Don’t you go getting any ideas now, d’ye hear?

I never sampled this one. Should I? Can anyone speak from experience on this brew? Or do you have... wait for for it... wait for it... no eye deer.

“Don’t you go getting any ideas now, d’ye hear?” Who said that to me? Teachers, girlfriends, police officers…. Er… my mind has suddenly gone conveniently blank.

But I can’t help it. Something will occur and I’ll seem to drift off for a moment. Here’s what happened earlier:

Scene – at the bar. A neighbour (by which I mean a fellow villager, not the fellas on either side of my house) leaves his lively table and arrives beside me at the bar to pay his tab. He looks at the printed out bill.

Neighbour: (Quietly) “How much is that? I can’t read it.”

Barman: “£34.35.”

Neighbour: (loudly) “Is it? Right…” (digs out his cash card)

Another drinker from my neighbour’s table: (shouting) “How much is it?”

Neighbour: “£200. And I only came in for a half.”

Laughter from the table. The barman puts the PIN machine on the bar top and my neighbour slots in his card. And then pauses.

Neighbour: (to barman) “I can’t see the numbers. You’ll have to put them in.”

Bar landlord: “Don’t worry, he knows the PIN numbers of half the people in the village.”

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Things you don’t expect to see in Harlem

So I was wandering through Harlem (New York) when I saw this sign. I did a double take. Checked my surroundings. Re-checked. Yup, still in Harlem.

No – the letters on the sign haven’t been mischievously rearranged

Great inventions that could change your life

1. Beer Protector – First of all, not everyone has given up smoking. And just because the smokers have left the bar for for a drag, it doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned their pints.

Is it not bad enough for them that they’re forced to indulge their filthy habit outside, shivering in the drizzle hunched over their sputtering butts, without having to worry that someone will hand their unfinished glass of Guinness to the barman and say: “I think this one’s dead.”