Staying with old friends in the beautiful Cheshire town of Knutsford, I woke early this morning and took myself off to the local petrol station to pick up a newspaper. Here the attendant was mopping up after a leak from somewhere on the premises. When I sympathized and, after a suitable pause, asked for a paper, he said he hadn’t counted them yet and asked me to come back in half an hour. I said I’d rather not and that I only wanted a single copy. “I have to count them first!” he rather peremptorily repeated. Whereupon I decided I was dealing not only with someone with a poor grasp of the concept of customer service but also with the village idiot, incapable of adding one to whatever the total of papers might later turn out to be. And so I walked another kilometer to the next petrol station, where the attendant happily cut open his bundles and gave me a copy from the uncounted pile of Times. So, there you have it, folks – If you want decent service, eschew Esso and select Shell. At least when you’re in Knutsford. At six-fifteen in the morning.

A lady friend in Galicia has asked me to cite this article on the competition in a gay magazine for the most handsome 'famous' man in the region. I’m not sure why; perhaps she’s a fan of one of them.

On a heavier note, here’s our Ambrose with his latest perspective on the developing Greek/Eurozone crisis. And its implications for Club Med members, such as Spain.

Finally . . . One of the joys of being in the UK this last two weeks has been the chance to make bacon sandwiches with good (Danish) meat which doesn’t comprise equal portions of fat, salt and water. And which doesn’t reduce to a white-ish liquid when you cook it. Simple pleasures. Unless you’re a vegetarian. Or a pig, I guess.