It’s been a while since the last serious social faux-pas, but like the proverbial London buses, three (at least) came along and ran me over all at once last Friday.

I was playing a doubles match in the annual tournaments at my local squash club for the first time, having entered myself on the back of a run of good results. I’d previously (wisely) confined myself to playing squash with close friends, who were familiar with the fact that my charmingly folksy Mediterranean shouty gesticulatorama dummy-spitting implement-breaking on-court demeanour was emblematic of my unique emotionally-demonstrative patchwork personality, rather than, say, of me being a dickhead.

The evening started badly; I turned up 10 minutes late; not entirely my fault, as I’d been held up at a 3-hour monthly meeting of the Maintenance Administration Committee of the block of flats where I own a rental property. (Imagine how boring that meeting sounds, then magnify it by a factor equivalent to the disparity between N-Dubz’ fame and their talent, and you’ll get close to how dull it actually was. Just when I thought the meeting had finished - on 2 hrs 20 mins, which would in itself have been the longest meeting ever - an old fella piped up with a dispute about an old insurance claim, which had occurred before I even bought my flat. The upshot was that the managing agent promised to look into it, but would need to dig out the relevant paperwork, and I SWEAR that the last TWENTY minutes of the discussion - all of which took place whilst I was desperate for a piss as well as to depart - consisted entirely of “Well, you know, I’m really not happy - I want this sorted as soon as possible”. “OK, we’ll dig out the paperwork and look into it”. “Well, as long as you do, because I really don’t think this is being handled correctly”. “No, I understand - we’ll get the file out and report back next month”. “Right, as long as you make sure this is investigated properly, because I’m very…” etc etc etc etc. Etc.)

(Yawn…) oh, sorry, where was I? Oh yes, 10 minutes late for squash. In the normal run of things, you’d think that this wasn’t a blue-whale-sized deal; yet I turned up to a sea of faces stonier than Cheech and Chong put together; for it seems that a) doubles matches tend to go on for longer than the normal 40-minute allotted period, and b) the whole evening was booked up with doubles matches - mine, and then 7 others. Thus my late arrival had inconvenienced everyone playing after us - 28 separate individuals, their extended families and probably entire circles of close friends, extending outwards to 3 or 4 degrees of separation… in fact, I’m half-expecting to see “Inconsiderate Squash Bastard Ruins Friday” as the headline in this week’s installment of your super soaraway Kentish Express.

On to the game itself; I was playing with a guy of around 40 against an older man and a woman of 35 or so with a heavily bandaged knee. Having never before played doubles, I was instructed to call a let (whereby the point is replayed) if I was in any danger at all of banging into anyone - however, keen no doubt to make up as much time as possible to atone for my late arrival, I ignored this advice and proceeded to run into / knock to the ground said partially injured woman FIVE times during the course of play. She didn’t seem to mind. Much. The first couple of times, at least. My physically intimidating approach paid off as we raced into a 2-1 lead - then, however, on surrendering a 6-point advantage in game 4 and losing the game with a poor shot, I launched into my trademark battle-cry of “OH, for FUCK’S sake!” - only to look up at the viewing gallery and see the young families of both my partner and knee-woman staring at me, kids borderline quizzical / frightened, adults ashen-faced; cue appropriate self-abasement. The deciding game was a close one; we held the lead and match point at 14-13, and my serve (directed deliberately straight at knee-woman’s patella, obviously) had the opposition in trouble - my partner was set up for an easy put-away… which he proceeded to dunk into the “foul” area at the bottom of the wall. We (or rather I) then lost the next two points as well, and that was that. Well, nearly. The last point over, the now-dead ball rolled to my feet, and in a fit of pique, I took a frustrated swing, miscued completely - and looked up to see the ball whizzing at 90mph straight into the bowlarks of my startled partner. Cue tuts from the gallery and a sotto-voce chorus of “that’s really not on” / “what a bad loser” etc. A massively suppliant round of “sorry”s to anyone who would make eye contact with me didn’t seem to do the trick, as I was roundly ignored in the bar when drinks were being taken afterwards. And as I write this, there’s a mysterious and unexpected “call me back” message from the club’s membership secretary on my phone…

Still, it’s the taking part that counts.

Regular readers will know that estimating age isn’t really one of my stronger points, be it older or younger. You’d have thought I’d learned my lesson by now and enforced some kind of “don’t ask, don’t speculate” policy - but obviously not.

