Jon McKnight

Ouch, Doctor, that hurts!

Elderly patients and people on low incomes are being ripped off in a new telephone scandal that's using Britain's GPs as unwitting accomplices. 

Callers to local GPs' surgeries are finding that the old landline number has been replaced with a "lo-call" 0844 number that means many patients have to pay for the call for the first time. 

Millions of patients have bundled call packages that allow them to ring any landline for free - except for non-geographic numbers like 0870, 0845 and, in this case, 0844. 

This means that ringing the old surgery landline would cost them nothing, but ringing the new 0844 number will cost them extra. 

I discoverered this when I rang my GP and found the landline number dead. I tried from a different phone, and looked the number up again. Still dead. 

I looked it up online at BT.com, but the landline number was still the same. Worried that something might have happened to the surgery, I drove several miles to it only to find everything fine and a receptionist who couldn't understand why I was bothered that the number had been changed to an 0844. 

I pointed out that patients would now have to pay when they might not have had to previously, but she was unmoved. 

The Practice Manager intervened and tried to convince me that the surgery was doing patients a favour by having a number that was cheaper to ring than before. 

She was either unaware or didn't care that the huge number of patients with bundled calls were now having to pay for the first time. 

She claimed that the system was forced upon the surgery by the Government which had decreed that new call management systems had to be in place and that they could only be used with an 0844 number. 

The first condition might well be true, but it is preposterous to claim that a call management system can only be used with an 0844 number attached. 

It can, of course, be used with any telephone number you like, but the chances are that some provider somewhere is profiting from locking surgeries into a costly "lo call" number on false pretences. 

I asked why the surgery hadn't told me about the change of number. The Practice Manager told me that it would have cost too much to inform the surgery's 1,800 patients. 

Really? At the very least, she should have written to everyone to warn them. No-one cares if a supermarket changes its number, but a GP's surgery is in a position of far greater responsibility to its users. 

I protested that the old landline number didn't even have a message on it telling patients to ring the new number, but the manager told me it had had one for six months and it again couldn't afford to keep the line going. 

Had I visited the surgery more regularly, she said, I would have known about the change long ago. But as the GP does an excellent job and I'm fortunately healthy as a result, that's not much of an argument. 

I pointed out that I'd looked up the number on bt.com, the most authoritative online directory enquiries service, and there was no mention of the new number. 

The manager said she'd protested to BT but been told it would take a year before it could be changed. 

I may not be a techie, but I do know that websites can be updated in a matter of seconds. 

Was the manager trying to pull the wool over my eyes, or were BT pulling the wool over hers? 

"What else could I have done?" she asked. 

Well, how about not changing the number to an 0844 rip-off number in the first place; writing to every patient, even the healthy ones who reduce the surgery's workload by not bothering them unnecessarily; questioning the authorities if, indeed, the new number was imposed on the surgery, so that patients don't lose out; and going to the Press to raise the issue on behalf of patients if, as she claimed, it was imposed from above and the surgery genuinely had no choice. 

"You're the only person who has complained," she told me. 

Perhaps, but that might well be because other equally healthy patients haven't yet discovered what the surgery has done because they haven't needed to ring it, and because the little old ladies on fixed incomes aren't yet aware that the call they make to their GP will be costing them for the first time and will suddenly appear on their phone bill. 

This is a disgrace, and flies in the face of the growing campaign against such rip-off lines - a campaign that Which?, the consumer magazine, highlighted only last week in a story on the BBC News website at news.bbc.co.uk

Jon McKnight

Author of Sort The Bastards!

Cigarette vending ban should go further

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo's plans to outlaw cigarette vending machines and ban the display of cigarettes in shops are encouraging... so far as they go.  

But why stop at banning packets of 10 on the grounds that children would be less likely to afford a packet of 20? Why not make it illegal to sell cigarettes in any quantity less than 100? 

This would result in an intentionally bulky packet that smokers, particularly children, could not slip conveniently into a pocket. 

Smart people in suits would no longer be able to carry cigarettes in their pockets because the packets simply wouldn't fit, women with chic little handbags wouldn't have room for the giant packets, and children would have no way of hiding them in school or at home. 

