103. Big Yellow Taxi

We’ve been in New York for the past few days visiting Caroline’s sister, Joanna, Matthias her husband, and their two boys, Oscar and Timo.  It has been an interesting time, especially as we were here for Halloween, an occasion that is celebrated with much more energy, enthusiasm and fervour than it is in Britain.

The most interesting, memorable and exciting part of our short visit was right at the start: the journey from Newark Liberty International Airport to Sullivan Street, New York City.  This is a trip of 14 miles that we had been told would cost $55 by cab.  We got into a yellow taxi at the airport and told, the driver, Shane our destination.

“Sixty-seven bucks,” he said, “and eighteen for the tolls.” 

It had been an eight-hour flight, I was tired and I was hungry and I didn’t argue.

We set off on a six-lane highway.  The speed limit in New Jersey and in New York State is 65 mph and unlike in the UK, most people abide by it.  Another difference from the UK is that overtaking on both sides is permitted and is usual.

Even though at three thirty on a Wednesday afternoon the traffic was by no means light, our driver quickly reached 85 mph.  He switched lanes like a downhill slalom skier, occasionally breaking sharply and then accelerating away in the vein of a Formula One driver.  Caroline and I were shaken about and bumped into each other in the back for more than five minutes. 

We reached the first toll and I handed Shane a $20 bill.  He received a wad of notes in change and off we went again but not at breakneck speed because now we were in heavy traffic.  Then came the Holland tunnel and another toll was paid.  Our driver handed me two dollars.

“This is yours,” he said.

I noticed that he still had a bundle of notes in his hand.

“What about that?” I asked, pointing to the bills.

“That’s for my journey back.”

“You won’t go back empty,” I said.  “Don’t people in New York City use yellow cabs?  They do in all the films I’ve seen.  Surely you’ll get a fare in the city.”

He ignored me.

Throughout the tunnel, lane changing was forbidden but immediately we were through, Shane started lane switching started again even though we were in heavy traffic.  After a few minutes we pulled up in the middle lane behind a stationary truck.  Shane hooted loudly and constantly for 20 seconds but nothing changed.

As the traffic to our right passed serenely by, he lost patience and with a screech of tyres, he yanked at the wheel and changed lane, but clipping the rear wing of a passing Lincoln as he did so.

The Lincoln driver stopped immediately, got out and advanced towards us, red faced with anger.  Shane also got out and the two of them stood in the middle of The Avenue of the Americas screaming and abusing each other, both accusing the other of causing the collision.  After five minutes a traffic cop arrived and tried to play the role of peacemaker but neither of them wanted peace.

Two of the three lanes were blocked.  It was four o’clock and the rush hour was starting.  Crowds of people gathered on both sidewalks, many of them taking photographs.  

Shane came back and said nothing but started the engine and turned the wheel to the left.  The other driver realised that he was about to leave and stood in front of the taxi to stop it with both arms outstretched, as if he were prepared to sacrifice himself.  Shane went right but so did the other man – stalemate.  Those in the crowd who were videoing things were getting good shots.

Shane got out and the shouting started again.  There must have been more than a hundred spectators when there was a tap on my window and I saw a young woman smiling at me.  I wound down the window.  

“Are you in a movie?”

Shane returned and sat there, fuming in angry silence.  I asked what was going on and he told us that we were waiting for the police.

“Look,” I said to him, a little apprehensively, “it was your fault, you know.  You pulled out and hit him.  He was driving straight and he did nothing wrong.  You hit the rear of his car and so he’d almost gone past and he couldn’t possibly have seen you coming across.”

That may have had an effect on him because a minute later Shane got out again and the two of them began to talk for the first time.  The other driver began to write things down and after another ten minutes, Shane came back and we set off at last. 

He had to steer to the right to avoid the truck that was still in front of us.  I suspect that he hadn’t checked his wing mirror because I was immediately startled by the noise of hammering on the roof of the taxi.  Shane had driven into a cyclist’s path and caused him to stop abruptly.

“Well?” I asked him a couple of minutes later when all was quiet at last.  “How did you leave it?”

