A Runt’s Rant: When Do YOU Do Your Weekly Shopping?

Link to podcast to follow

Well, I do mine in my lunch break and I’m not ashamed to say it.

Although, judging by the recent comments of pretty much everyone, I might well have a very good reason to be.

And here’s why:

The Guy Who Does His Shopping in a Suit

As I was walking around the supermarket today, picking up my groceries, a young couple walked past me and, after giggling for about five seconds, said:

‘ROFL’, the girl said. ‘Imagine if we went out to do our shopping in our graduation clothes! I mean, the guy’s practically doing his shopping in suit!’

The fact that I was wearing a suit, of course, was incredibly entertaining in itself. Its hilarity was, it would seem, significantly enhanced by the fact that I was also carrying a shopping basket full of fruit.

Point taken, though; next time I go out shopping in my lunch break, I’ll change into a track suit. Or a pair of overalls; weather permitting, of course.

You Should Get Your Kids to Do it

When I went to the counter, the shop assistant asked me whether I was normally doing my weekly shopping in my lunch break. When I said I was, she replied:

‘Oh, you poor thing! You should get your kids to do it for you; that’s what I do anyway!’

What a brilliant idea, I thought…All I needed to do was to get me some kids…

You’re the One; the ONLY One

When I finally reached work with my bags of shopping, a colleague of mine looked at me, smiled and said nothing. In my defence (to his not saying anything, naturally), I said that I could not possibly be the only one around who did his shopping in his lunch break.

‘You are, Mr Anderson; you ARE the One; the ONLY One.’

I had no idea who that Mr Anderson was and, to be honest, felt a bit offended by the fact that my colleague didn’t know my surname, having worked with me for more than a year now.

He then handed me a spoon and, looking rather amused, asked me to bend it by using my mind.

I was, however, too tired from my shopping trip and bent it using sheer physical force instead.

That, for some reason, didn’t make him as happy as I thought it would.

Although all of the above reasons seem quite logically compelling, I am still of the firm opinion that they’re actually not.

And if the above sounds confusing to you, you should try doing your shopping during your lunch break, in a suit, without using your kids and by being that One Mr Anderson who’s hobby, apparently, is bending spoons by using his mind.

A Runt’s Rant: Having Nothing to Rant About

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Back in the day, when I was in university, people used to tell me that I complained too much.

I was often told that, although it was healthy to complain every now and then, it was absolutely pointless to complain about everything. Not to mention annoying.

At that point, I couldn’t help but wonder whether if I was to complain about everything SYSTEMATICALLY (i.e. one thing at a time), people would still get frustrated.

Well, you’d be happy to know that I had found out that the above strategy worked quite well.

If you were optimistic, positive and bubbly in 80% of the time and threw in the odd rant every now and then, in the remaining 20% of the time, people would barely notice that you were complaining.

I had, however, recently noticed another thing; if you did not complain AT ALL, people AUTOMATICALLY assumed that there was something wrong with you.

The other day, in fact, I went out with a couple of friends of mine who kept asking me what was wrong with me.

Mind you, they did not do so because I was crying or because I looked horrible (not that day, anyway).

Rather, they kept on doing so because I had not complained of anything in more than two days; and that, they said, was quite worrying.

When I asked why it was worrying, I was immediately lectured on how there were two types of angry people: implosive and explosive. The latter, said Jack Nicholson in ‘Anger Management’, were the customers who shouter at the cashier day in and day out about idle things. The former, as described by the actor, are the cashiers who’d once day decide that they’d had enough of it all and so would take out a gun a shoot everyone.

As I didn’t quite know how to react to that, I smiled, rather defensively, and assured my friends that I did not have a license for a gun and was, therefore, quite incapable of such an undertaking.

Besides, I said, there were just some days on which everything seemed quite alright and you simply forgot about your troubles.

My pseudo- optimistically- sarcastic reply was met with an unnecessarily loud ‘Yeah, right!’ which came out of one of my friends; an outcry that made the barmaid turn around to give me a look so intense, it almost cracked my glasses and broke my heart (oh, the drama of it all!).

She then turned to my friends and, smiling rather slyly, snapped:

‘Hakuna matata, fellas! Leave the chap alone; he’s barely touched his pint.’

The imminent silence which followed was disrupted by the DJ playing the above song and the hearty laughs coming from each side of the table.

