Here’s how stupid I am. Well, one (of oh so many) example. And also an insight into the human mind (there’s an assumption, possibly 2: that I’m human and have a mind, as we know it).

We all know Timothee Chalemet. The pretentiously named darling of Hollywood. Following his foray as Bob Dylan, which I must say was pretty darned good, he’s now winning awards for Marty Supreme, which I’ve yet to see but read nothing but ‘glowing’ about it.

And I thought: scrawny little creep. Then I saw him on Graham Norton and thought he was funny, and nice. But still scrawny with a residual creepiness, despite his Golden Globe this week. Obviously punching well above his weight being with Kylie Jenner.

Then I learned that he’s Jewish.

And my entire view of him changed. With just one headline in the Jewish Chronicle which ‘claimed him’. We don’t claim big-time frausters of the faith, certainly want less than nothing to do with the Jeffrey Epsteins and Harvey Weinsteins. But you win a Golden Globe and we all want to wallow in that reflected glory. HE’S OURS!!!! (I learned this attitude from my grandmother, who lived with us through most of my childhood. Born in a Polish ‘shtetl’ in 1900, moved here in 1901 but never changed her views, or learned what ‘offside’ meant, even after watching every football match on tv).

And immediately, Timothee grew. In stature. Became much bigger, less scrawny, lost the ‘creepy’ altogether. He became… a Mensch!!!

Otherwise, I’ve spent an entire fucking morning speaking to morons. Ok, officially they’re called ‘customer services of any significantly sized company’, but ‘morons’ is much more succinct. And accurate.

I won’t go into my aggro with Santander but basically, when trying to transfer just one bank account to a different company (don’t ask), filling in the forms, sending ID, fingerprinting, exhuming my mother for DNA, full rectal examinations, usual ‘security’ shit, and the same from the intended recipient, after 3 months we’ve reached the situation where no-one can access the account at all. Blocked for both sides. Money comes into the account but no-one can access it. I screamed at them. That should make it better. Yeah. Right.

Then the phones. Yes, we still have a ‘landline’. No idea why, probably just because we’re old. We certainly don’t use it much. So we signed a new contract for ‘full digital’ because it’s all you can get. But we only received one phone. Oh. So I had to speak to their moron. Who told me firstly that we were paying 16 quid a month too much, we had in fact ordered the second phone, but… errrr… Ok, so we’ll get a second phone, start paying the lower rate than we had on one phone and get a credit on the account for overpayments. Fab. Can you send me an email confirming all that, please. ‘Oh, we can’t send emails’. Really? But REALLY???? FFS.

Now I’m in a really happy place, having pissed away about 4 hours banging my head against any hard corner I could find. Who can I punch? “MEL????” “WHERE ARE YOU???”…

Happy Thursday

A xxxx