“Three hundred dollars,” he said.

“I reckon you got a good deal,” I said, and then he seemed to cheer up.  But it soon became horribly obvious that he didn’t have a clue where Sullivan Street was.

“Haven’t you got sat nav?” Caroline asked him.

“No.”

“A map then?” she said.

“No.”

Caroline rummaged in her rucksack and got out The Lonely Planet guide to New York.  She opened it at the street map.

“Next left…….Straight on…….Straight on…….Left…….It should be the next road on the right.”

“She knows what she knows,” Shane shouted, getting excited, all his past troubles seemingly forgotten.

When we saw the green road sign saying, ‘Sullivan Street’, Shane let out a whoop of triumph and he banged on the steering wheel with both fists. 

“She knows!  She knows!  The girl knows.  The girl knows,” he yelled at the top of his voice, with the look of a man who has scored the winning goal in the last minute of a cup final.  I have never before seen a licensed taxi driver so excited at reaching the destination.

We pulled up outside Joanna’s house, the thirty-minute journey having taken more than two hours.  I handed Shane seventy dollars.

“Twenty per cent is usual,” he said.

And would you believe it?  He was serious. 

102. Money Troubles

I don’t really understand money.  Yesterday morning, Caroline texted me from work.

“Meet for lunch?”

“No, too expensive,”

“Boo.  I’ll get a £2 sandwich then.”

“See? We just saved £30”

“Good.  So now we can afford lunch.  Where and when?”

There’s got to be a flaw with that logic but I can’t work out what it is it yet.  I suppose that it must be a bit like deciding not to buy a new Mercedes and then, instead, going on a World Cruise with the money you have saved from not buying the car.  

It’s the sort of logic that I’ve heard Caroline use when she comes back from an afternoon’s shopping.  Rather than answering my question about how much money she has spent, all I hear is about is how much money she has saved.  It is nonsense!

In July 2004 I bought a bread-making machine.  It cost £90.  I used it at least once a week for the next fifteen months and really enjoyed the bread that I made.  In October 2005 when we moved to Cayman, the bread machine came with us.  

A week after we arrived I threw it away.  It ran on 240 volts but the supply in Cayman is 110 volts, the same as in the USA.  A step-up transformer in Cayman, where everything except for coconuts is much more expensive in the UK, would have cost CI $120, which is about £85. 

I’ve just checked my current account and found that I have a (small) positive balance.  If I had not bought that bread-maker 10 years ago for £90, would the balance today read £90 more than it does?  No, of course it wouldn’t.

Until the year 2000, I used to smoke about 12 small cigars a day and until 2007, I drank beer, wine and spirits.   If I still smoked today, I would be spending about £4,200 a year on cigars and if I were still drinking alcohol, I would be spending about £1000 a year on that.

By giving up smoking and drinking I have awarded myself a rise in my net income of approximately £5,500 a year.  That is a substantial amount but I don’t notice it and I never have.

When I first stopped smoking cigars, I put £5 a day into a box to watch the amount grow but that didn’t last long.  After about five days I decided that I couldn’t afford to do that anymore.  That means that in less than a week I had imperceptibly altered my spending habits to use the money that I had previously spent on cigars and was now buying other things.

I have only once managed to save money by putting some away every day and that was about 25 years ago when I was awarded a 4.5 litre bottle of Scotch whisky as a reward for having an article published in a magazine.  

When the bottle was empty, many months later, I found that I was able to insert a 20p coin down the neck and into the bottle.  Every night, I searched through my pockets and put any 20p coins that I had into the bottle.  The coins made very slow progress ascending the bottle.  It was several weeks before the bottom of the bottle was covered but as the months passed I could see that progress was being made.

Eventually, three years after I began saving, the bottle was full.  I tried to estimate the value of the coins in the bottle but my assessment was nowhere near being close.  When I broke the bottle open I was surprised and delighted to find that I had saved £520.  I was much more delighted than the bank clerk who had to inspect, count and bag them all.