I then remembered that I hadn’t heard that song in ages which lead on to a ten- minute rant about how horrible music was these days.

Ah, there it was.

And, to be honest, it did feel good to have something to rant about every now and then.

A Runt’s Rant: Is 2013 the…New…2014?

Link to podcast to follow

Owing to the incredibly intense sunshine that has enveloped Southampton today, I am finding it increasingly difficult to rant about anything.

Nevertheless, it being a Wednesday and me being myself, I shall do my utmost best to do so.

Just as I was basking in the sunshine on my way to work today, thinking to myself how the world can sometimes be quite a wonderful place, the most amazing thing ever happened to me: I experienced first- hand time travel.

I am not, for once, being random or attempting to be funny; rather, I am merely stating the obvious.

I mean, what other logical explanation could there possibly be for my listening to a report on the Porsche Cayman 2014 S in April 2013?

As I walking around, still quite bewildered by what had just happened, my mind was racing as my look was running around the scenery.

It took me exactly 2.6 seconds to realise that I had not, unfortunately, travelled in time and had been yet another unfortunate victim of subliminal advertising.

(In case you were wondering what gave it away- it was a guy wearing a grass- green shirt. I knew for a fact, you see, that those were predicted to come out of fashion in autumn 2013. Ergo, it couldn’t have possibly been 2014. Logic at its best, I’d say.)

I wasn’t quite certain at time as to what the reason behind the said type of advertising was.

Did Porsche want me to think that they had defeated time itself with their flawless designs and futuristic technology? (Am actually not being sarcastic; I love Porsche)

Or were they simply implying that whoever did not drive a Porsche Cayman 2014 S was ‘so 2013’? If so, what was, I wondered, wrong with being ‘so 2013’ in 2013?

Another possible explanation was that Porsche HAD somehow managed to come up with a car out of the future which, of course, begged the question:

Why aren’t the G20 involved in all this?

I mean failure to predict economic meltdown and now this: letting a private company have open access to time travel?

When I looked online to compare the Cayman 2013 to the 2014 S one, however, I found out that they were, more or less, pretty similar in both performance and appearance.

Were Porsche then trying to unite the world by showing all of us that the past, present and future were not so different after all?

Or were they trying to make the point that if we wanted to change the future, we really did have to work pretty hard unless we didn’t want to end up with one mirroring the present?

The above was, I decided, too much to fathom in day (in a SUNNY day).

No more pointless contemplation, I decided, checking my Facebook.

‘Dude, the new FIFA 2015 game is out!’, read a friend’s status update.

I closed my eyes, sighed and reached the conclusion that time travel was not my cup of tea.

I’d always been more of a peppermint kind of guy.

A Runt’s Rant: IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ ON!

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It’s quite funny (or sad?) how in today’s day and age, when used in email correspondence, the word ‘important’ actually means ‘uber spam’.

When I opened my private email today, for instance, there were about fifteen emails which were literally screaming at me (by means of an excessive use of caps lock), telling me how they IMPORTANT they were.

As I was feeling incredibly magnanimous today (it being sunny and all), I decided to give the said emails a chance and, so, started looking through those in turn.

I shouldn’t have.

For today’s rant (and, hopefully, for your entertainment), I have chosen to look at and comment on the top five of those.

IMPORTANT! DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE!

Great properties on offer in London, ranging from £500k to £3mln available NOW! Call NOW and don’t MISS your chance to move into YOUR DREAM PROPERTY!

As soon as I saw the above, I said to myself ‘OK, AM DOING IT NOW’, at which point I phoned through to HR and requested a £1mln pay raise which I, of course, got and paid for the said property in cash.

I NOW own a beautiful three- room apartment in central London which I can always visit in my dream.

IMPORTANT! DO IT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

Is your hair receding? Buy our new and improved shampoo with OLIVE OIL EXTRACT before IT’S TOO LATE!

Even though my hair wasn’t receding, I decided that the above sounded way too serious to be a joke or a scam, so I popped down to the local corner shop and got me a bottle of olive oil.

IMPORTANT! CHINA IS GOING DOWN!

Have you HEARD? China’s growth is STAGNATING and YOU can make a profit out of that by buying shares in OUR Company!

And here I was, thinking that by 2020 China would become the world’s largest economy. Apparently, economists had lately failed to take into account such IMPORTANT emails and had deceived us all.

