As I write this, tomorrow is set to be a big day. The Prime Minister is due to announce the plans for England to leave lockdown and we will all find out what our futures hold. This will be broadcast live on TV and judging by previous announcements, he will be surrounded by flags (perhaps it will be fun to guess how many) and sat at a small desk which has the draws facing the camera (rather than the person using the desk) meaning it is back to front.

               It is likely the opposition parties will say that whatever is announced will be ‘too little, too late’, which seems to be their default position and then there will be a long stream of people asking ‘why if you can do this thing, why can’t you do that thing’ for which there will be no answer. Judging on previous experience, it will be weeks until the guidance is produced meaning that whatever is announced will be unclear. Some people will say the reopening is too fast, others will say it isn’t fast enough and we will get endless news footage of people outside shops being asked their opinion while wearing masks incorrectly.

               Even though, it is no longer a novelty, I am still very distracted by what is behind the scientists being interviewed from their houses. It is now very rare for children or pets to get involved and bookcases are becoming less popular too. My current favourite is a scientist from the University of Liverpool who has a hobby horse in the background. I imagine him running around and asking for sugar lumps between interviews.

To be honest, I have no idea what I would choose for my background, probably a blank wall would be safest, although it seems a longshot that any journalist would be asking me what my opinions are regarding virology (or anything else).

What would be nice, is if the announcement made some kind of sense and won’t need days of clarification but if sitting on the correct side of a desk proves challenging, perhaps we shouldn’t be too hopeful.

               According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a technophobe is a person who fears, dislikes, or avoids new technology and so this means I am a technophobe. I have written before about my reluctance to try any new piece of equipment, mainly because everything I have, I can work and I am fine with that.

               My opinion on this is starting to change. I am beginning to understand that technology is designed to be easy to use and it wouldn’t be popular if it was difficult. So technophobia is a choice. It is not that I can’t work new things, it is simply that I don’t want to.

               The pandemic has forced me (like many people) to adapt. I can now successfully operate You Tube, I have downloaded (though admittedly, hardly touched) Spotify and I finally understand why everyone uses chip and pin rather than carrying lots of coins. There is a great satisfaction in ‘conquering’ a new piece of tech, even if the rest of the world has been using it for years.

It has become obvious to me that my life would be better if I didn’t keep using paper maps and out of date bus timetables, printing out paperwork or just hoping nothing has changed since I left the house. So this week, I took a major step forward when, for the first time in over a decade, I decided to order a new mobile phone.

As there are no shops open I can avoid the problem of a shop assistant having to explain things to me like I have been in a coma since Queen Victoria’s time. Instead, Amazon will have to do. I typed phone into the search and I was informed there were ‘over 60,000’. Why the number was so vague is a side issue. I have no idea what makes a good phone and so I settled on one that fitted my price range and had a high number of stars from other reviewers. It was the ‘OPPO A5 2020 Snapdragon 665 5000 mAh Dual Sim 12 MP Ultra Wide Quad’. There is pretty much nothing in this description that I understand. Neither have I any idea about what I will do with the ‘internal gyroscope’ or why it matters that ‘It combines Frame Boost and Touch Boost’.

I decided not to pay the extra £4.99 for the next day delivery but it arrived the next day anyway. Because my old phone is a museum piece surely worthy of display next to plastic cups connected with string, I had to order a new SIM card. I learned this from a website as none of the words in ‘OPPO A5 2020 Snapdragon 665 5000 mAh Dual Sim 12 MP Ultra Wide Quad’ translate in English as ‘manual included’.

Automated phone services are always a nightmare and I learned a while ago that the best way to navigate the robot voiced menus is to repeatedly press numbers that are not one of the options. Eventually you get a human. Mine was called Owen. I don’t know why this was important, but he told me three times. I was ready with a ruler to measure the slot to work out what size I needed but as everyone (except me) knows, new SIM cards are all the same size.

“The best way to get a new SIM is from one of our authorised retailers” Owen informed me.

             “Do phone shops count as essential retail” I asked, knowing that they didn’t and as such, were all shut. Owen paused.

             “Well, as a special treat, I can send one out to you free of charge, saving you £1.50” came his reply. I very much enjoy that for Owen a £1.50 SIM card counts as a special treat.

             While I wait for this, I have managed to install the updates, download a couple of apps and correctly attach the case. Weirdly, getting the case on was the hardest of those tasks.