When I retired, my income was reduced by more than half but to our surprise it seemed to have no impact on our lifestyle whatsoever.  Whatever changes we made in our spending habits were so subtle that we didn’t notice any obvious differences.

I don’t know anything about economics and this next story illustrates my problem:

In a sleepy Suffolk village, the hotelier owed the butcher £50.  The butcher owed the farmer £50.  The farmer owed the seed supplier £50.  The seed supplier owed the psychic medium £50.  The medium owed the hotelier £50 and so everyone was in debt.

One day a travelling salesman came into the village to sell his goods. He left a £50 note as a deposit with the hotelier for a room for the night before he went to his first meeting. 

The hotelier immediately rushed off with the cash and paid the butcher; the butcher then paid the farmer; the farmer paid the seed supplier and the seed supplier paid the medium, whereupon she hurried off with the £50 note to pay the hotelier for the rent on the room she had used when she had held her last séance.

However, the salesman finished his business quicker than he expected and so when he went back to the hotel he told the hotelier that he wouldn’t need a room after all and he asked for his deposit to be returned.  The salesman took the original £50 note and left.

The outcome was that no one in the village was in debt anymore and everyone was happy.  Why can’t life be like that? 

Or maybe it can?  I might ask an economist but I’d probably fall asleep during the answer.

11:30 a.m. September 4th 2014.  Something interesting is happening.  

I usually get about 10 hits a week from the US but in the past eight hours I've had 42 from all over the country and it's the middle of the night there.  The really interesting thing is that virtually all of them have put "debt" or "money troubles" into a search engine.

101. Jerk Chicken Day

With all this talk nowadays of the Ofsted investigation into Birmingham schools and the ongoing effort by the Secretary of State for Education to remove poorly performing teachers from the profession, I am reminded of the only time I was observed by an Ofsted inspector. 

There was only one Ofsted inspection of Fortismere School while I was teaching there and that was in October 2001, four years before I retired.  I taught a lesson observed by an inspector whose observation of my performance lasted just under twenty minutes.  

I have calculated that I spent approximately two and a half million minutes standing in front of a class teaching, but that was the only time I was watched.  In 37 years I was never observed by a Head of Department, or by any member of senior management. 

We knew that Ofsted was coming in October 2001.  In those days schools were given two months notice which seems ridiculous now as schools were given the time to portray an unrealistic impression of themselves.  In fact, they would have been daft not to.

Monday and Tuesday passed with no visit to any of my classes and so I knew that there was a likelihood that I would be seen during period 4 on Wednesday as that was the only lesson I taught that day. 

I was not happy about that.  On the first two days of the week, I had taught really successful, well-planned lessons (in my head – not on paper) to my Year 8, 9, 10 groups and even my bottom set, Year 11 class of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds.  I say “even my Year 11 class” because they were often a problem.  When they were all present, there were only 14 of them but to say that they were “challenging” is putting it mildly. 

I knew that on Wednesday, my Year 11 class would all be there because Wednesday was “Jerk Chicken Day” in the school canteen and period 4 was the last lesson before lunch.  So usually, but not always, they behaved relatively well so that I would let them leave as soon as the buzzer sounded at the end of the lesson.  That meant that they could be at the head of the queue and get the chicken before it ran out.

At 12 noon, the buzzer sounded for the end of period 3.  I went into Room 306S and drew an ‘angle chasing’ exercise on the board so that the early arrivals could get on with something and not sit around doing nothing while they waited for the stragglers to arrive.

At 12.05 after a 5-minute changeover period to allow the students to walk the 400 metres between wings if they had to, the buzzer sounded for the start of period 4 but I was on my own.  No one had come.

At 12.15 I was still sitting on my own in an empty room and I checked the school bulletin to see if the Year 11s were on a trip.  They weren’t.  At least, the Ofsted inspector wasn’t coming because he would certainly have been on time and as the next lesson I had with this class was on Friday, when their inspection reports were being written and no observations were made, any observation of my teaching would be with a more amenable class.