Had the above company actually existed, I would have bought some shares in it, honestly.

IMPORTANT! DO YOU FEEL SAFE!?

Is your neighbourhood unfriendly? Do people SCARE you? Call us for IMMEDIATE protection!

Talk about the Good Samaritan, eh? I was so happy to see that such caring companies still existed.

The only thing that puzzled me a tiny bit was…what exactly were they going to do if I was to call them? Teach me karate over the phone? Give me some ninja advice? Send me some pepper spray through the post?

IMPORTANT! PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THIS EMAIL!

Hi, my name is XXXX and I am a registered UK barrister who has been advising the Nigerian government on various matters.

Recently, one of my clients in Nigeria passed away in a plane crash and I am now dealing with his estate.

As he has left behind a discretionary trust, I am looking for lucrative investments with which to maximise his capital.

I am writing to you as I am willing to invest £ 500, 000 in YOUR company.

Could you please get back to me at your earliest convenience with your bank details?

Yours sincerely

XXXX.

I knew I shouldn’t have wound up my PLC! Had I not done so, I would have now been able to get a SECOND dream apartment in central London. Ah, well, you win some, you lose some.

In the light of the above, whenever you feel down or under the weather, do go through your IMPORTANT emails.

I can assure you that it’s an eye- opener, in the very least.

A Runt's Rant: How is This Even Possible!?

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Honestly, I am sick and tired of this nonsense!

Regardless of the fact that I was still feeling weak, I decided to go out for a walk and a cup of coffee today because I hadn’t left my room for the past four days and it was getting a bid sad.

I decided to do so in my track suit because, for once in my life, I wasn’t feeling like going out in a suit.

So I sat in the nearest Costa and selected a table situated next to a respectfully dressed chap.

His friend soon joined him, at which point they turned around and commented on the horrific state of my hair, to which I replied:

‘Blame it on the barber, my fair...sir.’

I was quite taken aback by his counter- remark.

‘He must’ve been a Pole then! Ha!’

I shook my head disapprovingly and got back to my cappuccino.

In about fifteen minutes, two further gentleman joined their ranks and started discussing the fact that I had not shaved in days and that I should not have gone out in a track suit.

I decided to keep quiet for once.

At that point, one of the bulkier gentlemen, wearing a PINK shirt and a RED tie, noted that he had known how to dress properly since he was eight; I begged to differ, of course.

What they did next, however, was the last straw:

‘Bulgarians? Yeah, nasty bunch they are, best kept away from the UK!’, one of them pointed out, the other ones nodding in agreement.

I couldn’t believe it; I REFUSED to believe it. Recently, I managed to convince myself that such comments were not becoming commonplace and I was but imagining things.

Alas, I was no longer certain that that was the case.

I turned around and, somehow containing my anger and annoyance, asked the group with an almost painful politeness:

‘In what way are Bulgarians nasty? Would you be so kind as to elaborate?’

‘None of your business.’, I was almost barked at.

To which I simply replied that it was, indeed, my business as I had taken it as a personal offence, me being Bulgarian.

There was silence for a second; only a second, mind you.

‘Because they come to this country and offer to work more for less, taking jobs from honest English people! Most of them are labourers that do not, in any way, contribute to the general state of the economy!’.

‘Labourers?’, I smiled. ‘Well, I work in a law firm and can assure you that a fair number of my Bulgarian friends work in the banking, legal and media sectors. In fact, I had myself worked in all three.’

Many had maintained that such thoughtless racist comments such as the ones uttered by the group of people sat next to me were made by the uninformed ‘proletariat’ or ‘precariat’ as it was now called. What followed next, however, was like being hit by a wet towel; about twenty times in a row.

‘Ah, it’s all good, then’, one of them said’ We’re all colleagues. I’m a solicitor and those chaps are all bankers! No offence old chap, you’re all good.’

Ah, thank God it was all a joke, eh...? 

A Runt’s Rant: Going the Quarter Mile

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So I went to London for the weekend because…well, because I felt like it, really.

The sun was shining, the birds were chirruping, the cabbies were swearing and the bus drivers laughed heartily at your measly attempt to cross at a zebra crossing without getting honked or shouted at.

Ah, yes, London.

I was waiting for a friend of mine at Liverpool Street station when I overheard two lovely Englishmen gentlemen, sat at a McDonald’s table outside, commenting on the ‘Bulgarian and Romanian scum that English people like them would now be paying for’ and how ‘gash it was, init?’

