Or, rather, let's talk, constructively and sensibly, about the thorny issue of weight. Female weight to be precise. I've lately been the subject of vitriolic spewings by, one may hazard a guess, largely uneducated individuals claiming that "to be overweight is to be unhealthy". 

This rather simplistic viewpoint is, in my view, vastly overstated. To begin with, who or what is the all-powerful oracle on what exactly constitutes being overweight? That oft-touted beacon of authority, the body mass index is flawed in the extreme, owing to the rather obvious fact that it doesn't provide any distinction between fat, muscle, organs or water for its primary data. It's starting from a nonsensical point.

The health profession, then? Perhaps they can offer a realistic and sensible view on the matter. My own GP readily admits that there are such wide-ranging differences of opinion among even a small group of her peers that, at either ends of the spectrum I should weigh somewhere between a stone and four stones less than I do now. Hmm, no real precise answers there either. 

The key word here is "unhealthy". Forget "fat" in its entirety - just for a moment. The reason so many people appear to have an issue with large women is because it's repeatedly promoted as being bad for your health. Here's the news: it's a cover-up. A convenient, thinly-veiled method of vilifying those who carry more weight than is deemed acceptable in our image-obsessed society. 

Larger women who lose weight, then put some of it back on, then lose it again are often described as "battling" or "struggling" against the devilish machinations of their own bodies, as though they have have no control whatsoever. How many times has Oprah Winfrey - a woman whose life is one of towering achievements in the face of many an obstacle - been subjected to the indignity of scrutiny over her weight? 

Of course, what we're really "battling" is the notion that in order to be considered attractive, worthy or even half-way human, women must run the gauntlet of public interest in our weight until we can run no more and either a) emerge, triumphant at the finish line having shed our ugly excess, or b) died from the rigours of maintaining a gamut of voracious eating disorders or dysmorphic conditions which render us incapable of sentient reasoning.

It's not the fat on our bodies that's unhealthy but the insidious creep of strangling unacceptability which comes from being overweight. Far more dangerous than any amount of crash diets, slimming pills, gastric bands or liposuction is that little voice in the back of our heads whispering "You'd be happier, more successful, more confident, less negative, prettier, nicer, more likely to win the lottery if only you weren't so fat".

Clearly that little voice is massively under-informed when it comes to lottery winners, because many are actually quite fat, but the voice will use all manner of persuasion to get a rise out of us. 

I don't buy celebrity slag-rag magazines, or watch very much TV, but I do have a terrible habit of trawling gossip pages on the internet, looking at photographs of famous and not-so-famous people for whom weight is not only a daily concern, but a career-breaking, deal-making reality: literally their weight may determine whether or not they really do eat, ever again. 

Most often weight is the crux of a story, with a headline geared towards elevating the image of the subject to the dizzy heights of tabloid adulation, or knocking it straight into the nearest ice-cream parlour for a litre of something liable to put ten pounds on their hips before they've even paid the bill. 

It's unlikely, however, that any one of these people could be described as "unhealthy". They all do more exercise in a single day than Daly Thompson did in his entire career. We know this because they're often photographed coming out of a gym, sweaty and forlorn-looking with that expression that says "Yes, I know the next story about me will be something along the lines of how I battle with my weight and have to go to the gym because otherwise I'll put on seven stone overnight".

No celebrity in Christendom can be honestly be described as fat. Not truly. At least not the ones with whom the media is so scarily obsessed that they print fourteen photographs of them in the same fucking dress in the space of one "news" item. 

Real people, however (y'know, us mortals for whom life isn't a constant round of gym sessions, red carpet events and trying not to be photographed exiting a public lavatory holding a used tampon at arm's length in desperate search of a bin), well, I guess we might be a little bit behind on the macrobiotic-drink-your-own-wee diet of purity, but we're not all fast-food munching sofa-hounds who get out of breath trying to get the last packet of prawn cocktail out of the Walkers multi-pack. 

So, it's with a little bit of pride that I can say this: Yes, I might be F.A.T. but I'm not unhealthy and if you confuse the two ever again, I'm going to come round your house and sit on you until you really understand that very important distinction. 

I have no passion, no all-consuming desire, no realisation of my purpose in this life and no motivation to find it.

I can sit, in suffocating inactivity for hours at a time. I am unmoved by the work of others, although I try to understand, to appreciate, and imbue myself with their teaching and understanding, by a process of staccato osmosis – jumpy as a frog with the shits, leaping from one notion to the next, never settling, never sinking into that exalted state of total immersion.

