as I was expecting Johnny Foreigner to say ‘hello miss, can I speak to the person in charge of your cellotape’, there was what sounded like a large fart. Blimey, this is all a bit Carry On thought I but no, I listened on, only to realise it a was in fact, the sound of a ship’s foghorn. I was being invited on a cruise. Me, on a cruise. I ask you. I get seasick on my garden seat so I don’t think I’ll be joining the Saga set just yet. I’m still thinking about karate though.