Rewind 10 days or so to the final of the Ashford and District Table-Tennis Handicap Cup (”handicap” in the sense that weaker players are given a headstart against stronger players; I haven’t taken to feigning physical disability in order to win tournaments. Yet.) My team was playing against a side from a local school. We had already lost the match (due to the Ashford and District Table-Tennis Committee making some fairly bad errors when fixing the individual handicaps, meaning that my team basically had no chance from the start and that, even though I won all of my games and put in a “man of the match” performance, I only received a poxy runners-up medal, which was extremely unfair, but I shouldn’t really go on about it, even though really, something should be done about…)

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, we’d already lost the match, but still had the final doubles to play. Since this game was meaningless, we decided to let our team captain’s son play; he’s twelve and improving fast, but this was still by far the biggest stage he’d ever competed on. So it was me and a twelve-year-old playing against a girl who looked about 13 and a boy who was a couple of inches shorter than her. As the senior player, I took responsibility for tossing the coin to decide who’d serve first; I turned to the youngest-looking member of the opposing team (the boy) and said something along the lines of “Right, little fella - you’re the youngest, you can call: heads or tails? You’ve played really well, by the way; how old are you - ten? Eleven?” His team-mates all immediately descended into fits of laughter, and he looked at me as if he were about to throw his T-T bat, ninja-style, in an attempt to slice off my head.

Turns out that he was fifteen, two years older than his much taller female playing partner, that his voice still hadn’t broken and that he was constantly tormented by both schoolmates and fears of his own inadequacy. He probably cried all the way home.

Another spectacular age-based faux-pas, and that boy’s otherwise victorious evening utterly ruined. Still… erm… in my defence (ahem), T-T is a tough game at the highest levels, and if you play with the big boys, you’ve got to be prepared for a bit of sledging…

All has been fairly quiet on the faux-pas front recently; partly because seasonal climatic conditions during the last few months have encouraged me to stay indoors more and hence mingle less with the general public; but also because, following yet another drunken night of lame puns and predictable ethno-geographical insults in late September last year, I’d resolved to avoid the kind of situations in which I let my natural exuberance / big gob / tendency to mild alcoholism have the run of my brain. But you can’t keep a good man down…

I enjoy a pleasant, if perfunctory, relationship with my neighbours on the left-hand side; No. 30. (I have no idea what the inhabitants of No. 34 look like; I do know all too well, however, that they are probably both on the early shift of whatever job they share, and, more pertinently from my sleep-deprived perspective, that they enjoy waking up to the music of Westlife on a daily basis. And may well also be hard of hearing.)

Anyways; last week, a diplomatic mission was sent over from No. 30, consisting of the matriarch of the house, and the elder of her two daughters. The conversation went something like this:

Mum - “Oh, hello, Michael; nice to see you. We’ve got a parcel which the post office left for you earlier, haven’t we, daughter*?”

Michael - “Oh, great - I’ve been waiting for that package to arrive, thanks a lot!”

Mum. - “And daughter’s got something to tell you, haven’t you dear?”

M - “Oh, really?”

Daughter - “Yes; it’s my birthday and I’m having a slumber party with my friends; I hope we don’t make too much noise, but mummy told me that I should let the neighbours know beforehand.”

M - “Great! Happy birthday, and don’t worry about the noise; I hope you have a great time! How old are you? Five? Six?”

[Stony silence lasting approx. 15 seconds. Daughter’s previously-smiling face drops several kilometers.]

Mum. - “She’s TEN, aren’t you dear? Anyway, must be going…”

Since this unfortunate incident last week, daughter AND her younger sister (who is apparently seven, to add insult to… erm… insult) have stopped saying hello and have started crossing the road to avoid me. I used to enjoy a modicum of respect from the “yoot” around these parts, but now many of the girls’ young friends on the street have started to point and laugh. In fact, I might as well be Chris Langham wearing a Jonathan King T-Shirt listening at full volume to Gary Glitter’s greatest hits… to paraphrase William Congreve; hell hath no fury like a 10-year-old girl whose age you badly underestimate…

(* - I can’t actually remember the daughter’s name either, despite having said hello to her on most days for over two years… Molly? Mary? Dad, if you’re reading this - you spoke to her once, I think; can you remember? I’m not even sure if the mother’s name is “Shelley” or “Kelly”. The father is DEFINITELY called “Michael”, so my powers of recall are on safer ground there.)

Saturday: another party, and therefore another set of steaming social faux-pas for my already-bloated shame-gland to digest on Sunday. It was organised by an old school friend at a bar in Brixton, with a fairly late continental-style start time (9.30). You may not be surprised to discover that I’d been drinking since about 5.30, so was already fairly exuberant when company arrived.

However, I’m not sure that “exuberance” excuses introducing myself to the assembled throng of (mostly) yoga professionals with a falsetto rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” - followed by one of “Wuthering Heights” - although, in my defence, the girl who’d organised the party did mention that we’d once done a karaoke together. So what else was I going to do?