Is there any hope for me? Can I ever find such inspiration so enthralling as to exclude daily processes, leaving my hair and teeth unbrushed, my body unwashed, lest time spent on such wasteful diversions deny me even one second of revelation?

I dart like a fly from one mish-mash of momentarily searing excitement to the next. Never absorbing: ideas, knowledge, prayers, hopes and disgust pouring through me as though I were full of holes.

Hold me up to the sun and let the light in. There’s nothing here I can remember with any depth of intention. Visuals excite me, briefly, but words don’t stick. It’s hateful, this wanting, this need to be literary but with nothing to back it up. I write all this stuff but my grammar is non-existent, my vocabulary pathetic and my love for the comma bordering on the pathological.

I’m not even frustrated… at least, not today. This is only today and tomorrow will be different. 

Oh, Gerard, I expected SO much more from you. My mistaken belief in you being "beefcake with brains" has been well and truly shot down in tearful, agonised flames that, as with so many of your talented, gladiatorial brethren, you've chosen to date a soulless, pouty stick-insect supermodel. 

Damn you! I'm moving my affections back in the firm direction of Andrew Graham-Dixon. Gerard, you were mere candy to me and I scold myself for being so easily led by your barrel chest and good forearms. 

I watched a somewhat depressing saga unfold in the gym changing room today. It took place between two young women of, roughly, eighteen to twenty years old. I surmised they were around that kinda age as I listened to them discuss a variety of subjects including their forthcoming holiday to Magaluf, Gina's "dickhead" boyfriend who'd just dumped her for a younger model of seventeen and how difficult it had become for one of them to get insurance on her car because she'd had five accidents in the past twelve months and her mum no longer wanted her as a named driver on her policy. From what I could gather one particular incident had occurred whilst she'd been tanked up and had to move her car round the corner from outside Gavin's house to ensure a character by the name of "Nozz" didn't get wind of the fact that she was now using Gavin as some form of sexual activity centre. 

Just as I was hoping to Christ that Miss Accident Prone hadn't parked anywhere near me, the topic veered onto an altogether far more serious note: "Come on then," said one, "let's 'ave a look at these cut-offs". 

A pair of denim shorts were whipped with an embarrassed flourish from the locker. "Oh ma facking gawd", exclaimed the recipient of her friend's hastily-razored jeans, "you've facking butchered 'em"!

Miss Accident Prone looked suitably admonished: "I know, they're a propa old mess ain't they"? 

They both stood, gazing forlornly at the offending article for a moment or two, a tableaux reminiscent of Caravaggio's Judith and her maid looking upon the ragged, bleeding stump of Holofernes neck, pain etched deeply on their faces, still to realise the full severity of their actions. 

Miss Accident Prone rifled through her locker, producing a pair of scissors which she handed to Miss Potty Mouth: "can ya do anyfing wiv 'em though"?

Miss Potty Mouth took on the all-powerful guise of a mechanic debating whether or not to go for the jugular and announce it as a head gasket job. She stroked her chin, then held the sorry scrap of slashed fabric aloft in an acrylic-nailed grip before grinning like an orange shark: "Yeah, I reckon so, c'mon get 'em on". 

By this time, I was dressed and ready to go, but rooted to the spot. I was compelled to see the saga played out to completion. 

Miss Accident Prone was in the shorts in a flash as Miss Potty Mouth went to work with the scissors, cutting and snipping until she was satisfied that the majority of Miss Miss Accident Prone's backside was fully available to the breeze. 

"Oh no!" I thought, "she's going to do her nut. This is brilliant". 

How wrong I was. 

"Aww, that's wicked, fanks, Mands". Miss Accident Prone was twisting this way and that, looking at her barely covered arse in the mirror and actually thanking her scary orange-faced chum for making it seem as though she'd blown the rear out of her shorts with a particularly violent... well, you get the picture. 

Miss Potty Mouth, who by this point was looking pretty confident that Tom Ford could go fuck himself, shrugged nonchalantly. "No worries, I did Cassie's the uvver day an' all. Magaluf 'ere we come"!

Maybe I'm just getting old or perhaps my view of what constitutes great style hinges on a garment providing just a smidge more coverage of one's derrière than, say, the average nighttime sanitary towel. I understand that my taste may not necessarily be widely acclaimed by the majority - and that's just as well for who wants to be a clone, slavishly following trends whether they suit one or not?