There would be nothing to stop people splitting the packets once they'd bought them, but the convenience that smokers rely upon would vanish at a stroke. 

Or she could just ban cigarettes altogether. 

A shopkeeper was moaning on the news on BBC Radio Four today that having to duck under the counter or go into a back room to fetch cigarettes would leave him vulnerable to attack or shoplifting from "scallywags". 

Of course, even shopkeepers who profit from selling products to people in the full knowledge that those products will tuns them into addicts, have severe effects on their health, and, in many cases, kill them, deserve the full protection of the law from assailants and shoplifters. 

But those same shopkeepers don't have to sell cigarettes at all. Problem solved. 

Jon McKnight

Author of Sort The Bastards!

The biggest loser in British history

What on Earth possessed Hastings Direct to choose Harry, the animated version of King Harold, as their mascot?

Cute he may be, and his singing of the company's phone number 0800 00 1066 sounds all very avuncular, but it's hard to imagine why an insurance company like Hastings would risk pinning their success on a figure whose leadership skills and achievements can hardly inspire confidence.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the marketing meeting when Harry was chosen!

Did no-one have either the historical knowledge or the courage to point out that Harold lost his eye, his life, and his kingdom in the most catastrophic failure ever to beset this country?

He was, without a doubt, the biggest loser in British history.

Just three little words, uttered at the right time, would have saved Hastings Direct from themselves: "William the Conqueror".

What other gems can we expect if the culprit who thought that one up branches out into other industries? Canute water-repellents? Icarus Airlines? Herod's Kindergartens?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

David Cameron and the cycling scandal

David Cameron's admission that he broke umpteen laws while cycling in London highlights a serious inequality between the rights and obligations of motorists and pedal-pushers.

The Tory leader's confession was only wrung out of him after The Mirror newspaper obtained film of him pedalling through red lights, going the wrong way around Keep Left bollards, and cycling across a pelican crossing when the light was red.

But the problem is much wider than that.

If you're a pedestrian and a car hits you, the car can be identified from its number plates; the driver will have had to pass a test of competence; the driver will have insurance, or be prosecuted if he hasn't; and if the driver is at fault, he can be banned from driving by a court.

Not so if you happen to be injured by a cyclist.

Bicycles are not subject to any kind of registration regime, so there's little chance that anyone could identify a bicycle involved in a hit-and-run.

Telling the police that the bike had two wheels and a frame is hardly going to help them find it, whereas it would be a piece of cake if they had to bear registration plates like every other type of vehicle.

That very anonymity is probably the main reason why cyclists like David Cameron feel free to break every rule in the Highway Code with apparent impunity.

Cyclists don't have to pass any kind of test, either. And while the Highway Code is full of rules that also apply to them, the lack of a regulatory regime means many cyclists never pick up a copy in their lives, never mind abide by it.

Cyclists don't have to have any kind of insurance, either. So if a cyclist hits you, perhaps riding along the pavement or the wrong way on a public road, you have no chance of receiving proper compensation.

Unless the cyclist happens to be an eccentric millionaire and is therefore worth sueing, hough I suspect that many of them are either too poor to afford a car or wish they were living in Victorian times when cycling seemed such a sensible idea.

If the cyclist is at fault, there is no chance whatever that the cyclist can be banned from cycling as a way of protecting the public. He could be penalised for being drunk in charge of a cycle, of course, but there is no such thing as a cycling ban.

It's frustrating enough that cycles are given priority at traffic lights in so many of our cities, but what makes it worse is when they ignore the cycle lanes we've all had to pay for and continue to wobble along in traffic, either forcing us to crawl at a snail's pace or tempting us to edge on to the other side of the road to overtake them, which must cause a fair number of accidents.

In Plymouth, for example, the council spent hundreds of thousands of pounds installing cycle lanes on the main road between the city and Tavistock, yet cyclists don't use the cycle lane and struggle up the hills on the main road, causing annoyance and disruption for motorists.

Surely cyclists should be forced to use cycle lanes where they exist and should be fined, heavily, if they use the roads instead. But with no number plates, how could they ever be identified and prosecuted?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Kennedy leaves Obama in deep water

God help Barack Obama... because support from Senator Edward Kennedy certainly won't.