Some might think that the above might have offended me to an extent; all it did, however, was to make me laugh.

I did so because the irony of it all was that those two fine gentlemen stood in the immediate vicinity of a piece of somewhat well- educated ‘Bulgarian scum’ dressed in a rather smart Austin Reed suit.

It made me smile, because, apparently, as at 1^st January 2014, such gentlemen will be buying me my suits, them having to pay for us and all that.

Having had the pleasure of listening to the above gentlemen’s compelling arguments for about a quarter of an hour, my friend finally showed up.

Without exchanging pleasantries, we decided that I’d be best to leave the precariat have their 99p burgers and chips in the peace and quiet that fills their craniums.

You just couldn’t argue with that.

As it was a marvellously sunny day, we decided to go to Sushisamba and grab a drink. The place is on the 38^th floor of the Heron Tower and offers a magnificent view of the City as well as a rich menu of all types of overpriced sushi and other meals.

To those of you who haven’t been there, it’s a magnificent experience; in fact, let me give you a taste:

Having had a couple of drinks, we decided to take a walk along the quarter mile and have a cup of coffee somewhere.

It was 5 p.m. On a Saturday. With good weather.

We decided to grab a cappuccino at a nearby Costa only to be told that it closed in fifteen minutes’ time.

I shrugged my shoulders in disbelief and wandered off to look for other cafés.

Alas, there were absolutely NO cafés which were open post 5pm, regardless of the fact that the weather was brilliant and there were millions of people in the streets, wanting to spent their money on silly things such a tall skinny vanilla and cinnamon late with marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles on top (bit of an overkill, really).

In fact, it would seem that, come 5pm, people had pretty much no choice but to go and sit at a pub and have a pint or ten.

It made absolutely no sense to me; why would you not remain open till later when there was a fair chance that you could earn more money than usual…?

1. Because staff don’t get paid overtime
2. Because your license only permits you to stay open till 5pm
3. Because people around expect you to close at 5pm

Re 1), the money that you’ll make will, most probably, cover the cost of the overtime.

Re 2), most licenses allow cafés to stay open until 6- 6:30 p.m.

Re 3), what people? The throngs of tourists that have never been to London before…?

In the end, we gave up and went to a lovely pub which served Sunday roast on a Saturday.

There was hope after all.

And Guinness.

Thank God, there was Guinness.

A Runt’s Rant: The Weather Forecast

Link to podcast:

<< http://www.mixcloud.com/antonipeychev/a-runts-rant-the-weather-forecast/ >>

What I wanted to do in my lunch break today was to go for a walk in the park; it really wasn’t too much to ask for, was it now…?

Or maybe it was.

What woke me up in the morning was the drought created by…nothing, really.

My door was shut, my window- closed.

It was then when I realised that it wasn’t actually drought; rather, it was a wind so strong and so cold that it made my heart sink into oblivion (quite picturesque, I know).

And oblivion is definitely NOT something that you want to sink in before work; it leaves a pretty bad taste in your mouth, much like a rotten tomato- you know it’s past its prime but you have it anyway, just because.

As I was having my breakfast, I thought that it would be quite clichéd for me to rant about the weather in England.

And then I thought about it some more and reached the following conclusion:

• It was 3^rd April.
• It was supposed to be warm and sunny.
• I was supposed to be chirruping alongside the birdies.
• I was supposed to walk around in my suit only.
• It was also -2 C.
• There was freezing cold wind.
• There was no Sun.
• There were no smiley people in the streets.
• There were barely any people in the streets, in fact.
• I was wearing a t- shirt, a shirt, a suit, an overcoat, a scarf and leather gloves, through which my fingers were still freezing up.

I was not a happy bunny and decided that it would, in the end, make perfect sense for me to complain and whinge about the weather.

On my way to work, I stumbled across several people who were only wearing a T- shirt, no overcoat, etc.

And then I thought: could wearing only a t- shirt act as a placebo of sorts in that it made you forget or ignore the cold weather?

I took off my overcoat for a second and decided that, even thought I’d had little sleep, I still had some sense left in me to immediately put it back on.

It was -2 C and no placebo was going to change that.

I walked through the park on my way to the office; it was as barren as a student’s fridge on a Sunday evening. There were no birds chirruping; a couple of chaps who had a bit too much to drink did, however, put up quite a good performance of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’.