But, when did showing SO much become SO acceptable? Is it really an age thing? At the risk of heralding my arrival at the gatepost of middle-age with a trumpet call of "she'll catch her death in that", I'll fight my corner and say age has nothing to do with it. 

The arrival of the miniskirt, met as it was with fervent horror from some quarters, arrived during a time of unprecedented social, political and cultural change. It was less a symptom of encroaching permissiveness, and more a reaction to how women felt about opportunities now available to us - both at work and play - following the "proof" of our equality during the war years when we stepped up to take the places of men in many different industries. In as much as women may have felt they'd "earned" the right to dress as they wanted, the miniskirt was perhaps more about a sense of natural freedom from dragging acres of skirts around than overt sexuality: one couldn't do "The Shag" in a lawn dress. Actual shagging was already pretty high on the agenda thanks to the Pill, miniskirt or not. 

I've no issue with showing some skin, but I've always tried to do it a) in moderation and b) fitting of the occasion. It's not nudity or overt sexuality I have a problem with, but rather a lack of elegance and the idea that women should appear "fierce" (a repellent notion, in my oh-so humble opinion) in order to be seen as fashionable. There is no elegance in strutting down the street with one's arse on show: regardless of how many times Rihanna does it on stage, honking in the manner of a randy goose in her inimitable, tuneless manner. Like haute couture, some things will just never translate to the high street, no matter how convincingly style analysts and trend-spotters sell their ideas to River Island or Miss Selfridge. 

Fashion, schmashion. No wonder "retro" and "vintage" are enjoying such a thumping resurgence: not everyone wants to put their bottom on show for the world to gawp at. 

Oh well, I'm off to buy a gold chain for my glasses and search for the perfect twinset - a task as Herculean as attempting to find a balconette bra in anything above a 34C, I might add - so if anyone does know of a Miss Marple-esque ladies outfitters with a staggering stock of multi-hued cashmere, you will let me know, won't you?

Mwah, mwah!

I know it's a work of fiction and I shouldn't get quite so real-world about it, but there's a few things I'd like to get off my chest in regard to the bonkbuster du jour Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Firstly, it made me use the word "bonkbuster". That alone makes me angry for immediately honing into the gutter-press style of dialogue this book elicits in the most languid of writers looking for an opener. 

Next, before I start banging on about the lame mono-plot, the repeated use of fireworks as a metaphor for the female climax or the searing annoyance of reading a book touted as a tome full to bursting with bondage and sexual power-play only to discover that there was absolutely none of either in the whole damn show, let me congratulate E.L. James on getting the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy published in its final incarnation at all. 

In its first guise the story was internet-published fan fiction based on Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewarts Twilight characters. From there, following objections to the overtly sexual nature of the story, James removed it from Twilight fan fiction websites, rechristened the main protagonists and rewrote the trilogy. 

Who knows whether James had any idea of the imminent success of the story? For my part, I doubt she had even an inkling of what was in store. The stories are works of basic erotic fiction: centred entirely on the two main characters, with no sub-plot, revealing little of their lives outside their immediate situation. It's the type of writing produced effortlessly by jobbing erotica writers since time immemorial with little or no aspiration to any great publishing success. It's horny pap, designed to induce satiation via the horniest muscle of them all.

That it's ascended thus far is incredible. That James need never write another word elicits the kind of grudging respect slowly turning me from incredulously puce to enviously emerald. Lady, here's to you (raises glass of something that Christian Grey would undoubtedly deem undrinkable). 

Now, to the story itself. I write only, here, of the first of the trilogy: Fifty Shades of Grey. I happened upon it among the paperbacks available in the "leave one, take one" honesty-box library of my holiday villa. I love discovering books this way: their spines bent back, the glue rendered almost desiccated by the mediterranean sun and the ghosts of holidaymakers past evident in greasy, sun-creamed fingerprints. 

I'm gonna read it, I said to myself in mock-horror, any pretence of literary pretension swept under the sun lounger (I've had Gorbachev's memoirs in my bookcase for around twenty years and never managed to get past the introduction, and my father has finally given up thrusting Proust in my general direction).

I scurried past the first thirty pages, recalling from my earliest forays into Riders and Hollywood Wives that the sex doesn't really get started until around that point. Shame on me. I felt like a nasty little cheater. If I was to have anything pertinent to say about Fifty Shades of Grey, I should at least have the decency to read it properly. 

So I went back to the beginning.