Barack has a serious chance of becoming the 44th President of the United States, but having Kennedy declare his support for him could kill his chances overnight.

With a supporter like that, who needs enemies?

Senator Kennedy, for those who might need reminding, is less famous for being the brother of the two assassinated Kennedies, John Fitzgerald and Robert, than he is for being the man (I use the word loosely) who drove his car into a river at Chappaquiddick and escaped to tell the tale.

What a hero he might have been. The Kennedy who actually cheated death. The man who fought his way out of a submerged car. Except that he, er, omitted to take young Mary Jo Kopechne with him.

She was left to die in the car, which she did. And Senator Kennedy wandered off, his own skin intact. Hours later, he thoughtfully reported the accident to the police, though it was, of course, rather too late for his poor passenger to have any chance of being rescued alive.

Memories of this outrage (other people's memories, rather than his own) have dogged Kennedy's attempts to run for President himself, which seems about as near to justice as Mary Jo Kopechne is ever likely to get.

But what has Barack Obama done to deserve support from a man like that?

Every vote may be precious, but so is every life. Including Mary Jo Kopechne's.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

How many ways can you shout Olé?

I may be a little slow off the mark in noticing this - 34 years, to be precise - but I'm a little concerned about a line in the lyrics of Sylvia Vrethammer's hit Y Viva Espana.

It sounds simple enough: "That's why I've learnt the way to shout Olé!"

But why would she, or anyone else, need to learn the way to shout any word that has only two syllables?

Are there so many ways to shout such an elementary word that one needs to go on a course? Had Sylvia been getting it wrong until some kind soul corrected her? I think we should be told.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Dishonest advertising claim of the year

When a product's recommended by 97% of the readers of a magazine as influential as Marie Claire, we could all be forgiven for rushing out and buying that product, safe in the knowledge that those readers are sophisticated, switched on, and almost unanimous in their endorsement.

But before we choose Pantene Pro-V for precisely that reason, let's take a closer look at that claim.

In a much-aired TV advertisement it says, in large letters on the screen, that 97% of Marie Claire readers would recommend the product to a friend.

In smaller letters at the bottom of the screen (fancy that!) it says that the claim is based on a survey of 304 Marie Claire readers.

In other words, the product isn't recommended by 97% of Marie Claire's readers but by 97% of only 304 of them - ie, a mere 294 readers.

And how many readers does the magazine have?

332,705, according to the latest official returns from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Which means that the percentage of Marie Claire readers who actually recommended Pantene Pro-V to their friends was not 97% but a rather less impressive 0.08 of a percent... or less than one reader in every 1,132.

Whatever Pantene might do, the advertising claim simply won't wash.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

We're not fools, Jools

Just saw Sir Paul McCartney performing Got To Get You Into My Life on Jools Holland's turn-of-the-year TV programme... but credited on screen as "Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Band featuring Paul McCartney".

Surely not.

Important as Jools is, I'm pretty sure I was watching Paul McCartney singing his own composition and merely being backed by Jools and his fellow musicians.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

End of the road for Evel Knievel

So stunt motorcyclist Evel Knievel has finally failed to cheat death. At least he didn't end up under a bus, although, during his career, rather a lot of buses ended up under him.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Blue Peter cat's head must roll

The BBC's authoritative Today programme on Radio 4 has just confirmed the widely-held suspicion that Richard Marson, the editor of the children's Blue Peter programme at the time of the cat-naming scandal, was sacked as a consequence.

As even the mighty and much-respected news website CNN.com has featured this column's report on the BBC's wilful decision to name the cat Socks despite an overwhelming majority of viewers voting for it to be called Cookie, we know how seriously this issue is being taken around the world.

But the BBC's determination to punish the perpetrators has not been quite as exhaustive as Director General Mark Thompson has led us to believe.

One culprit remains unpunished, despite being at the very centre of the scandal.

I refer, of course, to the cat itself.

While Socks may well not have have had any say in the name the viewers chose for it, the cat certainly did have a choice in whether it answered to the name it was then given by the BBC.

Under BBC editorial guidelines, the cat was complicit in the deception. That's because it went along with it by answering to the name Socks when the cat knew full well it should have ignored it and only responded when addressed - on or off camera - as Cookie.