             I am still not caught up yet on all this technology though, I have never used a TV streaming service or taken a photo with anything other than a camera while the point of posting anything on social media hasn’t really become clear to me. But these are things for another day, I am still figuring out what to do with my internal gyroscope.

I once heard a theory that the Queen must think everything smells like paint as everywhere she goes has been recently refurbished in anticipation of her arrival. The same must be true for company executives. Nothing puts the fear in a branch manager more than a notification that somebody important ‘from corporate’ is on their way.

               The run up to the big visit sees an extraordinary set of events take place. Absolutely everything in the building is purged, if it is untidy, it is gone. Waste paper bins vanish, useful notices are binned and large amounts of money is spent on new furnishings. The poor maintenance team need to work about 17 hours a day putting up new flatpack cupboards, painting walls and examining historic paperwork. Obscure stockrooms and outbuildings become urgent priorities and rotas are altered so the more ‘problematic’ staff members are absent. Then come the flagged emails telling the whole building there is a chance they will be questioned by the VIPs on a previously unknown procedure we are supposed to be following.

Of course, what actually happens is nothing of the sort. The visits are usually brief and unremarkable. The CEO never seems to run their finger over the newly dusted curtain rail, the Chairperson doesn’t look behind the door of the third floor supply cupboard and for all the training urgently undertaken, the Chief Operating Officer fails to ask the new recruit from logistics what point seven of the customer service excellence scheme is. The reason for all this, is that generally speaking, they don’t care. They are here to see the manager and have no interest regarding the dates of the memos on the noticeboard.

               I was put through the trauma of one of these visits recently. I knew something was up by the number of fresh flowers that suddenly appeared. Then a van arrived full of boxes, the curtains were taken to the dry cleaners and the unfortunate deputy was tasked with looking over everything to make sure the old logo was nowhere to be seen.

The day before the visit, our manager discovered that the big day was only a couple of weeks before the CEO’s birthday so this would be a great opportunity for a surprise party. A chef was hired to cook a special meal, a cake was ordered and the already overworked secretary was sent round to gather everyone’s signature in an oversized birthday card. We were all summoned to sing happy birthday and pose for photos on their arrival. However, it transpired that the branch visited prior to ours had the same idea so all our visitors arrived full of cake and couldn’t eat a thing.

               Over the following few days the waste paper bins reappeared, we were allowed to unlock the messy (but useful) cupboards and everyone could go back to having ‘personal items’ on their desks.

               I am sure that company executives must realise how much chaos their visits must cause and question why all their premises have a waft of varnish in the air. One day, when I am actually allowed to talk to one of these executives, I might subtly suggest that video conferencing would be a good option rather than a site visit. On the other hand, I might just carry on hiding out of the way until it is all over.

There are many things to learn upon starting a new job.

• The names of the other people in the office
• What all the acronyms mean
• Which is the toilet nobody uses and what the reason for this is
• How strict people are regarding breaks
• Who is that person, who has been there for decades and can’t deal with even the smallest change while talking about how ‘social’ it used to be here.

However, alongside this, in the current era of lawyers, a whole new set of obstacles are put in our way. Compulsory training that has to be completed the moment somebody passes through the door, yet will not actually be arranged for months until just before the auditors are due. Fire prevention, manual handling, first aid, data protection, health & safety are inevitable among the list of torture.

Of course, these things are important but the focus is often on making sure the company is ‘in compliance’ regarding the myriad of government regulations rather than any benefit to the employee. The training will need completing no matter how relevant it is to the position held within the company. It is unlikely that anyone would be bribing a cleaner with trips to Silverstone but if that cleaner works in big business the anti-bribery training will need to be taken. When working with the cruise ships, I was ordered to spend a whole day on sluice pump training in case I accidently dumped sewage in the ocean half way through the bingo, even though I had no need to know what a sluice pump actually was nor where to find it.

               Larger companies may have a designated training provider, a poor soul with whom nobody makes eye contact and spends their time telling people that ‘it is a company requirement’ that they learn about the Manual Handling Operations Regulation Act of 1992 even though they are a phone operator. They will tell you it will be brief yet drone on for hours and will accompany the presentation with a series of information videos from the late 1980s that will take ages to find on their computer and will be too dark/quiet.

Other times it is undertaken online. This is far more preferable. There is usually a test at the end with a pass rate needed of about 80%. Based on my experience, here are a few tips.