My first complaint came early. Here's our heroine, Anastasia, she could have two heads for all we know such is the lack of descriptive content about her. Perhaps I was missing the point and, maybe, in deigning to eliminate her visually, James is reducing Anastasia to the base elements required for her part in the story: a mere bucket of sexual organs. 

As for the penis at the party, it's suggested that Christian Grey is a man of such dashing good-looks that women melt into sickening puddles of moosh at the mere sight of him. Well, I can't say much about that either. For me, at least, how attractive a person may or may not be hinges on slightly more than them having "copper coloured hair" (although, admittedly, a touch of the ginge is a good starting point) and prominent hip bones: a line repeated to such an extent that I ended up visualising him as Lily Cole - all jutting and strutting. 

So, these two, largely faceless, characters talk to each other. Or rather they're doing something closely approximating conversation, but never really managing to say anything of any real value or purpose. This is where it became obvious that James was still thinking about both characters in their first incarnation as Pattinson and Stewart and keeping tight reins on the dialogue with a filmic quality in mind. 

It doesn't work for a novel. The language employed is stilted and awkward to the point of embarrassment - it seems, even though they've only just met and are about to embark on the most intense relationship imaginable, they haven't got anything to say to one another. It's rootless, connectionless and floats aimlessly from one (apparently) wise-ass comment to the next. I can think of only one successful deployment of similar language from one medium to another: the Mike Nichols adaptation of Patrick Marber's "Closer". This play-t0-film whicked away any hint of thespian pretension by use of fully-rounded, empathy-building characterisation - something that Fifty Shades is missing right from the start. 

Next, we come to the sex (by this point, I was ready to throw the book into the swimming pool and happily watch it drown). Keen as I am to nose into the folds of anything deemed perverse, I was hoping for a spot of intense scrutiny regarding the politics of power exchange relationships. Fat chance. As lacking as James had been in describing the physicality of either character, she REALLY went to town with the metaphors as they got down to business with barely a passing nod to the dastardly motivations of Mr Hip Bones or the emotional requirements of Anastasia.

Along with the jutting and strutting, he was now going for all-out rutting. On their first sexual encounter, this pair made glossy Hollywood porn seem deep and meaningful. I'm pretty sure I snorted with outright derision as Anastasia, up to that point a virgin with zero experience, delivered a deep-throat blow job to do Jenna Jameson proud. Mr Hip Bones exclaimed surprise at her lack of gag reflex. He wasn't the only one. 

And this is where Fifty Shades began to unravel as quickly as the slipknots that didn't even feature in a book purported to overflow with bondage. Mr Hip Bones shows Anastasia his "red room of pain". If there were any more cliches stuffed into that particular chapter it would have been at the expense of leaving the only other chapter in which it were briefly mentioned devoid of its own tick-box quotient of banal bondage buzzwords. 

I must admit to speed-reading large sections in an attempt to claw back some of the precious holiday time I felt robbed of. By the time I reached the end Mr Hip Bones had essentially turned from the swaggering all-consuming dom to a hen-pecked, nag-frazzled depressive and Anastasia had morphed from a virginal and oh-so-kookily-clumsy college gal into the kind of demanding, whinging trout I wanted to ball-gag and wallop heartily with a gigantic leather paddle - which would at least serve to increase the actual BDSM content one hundredfold. 

In summation, dear reader, I bid you at your peril to see what you can extract from this measly exploration of a dysfunctional relationship between an emotionally unavailable copper-top with a vague pretence at a superiority complex and a dull whiner who should really have started off her sexual explorations by way of a quick fingering from the college jock on prom night. 

Or, you could dispense with such a chore and instead read the excellent How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran: a treasure offered up by the holiday villa honesty library which held me rapt in its truthful simplicity and made me sad when the end came all too soon. 

I get hung up on bits and pieces. Although not a hoarder, I find myself arbitrarily seized by the allure of small things, becoming instantly obsessed, before happily disposing of them without hesitation or regret.

An off-cut of gold ribbon sends me into a day-dreaming rapture, fancying I hear the whisper of Marie Antoinette's skirts and echoing giggles of courtly French. The mellow gleam from the pearlised flesh of a white aubergine, and the semi-hollow sound elicited by drumming my fingers along its length has transfixed me these past two days (its time with me is, alas, almost at an end as the idea of a goats cheese moussaka gains ground on the strange tactile glamour of this bizarre berry). A thick, creamy envelope of good quality card stock, lined with tissue paper is likely to send me into a sybaritic spasm. 