No doubt the BBC is investigating whether either Mr Marson or other BBC production staff secured the cat's complicity by offering it inducements, widely thought to have been either small slices of chicken breast or a proprietory brand of cat treats.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Treading carefully

How strange that the famous Pirelli Calendar never features women with spare tyres.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Very little help... at Tesco

I could have been dreaming, of course, but I'm pretty sure I was wide awake when I walked into Tesco at Roborough in Plymouth at one o'clock in the morning recently.

The doubts only persist because, having finished my shopping, I found that the only three checkouts open were unattended but marked as Self Service.

A nearby supervisor explained that I had to scan all the items myself, put them on the conveyor belt, then pack them.

Astonished, I asked if I would receive a discount, as the price of the items already included the cost of staffing yet I was being forced to work as a checkout operator myself.

No chance, apparently.

Having spent 29 years in the workplace trying to avoid working as a checkout operator, I was given a crash course by the supervisor who was helpful (but not helpful enough to sit there and scan my items herself).

Some items wouldn't be scanned, whatever I did; the machine barked orders at me, telling me to do it faster or slower; and it was constantly scolding me to take particular items off the conveyor belt.

One item didn't scan but made it to the other end of the conveyor belt before the machine deigned to notice. But we couldn't be sure which item it was that we hadn't paid for.

I called the supervisor again and she said that if I thought she was going to go through my many bags of shopping to find out which item had slipped through, I had another think coming.

I protested that I did wish to pay for everything, but the machine wouldn't let me - and I didn't want to be stopped at the door and detained for trying to leave with goods I hadn't paid for.

She told me not to worry, as it was more trouble than it was worth to go back through all the transactions to find the item.

But I did leave with one more thing - a feeling of resentment that a store as immensely profitable as Tesco could get away with forcing customers to become checkout operators themselves and suffer the embarrassment of being remonstrated with by a machine that had such an inflexible and domineering attitude.

If Tesco expect us to do the job ourselves, they should include a heavy discount on the goods to reflect the fact that they're not having to pay a human to do the job we customers expect them to do.

Unless they're cynically exploiting us and simply don't care about their customers at that time of the morning...

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

BBC invents the 25-hour day

For those of us who never feel there are enough hours in the day, perhaps the continuity announcers at BBC World Service have found a solution.

Listening to the World Service broadcasts that follow the closedown of Radio 4 FM in the early hours of the morning, I was astonished to hear the announcer say: "BBC World Service... the time is 24.40, Greenwich Mean Time."

The rest of the world runs on a 24-hour clock, switching from 23.59 on one day to 00.00 the next.

But not, apparently, the BBC World Service.

As I'm neither Stephen Hawking nor Albert Einstein, I can't be certain of this, but I'm pretty sure that the time 24.40 does not and could not exist - a bit like Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters in Harry Potter.

Or has the BBC World Service newsroom unwittingly acquired the grandfather clock from Tom's Midnight Garden that used to strike 13, offering those who hear it a chance to travel back to the world of 50 years earlier?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

The King and the Bard

Thirty years too late, I realise, but somebody really should have picked Elvis up on his pronouncement in Are You Lonesome Tonight? that "Someone said the world's a stage and each must play a part".

"Someone"?

Try Shakespeare, Mr Presley.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

A well-judged response

Heartening to see that a US soldier who did nothing to stop his colleagues raping and murdering innocent people in Iraq has been sentenced to 110 years in prison.

Reminds me of another case in which a US judge sentenced another man to several hundred years in jail.

"But I'll never be able to serve all that time," the offender complained to the judge.

"Well, just do the best you can," the judge told him.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Screwed up

"If my head wasn't screwed on, I'd lose it," the saying goes. But if my head was screwed on, I'd probably cross-thread it.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Alan Johnston, an utter professional

How could anyone not be impressed by the bravery and professionalism of Alan Johnston under the most stressful of circumstances?

He delivered his kidnappers' message with all the style and authority for which he is known, and yet he reported his own predicament in a detached, BBC manner that few could have expected of anyone in his perilous position - ie, wearing what his kidnappers told him was a bomb belt that they could detonate at any time.