1. There is no need to read the information. It is likely to be very straight forward and you will save about two hours by skipping to the end.
2. TILE stands for Task, Individual, Load, Environment. For some reason, this is always a question in computerised training.
3. Be careful, sometimes it records how long the course has taken to complete, so don’t go too fast. Open the page, then go and watch TV for a bit, come back later.
4. Read the questions carefully, how many answers are they looking for? Don’t forget, you can always Google it.
5. The emergency assembly point will be on the far side of the car park (it is always there).
6. When the test is over and you get your congratulations screen, print it out. The last thing you need is for the connection to fail and have to do the whole thing again.

Then just when you think it is all done, somebody with a spreadsheet informs you that it has expired and will need doing again. Just remember, far side of the car park.

               When I applied to run a schedule of crafts, quizzes and bingo at a local care home for the elderly, I hadn’t realised this would qualify me as an ‘essential worker’. Surely, this is people the country can’t do without like police officers, nurses or teachers not bingo callers. However, upon enquiring, I was informed that my role is vital for mental wellbeing so I am in the club. Incidentally, I was amused during a recent government press conference when a scientist advised against ‘going with reckless abandon to places like bingo halls’. It seems telling that, for him, bingo counts as reckless abandon.

               At the end of last week, I got an email saying my ‘special status’ qualifies me for my first Pfizer vaccination against covid and I was to book an appointment. The odd thing about this is that the residents at the care home are yet to receive this privilege and the vaccine does not prevent us transmitting to them. So much for protecting the most vulnerable.

               The second slightly odd thing is that despite having a vaccination centre a ten minute walk from home, I was being sent 17 miles away to the other side of the county. The 7:30pm appointment time wasn’t great either. I phoned up to ask but was politely told it is ‘not possible’ for the booking to be altered. Oh well, I thought, I shouldn’t complain too much, I realise I am in a privileged position getting the vaccination months ahead of others in my age group.

               I was surprisingly calm about the vaccination itself. There are many people who are very hesitant, and I work with (at least) three health workers who are declining the offer due to a variety of conspiracy theories but none of that interests me. However, I don’t have a great history with medical stuff. At school, I would predictably faint when medical procedures were discussed, it became a running joke. Even today, I can’t get through a first aid course without becoming a casualty. I get clammy, lightheaded and then make my escape at the very mention of counting chest compressions or the Heimlich manoeuvre but this didn’t really bother me.

As I don’t drive, I took a taxi on the 17 mile journey in the dark through driving rain and puddles deep enough to take a bath in. Was that wise? I guess the taxi driver was just glad of the business.

               My email told me to follow the signs towards ‘coarse fishing’ which made me think it was nice of them to sort out the foul-mouthed fishermen from the more family friendly variety. The vaccination centre was round the back and upon my arrival was in full swing. It was an impressive operation, eight rooms each of four people, changing round every ten minutes. I had to bring my appointment letter and some photo ID but neither was looked at, perhaps because it was 7:30pm and a heavily tattooed bodybuilder in a tight t-shirt/face mask combo appeared in front of me with a laptop asking me to confirm my address. It was somewhere I hadn’t lived for years but he said that wasn’t important.

               “How are you with needles” he asked.

               “They are not my favourite” I replied. Mr muscles reacted like this was the most hysterical thing he had ever heard but thankfully, the procedure itself was painless and no ambulance was required.

               On my departure I was presented with an appointment card for 11 weeks time. Clearly a meeting was held, some people thought it should be ten weeks, others twelve and a compromise was arrived at. At this point, my ID was examined. Perhaps a little too late.

               The journey back was even more ‘exciting’ as the pounding rain turned into thick snow. I closed my eyes and turned the music on my headphones up louder. Due to the ongoing lockdown a medical appointment in a blizzard was my first night out in weeks and the first time I left my town in months. I wonder if the next time will be in April for my follow-up dose? Either way, it is done now and I can’t help feeling like I am one tiny step closer to getting back to normal.

Over the last few months, I have been running activities in a care home for the elderly. Like any setting there are plusses and minuses to this but one of the major advantages is that I avoid the weekly dread of the customer ratings. Instead, how successful I have been is judged on how many of our residents stay awake for the whole event. Of course, how awake people in their 90s are is dependent on many variables such as the time of day, if it is before or after lunch and what medication they are currently on.