Then I heard a commotion on the stairs.  There was shouting and laughing and the noise of running feet.  The commotion became louder as it got nearer and then the door burst open and all of my Year 11 maths class came charging into the room shouting, laughing and screaming.  They ran to the corner at the back of the room and gathered in a huddle, completely ignoring me.  After a minute or so, I almost had them all sitting in their places.

Then, before I could find out what was going on, the door opened again and in came a somewhat disheveled, middle-aged man, red in face, smouldering with rage and shaking with anger.

“Who’s that boy?” demanded the Ofsted inspector.  “He just knocked me over on the stairs.”

He was pointing at a large Afro-Caribbean boy wearing a pork pie hat.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I said.

“What!” said the inspector in a tone of some exasperation and disbelief.

“What are you doing here?” I asked the boy.

“He’s my cousin,” shouted Nelson.  “He’s visiting.”

A deputy head teacher arrived having been somehow summoned by the inspector.  After a minute or two she eventually managed to persuade Nelson’s “cousin” to leave the room with her and I started the lesson.   The atmosphere was a little tense.

The 14 students sat in the back two rows of the room as they always did, while the inspector sat at the end of the front row near to the door.  Perhaps he had planned his escape route in case things got tough.  I thought things were starting to go quite well, especially after I muttered, “Jerk Day” under my breath a couple of times.  The inspector looked puzzled each time.

“I’ll tell you later,” I told him.

Ayo, one of the six girls in the class, was obviously wondering about how things were going.

“Are you enjoying this, Mister Offset?” she called out but Mister Offset ignored her.

“How’s Mister Wilton doing?” she asked a moment later.  “Do you think he’s any good?  Can he teach us?” but again she got no response.

Fifteen minutes into the lesson, just as I got to the good bit where I helped the class prove that the internal angles of a rectangle must always add up to 360 because all rectangles are made up of two triangles, the inspector stood up and walked towards the door.

“Are you going to the canteen?” shouted Nelson.  “They won’t serve you yet.  You might as well stay here.”  

Ignoring Nelson, the inspector reached the door and went into the corridor outside.  Then he turned around to face me and raised two thumbs.  With that, he disappeared down the stairs.  There was no written assessment and I never saw him again.

So, all the recognition I have for 37 years of dedication is two thumbs up and yes, I was wearing my glasses, Caroline.  They were thumbs and not middle fingers.

 

*******

 

I have checked the 2001 Fortismere Ofsted report.

Apparently,

“Two thumbs up” is OUTSTANDING.

“One thumbs up” is GOOD.

“One middle finger” is REQUIRES IMPROVEMENT and

“Two middle fingers” is INADEQUATE.           

 

100. If

I have been told that travelling backwards in time is theoretically impossible but apparently a form of going forwards in time might be achievable.  

A round trip through space at a speed approaching that of light would mean that for the crew, while some number of years would pass in the space ship, on earth during that period, possibly hundreds of years would have passed and so, on returning to earth, the planet would be nothing like the one that the crew had left. But then, the problem for the “time travellers” would be that they could never return to the time they had left and tell about what they had seen in the future.

Despite that, I have been wondering (because I have very little else to fill my time these days) what, if I were to be transported back in time, say 700 years to the year 1314, I could bring to that society that would transform it and perhaps even world history, for the better.

It has come as a bit of a shock for me to realise that the answer to that is, virtually nothing.  All I could really do would be to issue a series of warnings but I doubt that I would be of sufficient significance to the people of medieval England for them to take any notice of my alerts.  No one takes any notice of my views or counsel nowadays and so why should the people of 700 years ago be any different?

The problem that I and I suspect you also have, is that although we know how to use a refrigerator, a telephone and a television, we have no real idea how any of them work and I am completely lacking the skills to make the necessary components to construct any of them.

You might think that there are lots of things I could teach them.  Certainly, I could tell them about how aeroplanes function and I could even give a fairly good account of how a petrol engine works, but as soon as I mentioned petrol, I would be met with blank looks.  I could possibly initiate some kind of interest in building a steam engine though, but only if I could find a blacksmith willing to be adventurous with iron.