Many people are labelled heroes when they are merely victims of circumstance, but Alan has shown the world what the word hero really means.

Please, if you care, click the logo below and sign the petition to free Alan.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

No floods of tears for the uninsured

The floods that have inundated huge areas of Yorkshire are shocking to all of us - but not, perhaps, as shocking as the revelation that a quarter of the affected households do not have insurance.

Why?

Is it really the case that they simply can't afford it?

Some would have us believe that, but I'm not entirely convinced.

One woman was shown on the TV news being let back into her still flooded home for the first time. Before revealing that she had no household insurance, she detailed some of the things that had been ruined, including, she said, a new leather three-piece suite.

As the family had been living there for years, it's a reasonable assumption that they hadn't been sitting on the floor all that time but had had at least some kind of seating that they had replaced with the new leather suite.

But leather three-piece suites cost rather more than any basic household contents insurance policy.

So why didn't they buy an insurance policy instead of spending the money on a leather three-piece suite that they might well have wanted but didn't need... or at least didn't need as much as they needed household insurance?

The woman told the cameras that the suite wasn't even paid for yet. So if she had sufficient money to pay for it by instalments, she could just as easily have been paying for an insurance policy by instalments, too.

It is, of course, the woman's prerogative to decide her own financial priorities. If she'd rather spend her money on expensive leather suites than on household insurance, that's up to her.

But why should she expect anyone's sympathy for a loss that she should have - and could have - insured against?

I don't suppose many of the rest of us actually like paying insurance premiums every year, but we do so because it's better than the alternative.

And we wouldn't have the cheek to go bleating about it on national television if we chose to spend our money on other things instead of insurance, only to be overwhelmed by some catastrophic event.

While there may be some people who genuinely could not have afforded insurance, how many of those who claim they are "too poor" to afford it are smokers?

The average smoker spends about £2,500 a year on the habit, according to recent research - enough to insure the average family home 10 times over.

Same goes for social drinkers. Nothing wrong with that, but surely protecting one's home and property is a fundamental priority that should come way above any optional pleasures?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Honour the Glasgow Airport hero

Stephen Clarkson, the passer-by who waded in and knocked down one of the two men who attacked Glasgow Airport with a burning car today, is a hero of our times.

Like the others who helped him restrain the burning man who was attacking police at the airport terminal entrance, Mr Clarkson displayed the utmost courage by tackling the two terrorists while their Jeep Cherokee burned only a few yards away.

For all that he or any of us knew, that car could have been loaded with gas cylinders, petrol cans and nails, just as the two Mercedes car bombs in Haymarket had been only the day before.

Anyone who had seen the car ablaze and simply run as fast and as far as they could from the scene would have been forgiven for not wanting to linger in the immediate vicinity of what could have been a massive car bomb.

But Mr Clarkson, and his fellow heroes, showed no concern for their own safety in this incredibly perilous situation and instead stood their ground to try to stop the two terrorists completing whatever their plan was.

There is still debate at time of writing (7.30pm) as to whether it was a terrorist incident, but eyewitnesses did report that the two attackers were shouting the word Allah repeatedly. A bit of a giveaway...

Perhaps new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has already shown he wants to rule in a very different way to his predecesor Tony Blair, might take a lead on this and introduce immediate honours for people like Mr Clarkson whose selfless heroism and initiative have helped protect and preserve our national security.

If Mr Clarkson were knighted tomorrow, it would not be a day too soon. For if anyone deserved to be honoured, Sir Stephen Clarkson (as I shall think of him) is one of them.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Disastrous domains, No 2

Much as domain names with hyphens in them usually look second-rate and are often chosen in desperation because the unhyphenated domain has already been taken, there are rare circumstances in which the addition of a hyphen might just be a little better.

Take, for instance, the domain www.therapists.com. It's a perfectly respectable website, but the choice of domain name is extremely unfortunate as the lack of spaces between words makes it impossible to tell, before we look at the site itself, whether it's meant to be Therapists or The Rapists.

That's no laughing matter, but you would think people would be a little more careful with their marketing, wouldn't you?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Disastrous domains, No 1

It had to happen. The unfortunate omisson of apostrophes from the range of characters permitted in domain names means the resulting run-together words can appear ambiguous.