               In most holiday settings, the guests will be sent a survey shortly after their stay to gather their feedback. Generally, it will be split into several sections such as ‘food’, ‘reception services’ and ‘cleanliness’ and along with their comments, a score will need to be given (generally between 1 and 5). These comments and scores will be forwarded to the relevant departments on the resort on a weekly basis. Many times, the first line of feedback will be ‘I know nobody will read this’ which isn’t true, the comments are read by many people (although if they are actually acted on, is another matter).

               Positive comments are often displayed on a notice board for the staff members to look through while the negative ones are examined for trends. Many comments are about things we can’t do anything about ‘too many hills’, ‘there were kids running around’ (in August), or ‘nobody told us it would be so windy’. These kinds of things come up fairly often. It is also very normal for people to write complaints about things that could have been dealt with had the customer actually said something during their stay ‘would have appreciated an extra pillow’ or ‘couldn’t work out how to turn on the heating so was forced to sit in the cold all week’.

Some of the guest survey comments that stick in my mind include:

• ‘My sister booked this cruise as a surprise, if she had told me the itinerary, I wouldn’t have gone’.
• ‘The person in the next room shouted at my children’.
• ‘Part way through our stay, my husband told me he wanted a divorce and the lady at reception said I couldn’t have another room as the hotel was full’.

               If I am honest, the scores (the 1-5 ratings) are much more important to the managers than the individual comments. Every drop of 0.1% is a cause for concern and examined against every other resort in the group and against what happened in previous years. It is widely acknowledged that if there was a problem in one area, the guest will mark down every department. Also bad weather and school holidays will pull the scores down. If one resort can’t raise its falling scores, personnel changes will be made fairly quickly.

All this means that some people get more attention than others as the staff feel those are the ones most likely to fill in the surveys. In a couple, the wife is statistically more likely to fill in the survey than her husband, it is probable that young people will delete the emails and older people are more likely to not actually notice the email in the first place. This is an inexact science, but you get the idea. If you are ever in a hotel, shop or restaurant and women aged about 40-70 are getting all the attention it is possibly because people working there are worried about their scores.

               I have had colleagues go to extraordinary lengths to ‘rescue’ their scores and keep their jobs. I have seen people writing their own reviews in a variety of pens, I heard of somebody who got fired for printing off lists of customers emails and booking reference numbers and spending a night filling in surveys on their behalf and the old classic of asking people to fill in a positive survey while actually in the building in exchange for a discount or free gift.

               Compared to all this, being judged on merely keeping people awake is much more straight forward.

There are very few people that actually believe ‘the customer is always right’ and the people that do are usually the ones who think they are entitled to whatever they like. Thankfully, there are not so many of these but working with people means I have come across a fair number of them. Most of the more difficult customers are people that simply don’t understand what is going on.

               During my time working on the cruise ships, there was a story I heard many times that involved somebody asking a crew member ‘do the crew stay on board or go home at night?’. Obviously not a well thought out question considering we are usually thousands of miles from land. Anyway, the story goes that the crew member answered that ‘we get a helicopter home every evening’. Then the next day the passenger complained that the noise of the helicopters kept them awake all night.

               I am not sure if this story is true or just cruise ship folklore (along with ‘how do I know which photo is mine’ ‘it’s the one with you in it’), but it is true that we had some extraordinary guest interactions. Deaths onboard are incredibly rare, as people need travel insurance to sail so anyone ‘uninsurable’ doesn’t travel but every single cruise there is a rumour that 12 or 15 people have died. When it is pointed out that is untrue, we are always met with ‘well, you would say that wouldn’t you?’ which then fuels the gossip of a cover up further.

               A particularly fraught time is embarkation day. People have travelled since early morning and are highly stressed and exhausted. This combination led to complaints of seasickness before the ship had sailed and somebody screaming that they booked a sea view room and all they could see was the car park. Then there was a man who couldn’t work the balcony door mechanism and got stuck outside. Rather than shouting or knocking, he phoned the coastguard leading to a 90 minute delay of departure.

               One of our more useless tasks was manning the library. We had a barcode reader that was used to scan the books into a computer database. We then asked for names and cabin numbers. Trouble was, that vast numbers of the books were not in the database and the database was not linked to anything (it wasn’t even on the network) so there would have been no way to check if books were returned or stolen. It was a total charade. Anyway while playing along, we had a lot of time to fill so in 2008, my colleagues started a list of the odder guest interactions they had.

               There were a surprizing number of people who wanted a specific book but didn’t know what the book was. ‘I think it might have a red cover, or maybe blue’, ‘the one that woman was talking about on TV last week’ or ‘my husband thought it was about a family a bit like ours, do you know what he meant’. There were also very specific requests ‘I heard a story on the news about the foot sizes of the ancient Egyptians, where is your section about this’? I bet even Amazon doesn’t even have a whole section on this obscure topic.