I would face a problem with virtually everything about which I tried to tell them.  14^th century people would have no knowledge of petrol or electricity and I’m not sure that with the components available, I could show them how to make any of the technical gadgets and tools that we take for granted today.  

The first wire mill, making wire in England, was not in operation until the 16^th century and even assuming that I could get my hands on magnets, I don’t know how I could make electricity without copper or iron wire.

I think that I could probably make a model glider but even after demonstrating the principles of flight using it, would anyone be prepared to be pushed off a cliff sitting in a full-sized version?  There is no other way I can think of as to how to launch it.

If I could get the sailors to believe me, I suppose that I could bring forward the discovery of the Americas by some 280 years.  

“Now, just trust me,” I might say, “once you clear Lands End, keep sailing west and within 40 days or so you’ll reach land.  Trust me!”  

I’d go on to tell them that in December, when it was noon there, it would be dark in England.  That could lead to big problems, however, because I’d have to explain about the heliocentric solar system and an orbiting, rotating earth.  That would probably be classed as heresy and I might end up in all sorts of trouble.  

Look at the problems that Galileo had with the Catholic Church when he was propagating heliocentrism some 300 years later.

There is very little I could tell the doctors, or the physicians as doctors were called at that time, that would improve general levels of health.  I could inform them of the principle of inoculation and give them a forewarning of the Black Death and then they would have had 35 years to prepare for it.   More than 100,000,000 lives could be saved – if only they would listen!

I could tell them about the anaesthetic properties of ether and chloroform but my poor, in fact non-existent skills as a chemist, would not allow me to produce any of either.  I think that the most important thing I could do for medicine in 1314, would be to stress the importance of hygiene, of washing hands and sterilizing with a flame the surgical instruments they were using.

The valve-type flush toilet similar to those we are familiar with today was not invented and introduced until the eighteenth century.  I suppose I could suggest enough ideas on that matter to improve public health, at least in some areas and I could warn about the spread of cholera from faeces infected water supplies.

If I had a better musical ear, I could sing them some good tunes and change the history of music but I am still embarrassed by the memory of my ‘A’ level class thinking that my dah-dah-dah-ing of ‘Penny Lane’ by the Beatles was ‘Night and Day’, the Cole Porter song, and so I don’t think that would work.

I know only one poem all the way through by heart and that is ‘An Irish airman foresees his death’ by WB Yeats and I don’t think they would understand that at all.  

I could regale them with some of Oscar Wilde’s epigrams but as to what made people smile or what they found amusing in the 14^th century, I cannot begin to guess.  I don’t suppose that Edward II, the reigning monarch, would take much notice of Oscar Wilde’s advice to, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much,” as he was in the middle of a series of battles with the Scots at the time.

If I arrived in 1314 before June, and I could manage to have a word with the king, I could warn him about Bannockburn but I am not sure who had “Right” on their side in that conflict.  How would things be different now if Robert the Bruce had been defeated in that battle?  Not much I suspect.  

The Act of Union might have come some time earlier than it did.  There would still be a Scottish Nationalist Party around today but they would probably choose 2030, the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Sean Connery for the referendum, rather than this year because apart from Bannockburn, Connery’s birth is probably the most significant event in Scottish history.

In 1314, there were no real active storytellers, as we know them today.  There were chroniclers, philosophers and writers of commentaries and religious works but no renowned playwrights or novelists. Chaucer wasn’t born until 1343, 29 years later.  I suppose I could leave a note with someone to pass on to Chaucer, outlining the plots of some of Shakespeare’s plays and Dickens’ novels for him to consider when he started writing.  

I wonder what Shakespeare would have written if his plots had all been used 300 years earlier.  He might have invented the whodunit.

I’m not sure that my sense of fashion would be of much help to clothes makers of the 14^th century but perhaps I could introduce them to the concept of trousers because surely trousers would be more comfortable and practical than hose?  I don’t think that the women of the period would be ready for the mini skirt.

Sadly, it seems to me that my sudden appearance in the England of the early fourteenth century would make very little impression on society and, much as I hate to admit it, I think that Caroline’s presence could make a greater difference than mine.  

