The Office of National Statistics has to work out whether we (the entire economy, not just you) are suffering from inflation, and to what extent. So they use a ‘basket’ of representative goods and services, 752 of them, and see how the price of these things change from quarter to quarter. And I’m worried that their chosen ‘basket’ is becoming a bit too ‘Waitrose’ to be applicable to the more ‘Aldi’ parts of the country. I say this with no sneer, no superiority, nothing that living in the most suburban of London suburbs would ever cause any smugness on my part. I live where Waitrose is considered ‘downmarket’!!! So when we do go to Aldi (for whisky and wine), we do so only under the cover of darkness.

But they’ve taken out of their ‘basket’, ‘cooked pork’ and replaced it with ‘pulled pork’. Very Soho, less Solihull. They’ve included mangoes, FFS. And, in the non-edibles, ‘exercise mats’. Such things don’t exist north of Stanmore. Other than the part of Manchester where all the WAGs live. VR headsets are included now whereas they’ve actually got around to removing ‘cd rentals’. When no-one has rented a cd since Blockbuster closed in nineteen-ninety-whatever.

I’m concerned that they don’t include the increasing cost of footmen. And the price of slaves, if you can even get them!! And how can you have a system ‘representative of the whole country’ if fees for boarding at Eton aren’t included?

A funny thing happened this week. The sun came out. And it was warm. Well, yesterday was. So I wheeled out the electric bike. Which wasn’t really electric at that point because the battery was deader than dead. So it was just a bike. An amazingly heavy one. I pumped up the tyres, charged it up, and, having had the brakes ‘done’ at the end of last summer; I was ready. Eager.

The traffic was light. But that doesn’t really matter. The traffic lights were often red. But that doesn’t matter. There were a lot of people at the crossings. But fuck ‘em. And I rode in from home in 35 minutes. And it was wonderful. Ok, and very easy. Your legs are turning but they ain’t doing much. And when the chain came off its cog, my legs were achieving even less. But there ya go. 5 minutes and one pair of ridiculously greasy hands later, I was back on board. The life of the biker. The fair weather biker. And even though the tube is free for very old people like me, the bike is exhilaratingly liberating. Makes the commute a pure joy. Because nothing stops you. Except the chain coming off, obvs.

Happy Friday

A xxxx