But it was definitely ‘their’ song as opposed to his; thankfully, I recognised the lyrics and substituted their melody and rhythm for the ones in my head.

Sat at my desk, with a cappuccino in my hand, I looked through the window and I thought to myself:

‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea if I bought several paintings for the office and used those to cover up the windows?’

Something along the lines of:

  

‘Brilliant’, I thought.

And then forgot all about it.

A Runt’s Rant: What I’d Like for my Birthday

Link to podcast:

<< http://www.mixcloud.com/antonipeychev/a-runts-rant-what-id-like-for-my-birthday/ >>

Rather than ranting on a random topic today, I have decided to share with you a list of the things that I would like for my birthday.

In doing so, I shall try to be as concise and non- sarcastic as possible; mind you, there’s a very slim chance of that happening.

Here we go then (not in order of importance):

I’d like people to stop pretending they’re stupid

It really does scare me when a person, that I know for a fact is smart, pretends to be stupid just so that he can fit in with his surroundings.

Newsflash: it doesn’t do you any justice; why don’t you just find smarter people to hang out with…?

I’d like people to try and be more positive

And, pray, don’t start yammering about how difficult life is and what challenges you need to go through on a daily basis.

Here’s a quick quote reference which should get you started:

‘I stopped crying for new shoes when I saw that there were people with no legs.’

I’d like people to understand that there’s no such thing as being ‘realistic’

You’re either pessimistic or optimistic; reality is what you make it to be. If you don’t push yourself to the limit, you’ll always be able to find lame excuses.

Toughen up; you see ‘impossible’, I see ‘I’m possible’.

See what I did there?

I’d like people to do what they enjoy doing, turning it in their profession

Ultra simple; if you do something that you enjoy doing, you get better at doing it as you often find ways to improve it and, thus, constantly come up with innovative ideas.

It will kind of make the world a better place, right?

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein.

I’d like people to realise that, whatever the natural calamity, crisis, etc., we’re in this together

Give politics a rest; we’re supposed to be Homo sapiens sapiens.

Judging by what the rest of the world has allowed to happen in Africa and Syria, I’d say that, lately, we’ve been anything BUT sapient, let alone sapient sapient.

Stick together or fall apart; not a very complex concept, is it now?

I mean, seriously, if wolves and meerkcats can do it, so can we…

I’d like people to stop eating McDonald’s

Can’t argue with that.

I’d like more people to know about and take part in TED

Because it’s brilliant and because what initially seems like a small idea can lead to big changes and change the world.

See for yourself -->  www.ted.com

I’d like people to go out more

It’s horribly cold and windy outside; why, on Earth, wouldn’t you want to go out for a brisk walk?

But seriously. Do you think it’s normal for a person to get up, watch the news, go to work, sit in front of a screen for ten hours, get back home and watch telly for another couple of hours?

Fourteen hours worth of exposure; how does that sound?

Tell you what: I went for a twenty minute walk on a rainy night and did NOT melt or anything.

Turns out I wasn’t made out of sugar after all; no offence but you aren’t either.

I’d like a giant Belgian white chocolate chip cookie

And I’m off to get one right now!

Happy birthday to me.

A Runt’s Rant: Sorry We Missed You!

Link to podcast:

<< http://www.mixcloud.com/antonipeychev/a-runts-rant-sorry-we-missed-you/ >>

It’s really funny, and quite sad at the same time, how every single time I try to be nice and bring some chicken soup to a sick friend, I always get a warm ‘Thank you so much!’ coupled with a lovely virus.

Don’t get me wrong; I LOVE viruses! They keep me in bed all day and MAKE me rest up; something that I will have never done myself.

So I woke up at 13:30 today, feeling exhausted as Hell and thought to myself:

‘It’s fine, it’s fine...At least I get my new tie today.’

I got in on Ebay the other day; a burgundy silk Landisun one.

Having taken about an hour to get ready, I popped downstairs to get my tie, do a quick Cape Knot and get back to bed and to being miserable and cold.

All I found at the door, however, was:

 

I got a tiny bit annoyed; mainly because it said that they had tried the door at 10:00am when both me and my housemate were home.

And then I thought to myself: was I really out? Well, I must have been; after all, why would the Royal Mail lie to me?

You could, of course, argue that I was out and about in a world of my own because I DID have quite a long- winded dream last night.