Later I was introduced to a girl called Salome. Having served up the obvious John the Baptist reference on a silver platter, I went one step further - something along the lines of “I’m half-Italian, so by rights I should know all about Salami; it’s a shame I’m vegetarian”. “D’you know, Michael”, she countered, “I’ve never heard that pun before in my life. Oh wait - yes I have! Every day when I was at primary school. But not since I stopped hanging around with people aged nine.” (Or words to that effect…)

Still, she forgave me and the subject turned to music - it turned out that she worked for a music exam board. We were getting on OK and I was quite keen to emphasise my chops, but sadly the conversation panned out something like this:

- “So I hear you’re quite musical; what do you play?”
- “A bit of piano and guitar”
- “Have you ever done anything with it?”
- “Erm… grade 3 piano when I was 12, and I often sit at home playing the guitar. By myself. Erm… ahem… I’m really good though; I can play pretty much anything… (uhhh… as long as it’s transposed into the key of “C” on the piano or “E” on the guitar)”
- “Really, Michael. How prodigious.”

Time prevents me elaborating on a later, very interesting conversation with a Scottish journalist which I felt the need to ruin at the end with an impromptu rendition of “Donald, where’s your Troosers”, but add to these blunderings a slightly over-enthusiastic goodbye kiss for the hostess, and a fairly vitriolic argument with my sister on the train back (about… well… absolutely nothing, if I’m honest), and you have the whole lengthy car-crash in a nutshell.

Just another perfectly normal Tafkass night out, in other words…

Some of you may know that, as well as being a professional evil eBay profiteer (or “eBastard”), I’m also an evil buy-to-let landlord, thanks in no small part to the assistance of evil mortgage-procurer Chez. Currently, the flat is occupied by a perma-tanned receptionist aged 26 (approx) and a male gay couple, both in their early 20s. I must say that all are model tenants, especially the latter; they pay on time, I’ve had no complaints from neighbours about any rowdy Village People tribute parties and there’s not even the hint of a background odour of inappropriately-used vaseline / WD40 when I pop round to collect my dues.

In fact, the villain of the piece in landlord / tenant relations is usually me - my inability to think about the conversational expressions I use before actually employing them means that I invariably come across as some kind of rampant homophobe.

Eg. a window got broken the other week, and I needed to arrange a time to pop in to fix it (I did it on the cheap, thanks to the help of a table-tennis buddy). Whilst I can’t remember the exact nature of my opening gambit, it went something like this:

“Bit of a bummer (unfortunate expression, Michael…) about the window, lads… it’s been a bit of a pain in the arse (d’oh!) getting someone to fix it, and I’ll be buggered (AAAARGH!!) if I’m paying full whack - I’ll get a mate to do it. Unless there’s a huge cock-up (oh, for the love of….), he should be round next week. Erm, I mean… oh…. sorry….”

They both looked at me, ashen-faced, and I ran home quickly to adopt the foetal position with embarrasment. This wasn’t even a one-off, it happens pretty much every time I talk to either of them. They probably suspect me of being the Grand Wizard of the Folkestone Chapter of the Bernard Manning Fan Club or similar…

I’m fast starting to get scowls from the residents of Park Road; not because I’m the only single bloke in a street full of families and old people, but because I haven’t yet successfully downsized my aural parameters. I moved here in August last year from a big detached house in which I could shout at the TV to my heart’s content (as I regularly do) and be barely audible in the next room. Park Road, however, is a tiny terraced cottage with fairly thin walls and two young families living on either side, and so obviously… well, let me give you a couple of recent examples of my misdeeds:

Yesterday, in a hair-metal-tastic nostalgic mood, I listened to all of “Appetite for Destruction”, and, as you do, spent the rest of the day wandering around the house singing songs from that mighty work (and any other tracks that came into my head) in a comically exaggerated Axl Rose high-pitched nasal voice. Later on in the shower, I even tried a few G’n'R numbers using the classic comedy Bob Dylan singing intonation (a lower nasal voice, rising and lengthening at the end of the phraaaaase), chuckling to myself as I did so, and thinking myself cocooned in my buffoonery by bricks and mortar.

So this morning, I go out to collect the bins (the contents of which had been handily strewn across the street by Shepway District Council at an approximate weekly cost of £23.07 a pop in Council Tax - but I digress), and I run into the pretty housewife who lives next door. “So, do you prefer the Bob Dylan or Guns ‘n’ Roses version of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door?”, she asks, raising her eyebrows. A quick meaningless bluster and a marked face-reddening later, I had scooted back indoors to take the shame.

This is hot on the heels of Chez (who was down for an excellent weekend of japes) and I enjoying a half-hour post-pub pissing-around-session with the effects box on my electric guitar at 2am on Sunday morning. We turned the amp on again the next day to check the volume and both spontaneoulsy shouted “Sorreeeee!”at the wall…

A poignant reminder for your “humble” editor of the wisdom of not trying to be too much of a clever dick. Am currently out in Italy drinking way too much and interacting when necessary with the locals; they often ask me (as you would) “Parli Italiano?” (”Do you speak Italian?”) - to which, if I were wise, I’d reply something along the lines of “Un po’” (”a little”). Instead, I have for the last few years taken to saying something more florid along the lines of “Yes, to a limited extent, but not particularly well”.

