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Driving through the road widening works at junction ten, I noticed a horse being ridden down a muddy passageway that was about to become the hard shoulder. It had not yet been tarmacked, but the diggers had cleared away the trees from the slice of heathland and it was being flattened, in readiness for surfacing

‘My pronouns are xe and xem’ said the name badge on the supermarket checkout person’s uniform. And I thought, good for xem, because that wasn’t ruining grammar. How to explain that the transgender community are doing my head in because they are stealing words? (I don’t mind them inventing new ones.) I want to explore

‘No way am I having it now,’ said a friend, as she insisted on discussing the latest scare stories. And she shook her head so violently that her long blonde hair was flung sideways across her face, and the resemblance to an anti-vaxxer in the throes of hysteria was extremely convincing. But then she regained

Moral support Sir: All of Tim Shipman’s reasons for the PM’s reluctance to support Israel sound outwardly plausible, though, from my experience, the spook excuse, ‘The CIA wants us to keep the embassy open’, is plainly specious. Mossad is clearly all over Iran and they’re not relying on an embassy (‘Starmer’s war zone’, 21 June).

The nurse fixed me with a disapproving stare: ‘Why is there such a gap between these prescriptions?’ I had gone for a blood pressure check so I could get my HRT, but when she looked at my notes she could see that they last prescribed it years ago. In return for countless thousands of pounds

The county council insist the unmade track leading to my house is nothing to do with them, while the parish council change their position depending on how they feel on the day. If they want to boss us about, they infer they are leasing the land from Surrey county council, along with the rest of

The same resolution every year goes nowhere. Stop fighting battles and just have a nice, quiet life, I tell myself – and by the second day of the year I’m up to my eyeballs in kerfuffles. Having sworn off helping anyone with anything ever again for the grand total of three hours of 2023, from

‘You’re one of them anti-vaxxers,’ said the brusque northerner who was seated opposite me at a friend’s supper party. ‘Why do you think I got Covid and was really ill even though I’m up to date on my jabs?’ And he fixed me with a murderous stare. I said: ‘I think you’ve got the wrong

‘Then I got taken hostage in Iran,’ said the lady sitting next to me in the hairdresser’s as she was having her hair crimped. ‘Really?’ said the hairdresser, who had the flat irons on her hair and was making her look like an 1980s pop star. ‘And how was that?’ He was obviously stuck in

Growing problem Sir: The first leading article of the year (‘Growing apart’, 4 January) points to the gap in economic growth between the US and the UK, while the first cover piece (‘Shift key’) identifies a shift rightwards in values and voting intention, in reaction to the bigger state model of Keir Starmer’s government. Sandwiched

‘You’re very easy to deal with, I must say,’ said the tall, handsome vet who was examining the spaniel. I laughed. ‘That’s not what the last vet said.’ The last vet sacked me after I asked to see my dog’s notes. After a long and arduous battle with corporate vetdom, I made my way down

‘Notice from your vets’ said the email subject. I clicked and there was a letter telling me that my vet was sacking me as a client with two weeks’ notice, even though I had a sick dog. This was because I had asked to see my dog’s notes and discovered they had been discussing me,

‘If AA wants to make its meetings safe, then maybe it should ban alcoholics,’ said the builder boyfriend and I had to admit, he had cracked it. There was me getting all wound up about why more and more of the meetings in Surrey won’t let the bricklayer in because of his criminal convictions and

Life support Sir: If the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill is passed into law we will have crossed the Rubicon. As the second reading vote on 29 November approaches, it is astonishing that we are hearing less debate than on the loss of the winter fuel payment. There should be the mother of all

With only five to ten more years to work out how to log in to my pension plan I need to get a move on. The Fidelity website is so impenetrable to someone like me that, aged 50, I fear I will have run out of time to get access to ‘planviewer’ by the time

The children walked with flaming torches ahead of the float bearing the bonfire queen which was headed for the towering monstrosity of pallets and tree branches on the village green. The builder boyfriend and I stood at the front of the crowds lining the road as the procession came through in the darkness and it

Industrial waste Sir: I endorse your concerns about the closure of Grangemouth and Port Talbot and the statement that ‘if high-quality jobs are to return to the North and the Midlands then re-industrialisation is presumably the answer’ (‘Time for a change’, 12 October). However, your leading article fails to observe that Ed Miliband has already

By the time I got through to someone at British Gas to complain about them holding £491 of my money in credit, they were holding £924. This was made up of £858 of my own money plus £66 from the government support scheme, the first instalment of which had just hit my account. So there

Craic down Sir: If Ireland had been investing in infrastructure as Ross Clark writes (‘Bog down’, 21 September), Dublin would have a metro, Galway a ring road, and primary school parents wouldn’t be forced to pay for basic necessities. And when the only local hotel cancels wedding and birthday parties because government has block-booked it

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for something to catch a mouse that won’t cause it any distress,’ said the young chap who had walked into the hardware cabin at the farm shop with his girlfriend. The pair of them had briefly perused the shelves where the well assorted pest control items were neatly stacked and, not