Things I Have Learnt This Week

1. Inflation is a dirty word.
Now possibly I missed the lesson in General Studies at school that explained the British economy in a nutshell, as I did with telling the time in French. I was pulling a spectacular sickie to avoid a Chemistry test and coincidentally shot myself in the foot with regard to ever being able to tell the time whilst in France. Fortunately I can still manage to direct myself to and from Charles De Gaulle airport to Monsieur Bertillon's house in an emergency, so all is not lost.
Anyway, I don't get it. The vagaries of inflation and interest rates are to me what class and decorum are to Kerry Katona. It's no good. I've had it explained to me more times than I care to remember, and still it's as clear as mud. I've long since consigned it to the list of Things I'll Never Understand, along with cricket, Poker, and cats' mood swings.

2. Men learn the art of deception at a very young age.
A stark illustration of this concept was shown to me today. As I watched my 16 month-old son inverting himself on the kitchen floor in a slightly alarming example of the well-known yoga position 'Upside Down Delinquent Crab', whilst emitting the noise of an industrial-strength fire alarm because I wouldn't let him have the pack of chocolate mini rolls he'd just found in the cupboard, I was reminded of the lady at nursery who'd remarked, less than an hour previously as I picked The Ginger Prince up, 'We can't wait to have him in our 2nd year class - he's so placid, isn't he?'

3. However blonde I am, my friend Jade will always beat me hands down.
This evening she is juggling with the problem of having sold a pasta maker to a lady from West Yorkshire, who is on her considerable way across the Pennines to collect said machine from Liverpool as we speak. Not, in itself, a problem, if it were not for the fact that Jade has just realised she sold the pasta maker over six months ago to someone else whilst she was pregnant.
I add the fact that she was pregnant since obviously it's a well-known fact that women can be a little forgetful when they're about to push an elephant through the eye of a needle. In Jade's case, however, it's a fairly terminal condition. I can list, without any sort of cerebral effort: the time she left her grill on for 3 weeks while we were in Australia, and couldn't remove the twist-off petrol cap from the motor home because she was pulling it; and the time she arrived at Silverstone race track ready for a day of work team-building, only to find everybody else was waiting at Brands Hatch.
I love you, Miss Jade, you're ace. Although if that pasta woman's arrived, it could be RIP, Miss Jade....