The arrival of a twentieth century mathematics graduate who could describe Newton’s laws of motion and the application of calculus, could help them to gain a greater understanding of the world around them but as a woman, would they listen to her?  

She would probably be considered a witch - and burnt!!!

99. Why did I bother?

Last time, when I posted I Know it Teases on February 5th, I told you that I was to have a personal hearing about my appeal against a £70 traffic fine imposed upon me because I stopped for a short time in a bus stop in Luton.  I told you then that I only stopped because I was suffering from a sneezing fit and that I never turned off the engine, never left the car and that I occupied the space in the bus stop for a maximum of two minutes. 

The hearing today was held at my request because Luton Council had rejected my written appeal.

It didn’t start too well.  I was to be at the Napier Room of the Chiltern Hotel in Luton at 11.45 and after a 35-minute drive I arrived half an hour early.  I was told at reception that the Napier Room was one of several rooms off a concourse on the ground floor.   As I went through the double doors into the concourse I was faced by a young lady sitting at a desk.

“Have you come for the hearing?” she asked.  I said that I had.

“Name?” 

I told her.

“You’re not on the list,” she said, looking up after consulting a clipboard for a time.

“So what do I do?”

“You’ll have to make another appointment,” she said.

“Look, I didn’t make this appointment in the first place,” I said, somewhat tetchily.  “You gave me the date and time back in November.  I’ve given up a morning and driven 25 miles to be here.  Can’t you fit me in?”

“Sorry, no.  Make another appointment.”

“How can I make another appointment when I haven’t got a first one?”

She shrugged.

“This is ridiculous,” I said angrily, wondering whether or not to make a scene in front of the four or five people waiting, seated on chairs nearby.  Yes, I decided that I would.

“I’m not surprised that anything organised by Luton Council should end up like this.  It’s a farce!”

“Can I help you sir,” said a young man in a suit.

“No, not unless you’re something to do with the hearing,” I snapped.  “Otherwise mind your own business.”

“Yes I am something to do with it.  In fact I’m in charge,” he said frostily. 

Oh dear.  Not the best way to meet the person about to listen to my case.

I had a thought.  Caroline’s name was on the car’s registration document. 

“Perhaps you have my wife’s name,” I said.  “It’s Caroline Dawes.”

The young man in a suit looked at me with a look of concern and possibly, pity.

“Why would you come to take your wife’s hearing test?” he asked gently.  “That wouldn’t make much sense, now would it sir?”

“This isn’t the Napier room then?  Traffic hearings?”

“No sir.  That’s over there.  This is where we are doing the Old People’s Homes’ hearing tests.”

“Oh.”

“Perhaps you should come and take the test after your hearing.”

Very funny!  So I went ‘over there’ and sat down under a sign that I hadn’t seen before saying,            

TRAFFIC OFFENCE

Personal hearings

Please wait here

Perhaps the old people waiting for hearing tests hadn’t heard me make an idiot of myself.

The adjudicator was a solicitor who explained at great length that he was neutral and disinterested.  It was so nice to hear someone use the word “disinterested” in the proper way that I was quite encouraged.

He introduced me to two young women who were representing Luton Council.  I can’t remember both names but one was called ‘Margaret Thatcher’.  She was only about 27.  How could her parents have called her Margaret?  That’s almost like the Sutcliffes calling their son “Peter”.

I was asked to put my case and give the new evidence.  I said that there was no new evidence.  I was guilty as charged but there were, in my opinion, mitigating circumstances that should be fully considered.  I repeated all that I had put in my letter about how dangerous it was to drive while sneezing and quoted the two court cases that I described in “I Know it Teases”.

Ms Thatcher was asked to respond.  All she could say was that I had not produced a medical report and that I should have been aware that I might sneeze.

“And do what?” I asked her.  “Surely I only had two options.  Either I could carry on driving or stop.  I chose the safer of those two.  I haven’t got a medical report because there is no cure for photoptarmosis and so what would be the point of going to a doctor?”

The adjudicator interrupted.  “I’ve come to a decision,” he said.  “I find in your favour.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying hard (but failing) not to give a smug grin in Ms Thatcher's direction. 