Today's example of a domain name that can be read two ways - and who am I to guess which is correct? - is the following: www.sainsburyswine.co.uk

Do they mean Sainsbury's Wine... or Sainsbury Swine?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

ITV rob viewers of entire F1 race!

Incredible as it might sound, ITV have deprived viewers of the equivalent of an entire Formula One Grand Prix - so far - and we're only seven races into the season.

It's easy for fans to moan about ad breaks spoiling the races, but it's only when we put it into context that we can see just how breathtaking this theft of viewers' enjoyment really is.

As the only site on the web that monitors and publishes all of the ad breaks in all of the races, Stop The Spoilsports! can reveal that the total amount of live race coverage stolen from us by uncaring ITV and its "greed first, viewers second" advertisers so far this season is 1 hour, 36 minutes and 3 seconds... the equivalent of an entire F1 race!

Full details are listed separately for each race under the heading "F1 Advertisers Roll Of Shame" etc.

Readers who share our shock at this revelation might care to sign the Downing Street petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/spoilsports/... unless, of course, no-one's really bothered.

Meanwhile, the only way to discourage these advertisers from spoiling our races for us is to lobby them, write to them direct, and tell them we won't buy their products or use their services if they continue to spoil our sport.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

W-W-Wow, what an achievement!

Congratulations to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, who has just been awarded the Order Of Merit - an honour that is in the personal gift of the Queen and can only be held by 24 people at any one time.

If it weren't for Sir Tim, I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be reading it!

His creation and early development of the world wide web has changed our world irrevocably, and few of us would care to go back to a time in which it didn't exist.

Having spent some years researching and producing for television, it's hard to imagine how the job could possibly have been done without e-mail, Google, and the plethora of information available online today.

To be able to ring a complete stranger on the other side of the Atlantic - someone whose existence you only discovered by accident on the web - and follow up the call with an instant-email and perhaps a picture or a document is a way of working that we owe directly to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, OM.

The alternative - now a mere memory, and unthinkable - would be hours in reference libraries with out-of-date, dusty books, prohibitively expensive calls to International Directory Enquiries, and a world far less well-informed than we are today.

Without Sir Tim, there'd be no YouTube, no Google, no iTunes, no MySpace, no Yahoo, no MSN, no eBay, no Amazon, no Wikipedia, no Hotmail, and very few of the things that we now regard as essential ingredients of 21st Century life.

When you consider that previous holders of the Order Of Merit included Thomas Hardy, you begin to realise just how important Sir Tim really is.

I, for one, will be eternally grateful to him - a man who has done more to merit his Order of Merit than any man alive.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Paris Hilton - above the law?

So airhead heiress Paris Hilton has been released from prison after serving just three days of her jail sentence because she has "a medical problem".

Terribly sad, of course, but why the need to release her?

Isn't that what prison hospital wings are for?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Seat of learning?

Why does the Open University logo resemble a lavatory seat?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Fuelling change

The Times newspaper used to have a reputation for stuffiness, having been the mouthpiece of the English establishment for generations.

In an effort to help it loosen up a little, I tried to plant a joke in its rather august Personal Column - an attempt that met with fierce resistance.

The Times initially refused to accept the advert, but I challenged its policy and pointed out how ridiculous it would look if I publicised its apparent lack of a sense of humour.

It finally relented and allowed my then business partner to place the ad - a lonely hearts plea that was particularly topical as we were in the middle of the fuel crisis of September 2000 and every garage for miles around was either dry or besieged by drivers down to their last thimbleful of fuel.

So here, for the record, is the first ever joke published in the Personal Column of The Times:

WOMAN with everything seeks man with own petrol. Please respond to box number 5264.

(The Times, Friday 15 September 2000, Page 25)

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Disappointments

Many newspapers and business magazines devote a column to Appointments - single paragraphs and mugshots of people who have just been given prestigious new jobs or promotion.

That's all very well for the people featured - but what about the rest of us?

How about a column called Disappointments for people who have lost their jobs, been turned down for promotion, or applied for jobs but didn't get them?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Multi-tasking

If women are so good at multi-tasking, why can't they have a headache and make love at the same time?

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!