So there I was one Thursday, a hired gob on Chart The Week, discussing the situation in Syria as government forces continued their assault on Homs; and frankly who better to bring some perspective to important international issues than the chap who writes the semi-humorous sport-on-tv column for The Guardian, and has already shared his views on such grave matters as Clare Balding's hair style and Alan Shearer's inability to decline the simplest English verb (I did, He done, He done terrific...)?

They used to get my smarter brother to deal with international politics, until they moved to Manchester and found I was handier - and had better jokes.

And there's the genius of the Richard Bacon Show.  My views become just as valid as those of my S.B. who used to hold down the important incumbency of deciding what went on the front page of one of Britain's quality (i.e. low circulation) newspapers. 

Thanks to Richard I can bring to you the opinions of the common man (or woman, it could be a woman, I have a perfect right to be a woman - to quote Monty Python), the man on the Longsight omnibus. 

He also sometimes has some half-decent stand-up comics on. 

And the reason for this mild panegyric?  Well, when I was last on the show, Richard complained that on this website you are currently exploring with such obvious pleasure, I mention pretty well every radio show I have ever been on except his. 

Consider yourself mentioned now, Richard.....

But what I really wanted to say was...

How irritating is it when you make a call complaining to some mobile 'phone company about its latest outrage, get absolutely nowhere, and decide, after twenty minutes of being stonewalled, distracted and diverted in a depressingly circular conversation, to terminate the call and get back to your life, and the operator  says blithely, "Is there anything else I can help you with today, Martin?" (this must be especially annoying if your name isn't Martin)

My latest complaint was about the amount of data I had been allegedly using on my iPhone, despite hardly ever logging onto the Internet on it.  The O2 lady explained to me that the 'phone was constantly using data "updating itself," even overnight when switched off and on charge, because the piece of shit instrument barely holds its charge for a day.  I told her to tell my 'phone it doesn't need to "update itself," I'm quite happy with the piece of shit as it is.

And what is all this updating?  Well, all our smart 'phones are updating our personal details all the time; where we've been, what sites we've been on, what our interests are, what we've bought from Amazon etc. etc.  And we're paying them to do it.  That is what the war between Facebook and Google is all about; who can acquire the most detailed information about us, in order to sell us more stuff.  That's the updating.  And, I repeat, we're buying the data to enable them to do it.

Anything else I can help you with today?