Having recovered from the Brief Encounter with Noel Coward and the autograph requests having stopped we ventured across the channel to La Belle France with a group of our older chums to celebrate (perhaps not quite the right word) a significant birthday of mine.

Many people I meet tell me they don’t like the French but I have to say outside of Paris they seem mainly fine to me. Capital cities don’t seem to attract the kindliest of folk for some reason; London certainly isn’t the friendliest place on earth is it?

Anyway like them or not I do envy the French lifestyle and I think we should be more like them-fiercely patriotic in defending their way of life and ignoring the parts of the endless tripe that comes out of Brussels of which they don’t approve. Don’t start me off on politics please…… A great four days was had by all and now I really must get down to the business of Christmas.

My regular reader won’t be surprised to hear that Pantomimes aren’t my bag, especially amateur ones. I always think the performers seem to be having a better time than the audience. No problem there of course but perhaps they should be paying us to attend instead of the other way round.

I missed the annual Xmas nibbles night at the KBDG for the above reason, shame but dining with friends in a fine French chateau did seem the better option, although I can remember when I would have crawled over fifty yards of burning coals to attend any event the KBDG cared to dream up.

Which brings me to my whinge of the week. I am often told that changes are inevitable and of course once you’re over thirty-five what do you know? Well I am very familiar with the RTC factor (Resistance to Change) and I don’t mind change at all when it’s for the better, but I find it seldom is. Unfortunately experience doesn’t seem to count for much these days so I really can’t be arsed any more to argue the point, and I feel the better for it, though I doubt if any of us will live to see the end of the DFS Sale.

Feeling a little downbeat having re-read this blog I’ll cheer myself up, and hopefully you dear reader, with one of my favourite stories.

Cherie Blair is touring the countryside in a chauffeur-driven car. Suddenly, a cow jumps out into the road - they hit it full on and the car comes to a stop.

Cherie, in her usual charming manner, says to the chauffeur: "Get out and check - YOU were driving."

The chauffeur gets out, checks and reports that the animal is dead. "YOU were driving; YOU go and tell the farmer," says Cherie.

Five hours later, the chauffeur returns totally plastered, hair ruffled with a big grin on his face.

"My God, what happened to you?" asks Cherie.

The chauffeur replies: "When I got there, the farmer opened his best bottle of malt whisky, the wife gave me a slap-up meal and the daughter made love to me."

"What on earth did you say?" asks Cherie.

"I knocked on the door - and when it was answered, I said to them: " I'm Cherie Blair's chauffeur and I've just killed the cow."