It’s not that much different to my previous car – a bit newer (OK, less than half the age. In fact, at the time of writing, it hasn’t quite reached its fourth birthday), and lower mileage – in fact the lowest mileage of any car I’ve owned. It has a digital speedometer, an anti-clockwise rev counter, and tells me when to change up a gear – which I generally ignore, as it seems to be based solely on speed, and takes no account of road conditions. It’s also got cruise control and speed limiter which I will use if ever I need to control my cruising or limit my speed.

The first time I drove it in the dark I kept dazzling oncoming vehicles because the “full beam” warning light is way over to the left of the dashboard, out of my field of vision, and I forgot the beam was up. I’m also getting used to having a real key rather than a proximity key.

I bought the car on Sunday and said “yes” when the salesman (sorry, sales executive - even if he did look like a kid barely out of school) suggested Tuesday for collection. It wasn’t until I was driving away that I remembered I’d refuelled on my way to the showroom and wouldn’t have time to burn all that fuel up. I did briefly consider buying a few petrol cans and siphoning the fuel out – but then realised that a fuel can was not that much cheaper than a gallon of petrol, so not really worth it.

And what is it about car salesman (sorry again, sales executives) that they leave you alone for ages while they go to talk to their manager.

I watched the rugby world cup opening match between England and Fiji on Friday evening. I suffered some initial confusion, followed by mid-term confusion, followed by terminal confusion (ok I was confused for the whole match) in that England were not the team in white shirts. I kept thinking it was an England-Wales match.

Controversy over the referee’s reversal of a try decision after he saw the replay on the screen showed that the ball was dropped. On the one hand, having made decision, the referred should stick with it – even though it is subsequently shown to be the wrong decision. However, would it be fair if Fiji progressed through the competition on the basis of an illegal try?

There is an argument that the try wouldn’t have made a difference to the outcome of the game, but I think that that is only partially true. Yes, even if Fiji had an extra five (or seven) points, the final result would still have been an England win. However, the psychological effect of the try on both teams could have affected the game so that England wouldn’t have scored their subsequent points. The referee may have been affected too – knowing he had been “unfair” to England, he might have (subconsciously or otherwise) been more lenient in future decisions. Plus, those extra points for Fiji might have made a significant difference to the points difference at the end of the first round.

But the fact remains that there are three officials on the pitch, and none of them noticed that the try had included a blatantly dropped ball. I think that is more controversial than the reversed decision.

The calibre of people I encounter:

“Ruby, I can't get into my email”
“Have you forgotten your password again?”
“No, but it won’t let me in”
“That probably means that you’re using the wrong password”
“No, I'm definitely using the right one. I’ve typed it in seven times”
“Did it not cross you mind after, say, the first six, that maybe your password isn’t what you think it is? Also, you are locked out after three attempts, so re-entering any password is not going to work. It doesn’t work on pester power – you can’t keep giving it the same answer until it gives way and lets you in. Have you set up the password reset facility?”
“Yes, I type in RESET123 – but that didn’t work either”
“That’s not the password reset facility so I’ll take that as a ‘no’. You’ll have to ask your line manager to request a reset for you – but DON’T ask him today, he’s already got far too much to worry about. You’ll just have to wait for a couple of weeks”

Work wanted to assess how many people used the IT system on the non-working Fridays. It was one hundred and something the first week, and two hundred and something the second week. “So an increasing trend” we were told. Well, not really. Two measurements do not make a trend.

Last week the cadet leader, who is studying a PGCE, told us how she had learned a new method to get children’s attention: clap your hands above your head.

“What?” I asked in feigned incredulity. “You’ve gone to university to learn how to clap? I knew how to do that when I was three”

“You must have gone to university at a very young age, then” replied one of the cadets, in a splendid example of repartee.

Cadet leader also added that this method might work for young children, but by the time they get to about ten the reaction to an overhead hand clap is going to be “yeah, whatever”.

Slight cockup on the sartorial front. We went out for a meal on Saturday, to an upmarket restaurant. Because it was upmarket, I thought I should attire myself appropriately with shirt and tie. I took by bestest shirt (so bestest I’ve not worn it for about three years) to change into – but forgot the cufflinks.
“Have you got any cufflinks?” I asked CGF.
“No – why would I” came the, not unreasonable reply.

And because my sweater was “too scruffy” I resorted to having flapping cuffs throughout the evening.

But all was not as it seemed. Just after we sat down at the table, CGF handed me a small package. An early birthday present – a pair of cufflinks. What serendipity.

When we got home, various teenagers were lounging about the place all on their mobile devices (don’t worry – this wasn’t an unexpected invasion – we had been expecting them (well, let’s be honest here, this was the main reason we had gone out to eat)).

“Well, this doesn’t look very sociable” we remarked.

“Oh don’t worry – we’re all playing a card game together”

I pointed out that in my day we used small cardboard tokens when we played cards. Different times.

You know how when you hear something on the news and think “that doesn’t sound quite right”, and a bit later some more news comes out that proves you were right to be suspicious? A few weeks ago there was a news report about how several cities might ban diesel engines because of the pollutants they discharge.

“Well”, I thought,” a few years ago diesels were all the range because of their fuel economy. And they had low CO² emissions too, so were good for the environment. Someone must have known that they were churning out lots of other bad stuff.”