Apparently people can take milk for their babies on board planes at Heathrow but it has to be tasted by a security official – how the hell do you get a job like that? I want in.

I know this has been talked about here before, but I wasn’t around to have my say, so… I was sitting on a bench near Clapham Junction with my book. There was a girl with a clipboard sat down next to me, but she looked sort of off-duty andi didn’t think she’d dare interrupt my reading. When she said “what are you reading?” I was actually pleasantly surprised. She was, incidentally, incredibly beautiful. We chatted about Bollywood films (I was an extra in The Legend of Baghwhat Singh – one of her favourites!), books, my job, her j– wooooaah we were onto her job and suddenly she morphed back into her despicable “I’m going to mug you in the streets and piss you off so much you sign up for monthly donations”.

I don’t give to charity muggers, so after her 25 minute spiel I shook her hand and went back to my office. But I was pretty annoyed that she had managed to worm her way into my lunch break. I don’t mind the charities – this was Amnesty International – I think they do brilliant work. I don’t even particularly resent street fund-raising – the charities say they make a lot of money in this way from people who might otherwise be too idle to find out about causes they agree with. But I do resent the agencies that organise these collections and make a business out of global rubbishness. They hire pricks, then they pay them £12 an hour to assault the public – a cost which I don’t believe for one second the agencies bear the brunt of themselves. Anyway I’m convinced that, given the almost universal public hatred of these people, this medium is dead, and there must be a better way to raise awareness and encourage donations. Send me your ideas and I will get on it…

It could be, of course that I’m just bitter about being seduced by the beautiful charity collector, only to discover i was no different to the other men on the street :-( It reminds me of being in Thailand, where I had a fascinating conversation with a stripper, and then was horrified when she suddenly reached for my crotch. I believe they call what I have Naivety. But I prefer to think of it as innocent optimism.

P.S. For a bonus point — the little biro circle on this tube map where bakerloo and metropolitan cross is not mine. Who can come up with the best theory as to why the person, whoever (s)he is, drew it?

Who in the name of Christ stays in them? I saw one with a banner up saying “special offer – £92 a night”, which strikes me as being insanely expensive. What do you get for your money apart from a trouser press and a continental breakfast? If I was fleeing from the law and I had just irredeemably dishonoured my family then i suppose i might crawl into a holiday inn room to die, but until that happens I’m staying well away.

Anyone who has been to one and can shed any light?

For an extra £30 I’m pretty sure you can get a room in the Ritz. I just don’t get it. Unless there is a growing class of downwardly mobile Alan Partridges in London?

As a thrice Oxbridge reject I am sometimes in two minds whether to embrace my gentlemanly instincts. At my grandparents golden wedding anniversary party, for example, I sat next to a moustachioed RAF veteran with the fantastic name of ‘Cockey Trower’, and just couldn’t compete.

But this looks good, especially the event called ‘Bounders’, where “roguish contestants approach a row of ladies and are given two minutes to behave like utter cads. The winner is the bounder who receives the loudest slap and the reddest face.”

“Projecting films onto a giant air-screen in the garden beside the Lido, DIVE-IN MOVIES celebrates one hundred years of features, shorts and archive footage, all featuring swimming pools and swimming. Ticket price to include a swim in the magnificent 100 yard pool, a Centenary drink and an evening of film.” [actually I think it's celebrating 100 years of the lido, not the films, but you get the idea]

Sounds incredible — I’ll be there in my Victorian one-piece.

Intriguingly, while the Tooting Bec pool is famous for being the largest outdoor pool in Europe, their website is a bit cagey , saying that at 90mx33m it is “one of Europe’s largest open-air pools”. Who can tell me where the others are?

I Keep seeing adverts for a new soya-based fruit drink called “Adez” on London buses and across tube tracks. Does anyone else think that this is an unfortunate name? Mind you, many soya-based products have yet to pull me in with their marketing – consider the endline for Alpro: “Soya, but not as you currently know it”. About as catchy as bird flu.