“Will I get expenses?”  I asked.  “I’ve given up a whole morning, made a fifty mile round trip and used about seven pounds worth of petrol and all that just to just repeat out loud what I put in my original letter of appeal.”

“No,” said the adjudicator.

“So instead of it costing me the sixty pounds if I hadn’t appealed, it has cost me seven pounds for the petrol plus whatever I value to be the worth of three hours of my day.”

“Yes,” said the adjudicator. 

“Also,” I said, “There’s the hour I spent researching past case law to do with sneezing.  That’s all got to come to more than a hundred pounds.  Are you saying I can’t claim for any of that?”

“Yes,” said the adjudicator. 

“Can I appeal?”

“Yes,” said the adjudicator.

“But as it will be I who adjudicates,” he said, and I swear he was grinning at Ms Thatcher, “Don’t waste any more of your time.”

I won’t.

I don't know why I bothered.

You will find my last regular posting on March 27th 2011 here: At the End of The day

98. I Know it Teases

Click to see the outcome

My last posting on October 13^th was intended to be in fact, my “Last Post”.  It was the one hundredth and I thought that was a good time to stop.  But something will happen on March 19^th that I think you should know about and the outcome of the event may possibly interest you.

On October 23^rd last year, Caroline and I arranged to meet for lunch at one o’clock at a restaurant in Luton where she works.  I had never been to Luton before.  It was a sunny day and at 12:47, just after I had reached the town centre, I sneezed.  

Ten seconds later I sneezed again and as a result of a lifetime’s experience of photoptarmosis (reflex sneezing caused by the influence of light), I knew that there would be more to follow.  My record total is nineteen but usually my sneezing fits are between seven and ten sneezes.

Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes:

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases.

Lewis Carroll

Just after the second sneeze I saw a lay by and pulled into it.  I sneezed twice more, blew my nose, waited a minute to make sure that this fit was over, and then drove off.  I was in the lay by for two minutes at most.  I didn’t turn off the engine nor leave the car.

A week later I received a letter from Luton Council informing me that I had been photographed, parked at a bus stop and that as a consequence I was to be fined £70.  

I immediately sent a letter of appeal explaining the circumstances and telling the wise people of Luton Council that in my opinion (and that of Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents who on their web site say that, “sneezing, can affect a driver’s ability to drive safely and these can impair a driver’s mood, concentration, reactions and judgement”), it was very dangerous to drive while suffering a sneezing fit and all informed advice is to get off the road as soon as possible.  

The wise people of Luton Council rejected my appeal.

I was extremely surprised by that decision but the letter of rejection informed me that I could put my case at a personal hearing.  I have asked for one and my case will be heard next month.

This is what I intend to say at my hearing: 

As well as quoting RoSPA, I shall tell the adjudicator that in the mid-seventies, there was a public service film that showed a woman in a long line of traffic who sneezed.  She then crashed her car into the rear of the car in front of her. The announcer intoned in a deep, sonorous and ominous voice about how little time it took to have an accident.

In March 2011, Mari Emlyn was cleared of careless driving by Dolgellau magistrates’ court after she suffered a sneezing fit at the wheel and hit another car.  She told the court: "I had a bout of sneezing as I was driving.  There was nothing I could do to avoid the collision."  Ms Emlyn’s solicitor called it a ‘clear defence of automatism’ – which means the defendant was not in control of her actions.  While sneezing many people shake and everyone finds it impossible to keep their eyes open.

In October 2012 a jury at a trial at Teesside Crown Court found a lorry driver guilty of the charge of causing the death of Gordon Blair by careless driving, after his 44-tonne truck ploughed into the back of a broken-down car driven by Mr Blair.   Judge Bowers told Lewis: “I think your only fault was to fail to stop once you started the sneezing fit."

My argument will be that I was forced to take the action I did because the consequences of continuing to drive while sneezing could have been disastrous.  That should get me off shouldn’t it?  If it doesn’t I may be asking for a whip round.  

I’ll let you know.  Click to see the outcome