I'm pretty sure I know what my problem is. I have no tenacity for the appreciation of anything requiring prolonged, diligent focus. The older I get, the less likely I am to read pounding works of literary importance or watch cinematic masterpieces over an hour and a half long. I don't enjoy music to any vast degree over and above the urge to dance (poorly and without much pretence at natural rhythm) or sing (terribly and devoid of tonal ability) along to it.

I've no patience for literature that delves microscopically into dates and grants necessity to the naming of many characters. I've lost count of the number of books I've started, only to cast aside after the first chapter, feeling unfairly weighted by a procession of protagonists who's minor, fleeting appearance warrants yet another list of names, dates and connections. 

I gorge on short, intense bursts of information: documentaries, both singular and serial. Paragraphs, or even just sentences, chosen at random from a variety of sources. I take quick visual snapshots on a visit to an art gallery or museum, then fixate on two or three pieces (or the fixtures and fittings, other visitors and their conversations), and wonder at companions reading every little piece of information alongside each exhibit.

I'm more interested in artists than their art. Sure, a Velasquez or a Caravaggio will obsess me for a time, then I ditch them in favour of a particular Bacon, or a hastily scribbled drawing on a torn piece of paper I found in the street. I like snippets and facts, the minutiae of daily life and viewing every action separately and distinctly: one task and the movement to complete it. Multi-tasking is a horrible, panicked state by comparison.

I love ritualistic behaviour: tying a bow, making sure the loops are even and the tails of equal length. It's one of my favourite things to do for instant artistic gratification. I'm no artist, I can't draw or paint and I may be able to shape a mean meatball, but attempting to create anything approximating sculpture would be futile.

Intangible, unquantifiable notions leave me breathless: ideas and fancies, questions for which there are no answers, waking dreams that track across our thoughts every day. Those not-entirely-sentient synaptic flashes that make me wonder what a peacock smells like and ache for a feather or two. Just a simple thing to look at and contemplate... at least for a little while until the next obsession strikes. 

I'm one. A genuine dyed in the wool clumsy bastard. Already today I've burnt one finger taking a hot tray from the oven and slammed another finger in a drawer. There's that sickening, fanny-tightening moment as my body anticipates just how painful this may or may not be before the pain actually kicks in and I pour forth a honking volley of the rudest expletives in my vocabulary. 

If there's something to be spilt or tripped over I'll find it - a tiny incline in an otherwise perfectly flat landscape, you betcha I'll find it and splay myself prone attempting to master that which the vast majority of the human race find unspeakably simple: putting one fucking foot in front of the other. 

Time and time again I promise myself I'll slow down, consider exactly what I'm doing and not carry a cup of tea balanced precariously atop two bendy magazines and a large pile of clean laundry. 

Many times, having cried hot, self-pitying tears of strangled, agonised frustration, I've vowed to check for random blobs of slippery conditioner waiting, with naughty glee in the bath from the last time I showered, to send me crashing in a naked, shrieking heap nose-first into the taps.

I've got so many scars on my forearms from various accidents with the iron and the oven that it appears I've turned self-harming into my day job. I'm single handedly keeping Bio Oil from bankruptcy - for no good reason either, because it doesn't help that I can burn myself five times in exactly the same place. 

I'm despairingly sick of myself for being such a thumping, graceless twat. I can't walk through a doorway without bashing my shoulder on the doorframe, like some kind of hulking yeti. Every single time I open the door of my car I break a nail, despite knowing that the handle sticks halfway. 

I swear to christ that if I stub my toe one more time on the corner of the bedpost nearest the wardrobe I'll throw the whole goddamn bed off the balcony in flames while laughing like a maniac. 

There is but one thought which comforts me in all of this: my darling boy, my soon-to-be-husband and the one who holds my fretful heart when nothing can save me from myself... he's even clumsier than I. 

Okay, okay, before anyone gets all unnecesary I'm not actually suggesting we take to Twitter and Facebook and wherever else Shirley Cole has set herself up for the rest of us mere mortals (or "civilians" as Cole's similarly famous-for-fuck-all forerunner and champion narcissist Elizabeth Hurley would prefer to label us) to take pot-shots at her non-existent talents. 

Cyber bullying is a strange notion. It's a bit like accidentally watching an episode of Eastenders and then feeling anything from mild slight through to horrific and all-consuming self-loathing that we've allowed our emotive state to be altered by a bunch of people we've never met, will never meet and don't give a shit about. 

