I don't know what it is about me at the moment, but people seem to be approaching me for advice that I am not qualified to give them.
As I was shambling through Shepherd's Bush this evening on my way to appear on Andrew Collins' Round Table radio show (I told him he was arrogant to try and make out that he was the same as King Arthur and pointed out that his table was rectangular anyway, that somewhat defeated the whole point), I passed a telephone box.
I happened to catch the eye of a slightly frantic middle aged woman inside it.
As with the Warburton's bread incident of last week I was not dressed in a manner that indicated I was an employee of the service she was using, but evenso having established eye contact she opened the door and said "Excuse me."
"Yes," I said. I was a bit late for the radio show already and not keen to get embroiled in a conversation with a mental.
"Do you know which coins this phone box takes?"
Now, there was no real reason why I, an innocent passerby who never uses phone boxes thanks to the advent of the mobile phone, should know this information.
"Well, whichever coins it says are acceptable, I guess," I said, fairly reasonably I thought.
But my answer angered her. Really, she was cross. She shouted at me "But it doesn't say!" And she gave me a look as if to say that this was my fault and slammed the door on me.
But it wasn't my fault that the phone box didn't say, I am nothing to do with BT. If I was I'd put a sign up in each box saying which coinage was and wasn't accepted. Just not to cause any confusion.
My guess is that it probably accepts all UK coinage (and possibly euros as well) which is why it doesn't bother to specify. If I had been the lady I would have tried to put some money in to see if it worked, and been fairly confident that my coins would have been returned if they couldn't have been used.
What I wouldn't have done was ask a random stranger and then blame him if he couldn't provide a detailed (and correct) answer.
The seven TVs were gone today. One can only presume there are 7 very happy dwarves somewhere tonight watching Nush get evicted from Big Brother, before tuning in to Bo Selecta and feeling slightly dirty about themselves.