Problem is that I’d confused the word “bene” (”good”) with “buono” (”good”, but mostly applied to food being tasty). It was only yesterday that someone pointed this out to me; hence the opening stages of my conversations with the good citizens of Imperia have actually been going: “Ah, you speak Italian?” “Yes, but not particularly deliciously.”

That’ll explain some of the looks.

I enjoyed an excellent cocktail-based soiree at the swanky Kings Road pad of a good friend and former work colleague last night; but as per usual, the evening obviously wasn’t going to pass off without me covering myself in inglory. The bottle-and-a-half of wine which I consumed with another friend before I even arrived at the party seemed like a good idea at the time.

The litany’s longer than usual , so we’ll leave to one side the fact that I spent 10 minutes slagging off the recruitment industry to a total stranger, subsequently to find out that she works for the recruitment company which I left 5 years ago (and was thus the prime object of the slagging). We’ll even gloss over my ham-fisted attempts to argue with a far-more-informed-than-me Norwegian lady about the pros and cons of whaling (my knowledge-base coming more or less exclusively from the fact that I’ve seen “Free Willy” a couple of times.)

The highlight of the evening was meeting one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen (a 23-year-old recently arrived from Moscow), and even getting on quite well with her. The lowlights? 1) Resorting to Kettle Chips shaped vaguely like the county of Kent as a visual aid to explain to her where Folkestone is in relation to London, 2) subsequently eating said table-dusted crisps, talking with my mouth full and getting potato-based spittle-mush on her nice black dress, 3) thinking that “martinis are a FANTASTIC way to get drunk really quickly, don’t you think?” was a good conversational gambit, 4) thinking that “hmm, what about that British Council stuff, eh?” was a good subsequent conversational gambit (etc etc…)

Despite all this, a male friend and fellow attendee seemed to think that she quite liked me. Oh yes, ‘cos that happens all the time; 23-year-old oligarch bride material who looks like a Hed Kandi album cover - specifically this one - being interested in a badly-dressed catastrophically-drunk 34-year-old. But I did give her my number (mental note to self; next time you meet a girl you like, it’s probably a smarter tactic to ASK FOR HER NUMBER) - and guess what? We’ve been texting sweet nothings to each other all day.

Sorry - that should read “texting nothing to each other all day”.

Enjoyed a scandalously large and boozy pre-Christmas lunch with some friends of my parents at a very swanky apartment in central Nice, and, semi-miraculously, I managed to restrict myself to just the two faux-pas, as follows:

1) We got onto the cheery, Christmassy subject of old age / euthanasia; “Yeah, three score years and ten”, I rejoindered - “that should be enough for anyone.” Our host pointed out that he was 74. “Erm… I meant four score years and ten, obviously” was my subsequent attempt to dig myself out of a Krakatoa-sized crater with a child’s plastic trowel.

2) The subject of bathrooms came up; specifically wet rooms / walk-in showers. With my mouth once again bravely leading where my brain was too slow to tread, I commented that I thought wet rooms were “quite fashionable a few years ago, but a bit chavvy now.” Of course, I hadn’t yet seen our hosts’ bathroom; had I taken the trouble to relieve myself (both bladder-wise and of my ignorance), I’d have seen that they’d had a walk-in shower installed earlier in the year at considerable expense. They graciously tried to deflect my idiocy by saying “oh, but we’re intending to put in a shower curtain”, but it wasn’t enough to stop me spending the rest of the afternoon with my head under a cushion on the sofa repeatedly moaning “Oh GOD, NO!”

Still, they say that Christmas is a time for giving - I suppose that must extend to offence…

Merry Eczemas too all regulars, occasionals and, heck darn it, anyone else!

More embarrasment chez Shit last night; this time in the field of Mars rather than Venus. Well, the field of the god of table-tennis, anyway.

I turned up late to a fixture with a bit of a cob-on, as I’d failed singularly to follow the directions I’d been given and ended up on a riveting night-vision tour of Ashford’s roundabouts; my foul mood was exacerbated by playing very badly against an inferior opponent in my first match. After one particularly rank shot, I yelled “OH FOR GOD’S SAKE” (Pal knows what I’m talking about), slapped my racquet* against my thigh, and, predictably, the handle broke off to general hilarity. (It was Chinese and fairly poorly-made - probably subject to a recall from Mattel as well). Needless to say, I accepted my subsequent defeats very meekly…

Since no-one can even remember who Martin Jol is anymore, such is the transient nature of society’s consciousness, I suppose I’d better change the poll and see what you think of sporting hissy-fits.

(* -it’s a table-tennis RACQUET, not bat.)