Honesty Is The Best Policy

It's a subject that provoked plenty of lively debate and discussions with colleagues in the past. When our Sales Co-Ordinator said that he had handed the waitress some gift tokens that she had absent mindedly not kept when he used them to settle his bill, some in the office thought him daft and implied that he should have booked another table and returned next week. Others like me and Marion applauded him for his honesty. When our then very young son Paul carelessly opened our car door in high winds and it slammed into an extremely expensive 4 x 4 we left a note on the windscreen and duly sorted out the damage via our insurers at the cost of an expensive excess. The office debate was divided on this one too with some saying that they would have driven away whilst others took the line that we took. But honesty is the best policy. Do as you would be done by. You reap what you sow. What goes around comes around and all that. 

So when we got back home and unpacked our shopping after a trip to Tesco the other day and found this damage to the rear bumper it was clear that not everybody lives up to the same maxims and those who surprised me in in our office debates were clearly not alone in their way of thinking. OK it doesn't look a great deal of damage in the photo. The bumper was dirty after a trip down a muddy farm track when visiting some friends but there are two distinctive bumps surrounded by star cracks in the paintwork and there is no way that the perpetrator could have been ignorant of the damage. The only way to return it to how it looked would be a whole new bumper protector which, with fitting, will be several hundred pounds. So you reap what you sow? I'll let you make your mind up on that one.

Copyright The Times. Sorry Mr Murdoch. 

On a happier note, one of our guilty pleasures is the weekend papers. We buy The Times and Guardian on Saturday and the Sunday Times on Sunday. We used to have The Observer too but it went downhill when Kate Flett left and we gave up on it recently. Spending a few hours with such great writing is a luxury. This week The Times had a fabulous Paul McCartney interview by the brilliant Caitlin Moran which ended with her genuinely urging Macca to add The Frog Chorus to his future sets on tour. This photo which accompanied the piece, captures the essence of Moran so beautifully and cheered me up for the day.


I don't know what it is about the women writers of the quality press but, whilst I read this morning that 80% of newspaper columnists are men I find myself enjoying women's writing far more. I follow my favourites on Twitter and I have just noticed that whilst I follow Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, India Knight, Suzanne Moore, Kate Flett, Marina Hyde and Janice Turner the only blokes on my list are Barney Ronay and Tim Dowling. Perhaps I just don't have time for the alpha male pontifications of the likes of Clarkson and Rod Liddle or maybe Im just lacking in testosterone.

We are excitedly waiting to welcome our daughter Sarah and our granddaughter Rose on Thursday. Rose hasn't been to our house before so Marion has been busily babyfying the guest bedroom. And she's done a lovely job.

Her addition of Snoopy in the moon to the seascape above the bed was an inspiration. It's such a pity that it will be just four days before they head back to St Andrews but we hope to be in Scotland not long after Hogmanay.


And, if you aren't familiar with that Paul McCartney classic I mentioned, here it is. Tesco shoppers please take note.