               I am glad my colleagues kept the list, I would have forgotten these gems:

• “Can I ask why the number 13 has only been called in bingo three times this cruise?”
• “So you are from England, My sister in law went there once, is it possible you have met her?”
• “Does a banana skin count as paper and plastic?”
• “Why is it Sunday in Victoria?”
• “Do you have a dictionary? I don’t want to use it, just wanted to see if you have one”
• “Will the port side and the starboard side both go under the bridge?”
• “Why didn’t this book mention Sarah Palin?”
• “Did the engineers on the Titanic have purple between their stripes too? I didn’t notice that detail in the film”

Of course, the vast majority of people are lovely, funny and polite but it is the others that we remember. One day the world will reopen and I will, once again, explain 20 times an hour where the toilets are. I can’t wait. 

How do you persuade people to go back to the same hotel multiple times? Make it different. The location is fixed, renovations are too costly but a change of theme is easy. This means creating a whole set of activities based on an occasion. Many of these themes are fairly straight forward such as Christmas, Easter or Halloween. It is now fairly normal to include Valentine’s, St Patrick’s and perhaps some imported from America like Superbowl, Thanksgiving or the Oscars. These worked well, so more were added and now there are often three a week.

These are often pre-set by the marketing department in a corporate head office in another country, months in advance and the resort managers are under a lot of pressure to deliver which rolls down to us. Yet very rarely are explicit directions actually given. Every resort in the group is expected to make something up and a competition is set for who will have the best event, social media posts are created and the guests are contacted in advance to let them know all about it. However (in my experience) about 9 in 10 of these are a total disaster.

               Sometimes the themes are wrong for the local clientele. President’s day is a public holiday in USA but celebrating it elsewhere in the world is odd, “president of what?” is a usual response. Even the staff assume it is something to do with the CEO. Diwali is a lovely festival if you have lots of visitors who are Hindu or Sikh but if you don’t, it is a lot of work.

On other occasions the timings are wrong. I once had to move Halloween to the following week as October 31^st clashed with the VPs birthday party. Children’s events in term time are commonplace. The Shadow Puppet Festival and Unicorn Day both stick in my mind of events that had zero attendees due to the fact it was not the school holidays and the mainly retired set of guests we had were not interested in recreating a version of the Baby Shark video.

The last few years have seen a rise in environmental themes. Litter picking, energy saving and recycling are all important but nobody wants to take time out of their precious holiday to ‘learn more and get a ticket for the prize draw’ when they could be at the beach with an ice cream. On the rare occasions somebody asks what the prize is, I say it is a mystery rather than the truth – a bamboo toothbrush or t-shirt flown in all the way from China.

               The hardest group of all are the ones that we don’t understand. I remember being instructed on a conference call to expect delivery of a package of supplies for an upcoming Matariki festival we were to run. Confused looks ran around the room, none of us knew what Matariki was but a conference call was no place to admit that. Perhaps we had missed an email? Expensive costumes and banners arrived but still no instructions. We phoned back.

               ‘Hi, we just have a few questions about the Matariki festival’ The boss started.

               ‘Sure’ corporate person answered.

               ‘Well, what exactly are we expected to do?’ He asked.

               ‘It is a festival that is very important to the guests in your part of the world so we ask you to use your local knowledge and creativity to create a vacation highlight’.

               ‘I wonder if there has been some confusion, we are in Singapore and from what I can work out, Matariki is from New Zealand’ I chipped in.

               ‘Yes, absolutely. Everyone in your area will expect a celebration and we can’t wait to see the photos’ Corporate person answered back, clearly having no idea that we were more than 5000 miles away and so it meant nothing to the people here. Matariki just like Harmony Day, Syrup Day, Migratory Bird Day and Towel Day was a predictable failure.

However, this is where it gets complicated. Nobody wants to hear that these days don’t work because the money has already been spent, the decorations have been ordered and the guests are informed long before we are. Although 80s weekend is a winner, I have never yet met anyone who had booked a holiday especially for Goose and Gosling Day or Marianne Twanette Day. If it goes wrong, it must have been because we didn’t try hard enough. So instead we fake photographs, bribe people with offers of free drinks to stand with a prop and then we write on social media what a great success it was. Everyone else in the group does the same and it is good fun to spot the same helpful friends in multiple shots over the year.