I only remember the gist of it, though; it was about those people who were unaware of the fact that their personal injury compensation would be slashed by some 25% by a new law that was coming into force as at 1^st April 2013 because the media sector had blatantly failed to cover the story. Had the media sector publicised the changes, as it should have, many claimants would have had the chance of retaining 100% of their compensation as they would have claimed before 1^st April 2013.

But that was clearly a dream; nothing of the sort could happen in one of the greatest countries in the world.

Leaving my realistic dream aside, I realised that I had been standing up for more than ten minutes and was starting to feel quite weak.

I took the red card upstairs, made myself a cup of Camomile tea and curled up in bed.

At that point I flipped the card and saw the following:

Sipping my Camomile tea, I couldn’t help but think to myself that, in order to be sorry, someone had to ‘care about’ what he did first.

Clearly, the postman did not care as he did not ring the buzzer on our door or knock hard enough for us to hear him.

Quite the enigma , I thought; whatever could they possibly mean by ‘Sorry We Missed You!’.

It might have been a joke of sorts; I wouldn’t know, I’ve got absolutely no sense of humour left in me when I’m sick.

Having finished my tea, I rang up the number on the back of the card and was informed that I was to pick my ‘parcel’ up at 11am tomorrow.

You can imagine my surprise when I logged into my Ebay only to find a message from the seller, saying that he had not posted the tie out yet.

Under normal circumstance, I would have been a tiny bit freaked out. But the virus wouldn’t let me; instead, I smiled and thought:

‘Ah, maybe THAT’S what they’re sorry about!’

A Runt’s Rant: Cash or Card?

Link to podcast:

< http://www.mixcloud.com/antonipeychev/a-runts-rant-cash-or-card/ >

Upon waking up yesterday, I decided that I wanted to have a Double- Decker on my way to work.

And, yes, I know I said ‘have’ and not ‘take’ a double- decker; I was referring to the calorie- bomb chocolate bar and not the monster of a bus.

As my detour to Tesco’s meant that I would be late for work, I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to take out some cash from an ATM and use it to pay the said chocolate bar so that I could save some time.

With a swift cowboy- like movement, I took out my debit card, shoved it into the ATM, punched in my PIN and took out my tenner.

Getting the bar was, in itself, a piece of cake (no lame joke intended): I walked in, grabbed the bar, went to the tills, smiled (with a rather unsettling air of urgency) at the cashier, handed him the tenner, took my change and the bar and departed with inhuman alacrity.

At the time, I actually felt rather proud of myself as I managed to do all of the above AND eat the chocolate bar in less than six minutes and twenty- three seconds; AND I wasn’t late for work.

At work, I started wondering whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to go out for lunch and treat myself to a nice meal.

Now, you would think that the above was quite normal; a lush lunch was something that everyone was entitled to indulge in every once in awhile.

Well, not so if you had already bought a tonne of food to have at your desk; a tonne of food which would go bad if not consumed in a week’s time.

And I’m not talking about your average tins here, believe you me; I’m talking about so much food that several of my colleagues have warned me that opening a restaurant in the lunch area of the office without seeking my employer’s permission will undoubtedly violate the terms of my employment contract.

(As you might appreciate, I was obliged to acknowledge the above ‘joke’ with a polite giggle.)

Regardless of the feast that awaited me in the fridge, however, I did decide to go out and have a proper meal. Now, if I had no cash on me, I would not have even dreamed of doing that.

Why?

Well, it most probably has something to do with the fact that I have always found the take-your-card-out-now-put-it-in-the-machine-not-that-way-the-other-way-around-now-enter-your-pin-now-take-it-out-and-put-it-back-in-your-wallet routine rather long- winded and somewhat tedious.

In time, I’ve found out that having to pay for something on card often deters me from buying it; if, however, I have cash on me, I normally don’t think twice, especially so if I have a lot of coins that I so desperately want to get rid of.

Anywho, back to my lush lunch; as you can probably imagine, £ 9, 50 was not enough to get me a proper lunch and it so happened that I had to go to yet another ATM and withdraw some more cash to pay for my meal as, surprise, surprise, the establishment did not accept card payments of less than £ 30.

Thank God, the nearest ATM was ten minutes away and I did not have to make the waitress wait for a good twenty- five minutes, eh…?

The moral of the story?

No moral, really; just general ranting.