True enough, the only reason I'd ever watch an episode of Eastenders would be if I'd broken my back and couldn't reach the remote control. Even then, I'd scream loudly until my vocal chords were reduced to shredded, bloody tatters for someone to come and relieve me of having to endure even thirty seconds of it. 

There are, however, two facets to Cole's assertion that people who judge her hair and appearance or refer to her as "fat" are "evil".

Firstly, anyone who calls Shirley "fat" is most certainly not evil. At worst, they are stupid and at the very least can be accused of being incredibly, possibly dangerously, short-sighted. One would hope that they are not in charge of any form of heavy machinery, motor vehicles or tasked with ushering schoolchildren safely across busy roads. 

Secondly, I'd be really interested to know how one goes about getting nasty comments in front of the eyes of the celebrity for whom they're intended. Believe me, I've tried on countless occasions to vent my spleen at plenty of vacuous, fake, talentless pop stars and the obvious routes are barred at every turn by digital processes built to ensure they never have to know that a large portion of the population thinks they're unbearable arseholes. 

Interestingly, however, Shirley may not be as stupid as she looks. I notice she's only publicly complaining about people slagging off her hair, or calling her fat. At least she was wise enough not to mention the insults containing more than a modicum of truth: she "sings" like a fox being buggered and has just the kind of misplaced confidence in her "talent" that makes people want to shoot her in the face the second she opens her mouth.

My conclusion: Shirley goes looking for all the terrible things people think about her. We're obviously only giving her what she already knows. Ipso facto: seek and ye shall find. 

The latest big company to make it onto my shit list is Direct Line. "Oh, come to us"! their adverts plead, "we're not on comparison websites, so you'll never know if we could give you a better deal".

Well, the best deal they certainly did give me... at least, for a couple of days. 

I duly insured my £700 car on a third party, fire and theft policy costing almost as much and sent in my proof of no claims bonus in the form of a letter from my previous insurance company stating that, during the five years I'd been insured with them I hadn't had so much as a scratch, let alone mown down thousands of innocent pensioners whilst swigging Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. 

Apparently, that wasn't good enough for Direct Line who wrote back to me explaining that as a) my previous vehicle had been insured under a company policy, b) the letter didn't state that I was the sole person allowed to drive the vehicle, or c) the letter didn't state on what date I surrounded use of the vehicle their policy was to decline the letter as proof and whack another NINE HUNDRED POUNDS onto the cost of my insurance. 

Now, call me a penny-pinching old git, but £1,600 pounds a year to drive a car that's only worth £700 seemed a little excessive. Similarly, when I called Direct Slime to question why they weren't prepared to accept the letter from my previous insurers as proof I hadn't had an accident, they went out of their way to be as unhelpful as humanly possible. 

"It's our policeeeeeeee" whined the first person I spoke to. Her boss said the same. Bleating this innocuous little word did little to calm my mounting annoyance at having to call them in the first place and navigate a multiple choice session of "press any amount of fucking buttons, love, your call will be shot out into space to orbit as yet unnamed planets before we get around to actually letting you speak to a real person". 

My piss, already fully boiled, evaporated to steam when, yesterday, I received a telephone call from a "customer service representative" (just about the least convincing job title in existence) asking me if I wanted to "progress my complaint".

"Progress my complaint"?, I intoned, as menacingly as I could muster, bearing in mind I'd spent almost half an hour on the 'phone to these cretins the day before practically losing the will to live and shouting "Admiral don't give me this kind of crap"! and hanging up with a triumphant flourish. 

"Progress my complaint"? I repeated, incredulous at the sheer stupidity of the question. "I haven't even made a complaint. All I did was ask why you wouldn't accept that bloody letter as proof of my no claims bonus". 

And, thus, here is the crux of the problem with most large organisations. They have no idea of two-way communication: if one is dissatisfied, one may only make a complaint. The idea of intelligent discourse in order to bring about a solution is so radical an idea that the computer-generated letter to handle the scenario hasn't even been invented yet.

Needless to say, I opted for the time-honoured consumer tradition of "taking my business elsewhere". Now all I have to do is set aside another three hours out of my day in order to insure my clapped-out little banger with another insurer possessing a whole new set of policeeeeeeee's. 

And, as undoubtedly is their want, this new insurer will also require the very same letter pooh-poohed by Direct Slime which is now floating somewhere around their gargantuan inner workings. I can only marvel at just how slim a chance there is of ever seeing it again.