               I have not yet had the events calendar for 2021. Whenever it arrives, you can be sure there will be something obscure I will need to organise for later that week and that whatever it is will be a disaster (unless you are from head office, then it was great).

A few weeks ago I blogged that I was looking forward to Christmas. However now the festive season has gone on for so long that for me a tipping point has been reached and now I struggle to remember life before Christmas. Over the last few days and weeks, a number of things have become clear:

• I can happily live the rest of my life without hearing Wham, Slade or Mariah Carey ever again.
• Glitter is one of the worst things ever invented and along with cockroaches will survive a nuclear apocalypse.
• I don’t care if Die Hard counts as a Christmas film or not.
• Turkey isn’t a good meat and most people are too scared to admit they would prefer something else.
• A large number of cracker jokes don’t really make sense.
• Christmas TV is generally a celebrity version of every other show in the schedule (featuring people I feel the need to Google) plus a load of repeats.

My neighbours have got very competitive with their outside lights (presumably because they have nothing else to do). They have inflatable Santas in the garden, sleighs projected on the sides of the house and so many lights, I need sunglasses to walk down the street. In fact, there was no chance of seeing Jupiter last week as the lights from my road made the skies brighter than the sun. I think even the weather has had enough as Storm Bella tore everything down overnight, although as I write this, the man opposite is up a ladder putting his lights back up again ready for round two. If there is one thing that I hope that we have all learned from 2020 it is this. Just because the supermarkets start Christmas in September, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.

Obviously, the reason for this massively extended festive season is because we all have so much time with the Government issued stay-at-home instructions. It makes me wonder, what would happen to our competitive nature if it was some other time of year?

• If this carries on until February, will we all be commissioning light aircraft to write love messages in the skies?
• If this carries on until May, will we all be repurposing brooms and drain pipes for may pole dancing blocking off most residential streets in the process?
• If this carries on until August, will we all be wearing large sombreros and competitively making larger and ever more extravagant cocktails until we all collapse?

I really hope we don’t get to find out.

In the morning: Good Christmas presents. I got a new globe, slippers, headphones, tape stand, CD Rom program, chocolate, organiser and other things.

In the afternoon: Dinner, it was very nice. Dad has a new keyboard. Went on the new CD Rom, put up the tape stand.

In the evening: Watched Xmas TV. Recorded 2 videos. I am owed a summer holiday tape that is coming later on.

Dates: 11 days until school.

Tomorrow: Relatives.

Weather: Cold and sunny, temp: 3

Summary: Really good day today, enjoyed xmas.

I have always had maps around. The world and where places are still fascinate me. I constantly look up locations mentioned on the news out of curiosity and I would say geography is a specialist subject for me. The globe was a light up one but it didn’t work well, it was very stiff to move and the bulb broke. Despite this, I kept the globe on my shelf next to a red ceramic horse (origins forgotten) where they both gathered dust for years.

               Although I am now a confirmed technophobe, this has not always been the case. I was very early in getting a Kindle, which at that point had to be ordered from USA and didn’t include a UK plug adaptor. I also was very excited by the world of the CD-Rom. This very short lived item of technology was essentially a reference book put onto a computer disk which I spent hours scrolling through. I had an encyclopedia disk and an atlas disk and this present was almost certainly an updated version. Within a few years everyone was online and the poor CDROM was consigned (along with tape stands) to museums of forgotten 90s technology.

               The Summer Holiday reference is not about a lovely week in Cornwall, actually the soundtrack to the movie classic. I had a cassette of the Cliff Richard version but since I didn’t really like Cliff’s voice I used to skip forward to the bits that didn’t feature him (there weren’t many). Foot Tapper by the Shadows was a favourite number. Darren Day then released a version and it was this that I was waiting for. Listening back to it now, it strikes me that Darren Day sounds very similar to Cliff Richard, I am not sure I realised that at the time.

I am also amused by ‘Tomorrow: relatives.’ It is the full stop that entertains me, no further description was put forward. Looking over the entry for the following day, I had gone to visit my cousins. ‘It was good. I got a new tape, Now 35. I now have Now 30, Now 31, Now 32, Now 33, Now 34 and Now 35’. At this point, I was still recording music from the radio so having the actual recordings would have been a treat. I used to rewind and fast forward the tapes so much that I would have a dedicated pencil by the cassette player for when the tape became loose.

               The 90s really were a different time.