Daft Question

by John Passmore

"How far away was the other vehicle when it hit you?"

This was the question Ipswich police rang me to ask. I must say I stumbled over the answer: The other vehicle had hit mine. How far away could it possibly be?

It was a different policewoman this time and we had to go over much of the story again. But it had to be done and so we got quite chatty. She comiserated. She asked me how long was my car going to be off the road.

Nobody could say for sure.

The worst part was that I wouldn't be getting the benefit of all the advertising plastered all over it.

Yes, that would be a problem. Then she said: "What does it advertise?"

And within a couple of minutes she was saying things like: "That sounds amazing!" and "I bet you do a lot of business in a recession..."

And now she's looking at the website.

By coincidence the next call was from the boss of the vehicle repair company wanting to know where they could get some new stickers. So I gave him the number for Exec Services and then said: "Do you know what it's all about? Have I told you about my part-time business?"

And when I said: "So which is more interesting for you, the idea of saving money... or making money?" he didn't have to think about it for long: "Both," he said.

And so now I'm going to see him tomorrow.

All the trauma was beginning to seem not so bad after all.

It was at this point that I received one of those hoax virus alerts people seem to fall for all the time. You know the sort of thing: "Forward this to everyone you know. If you receive an email with the subject such-and-such DO NOT OPEN IT. It will destroy your hard disk, scramble your microchips, bring about the end of the world etc...

Usually I feed a relevant phrase into Google, establish that it's a hoax and send the evidence to the person who sent me the original - along with advice that they might like to do the same next time. People are usually rather sheepish but grateful.

However, this time I thought: "Why stop at one email? Why not send it to "Repy All" - after all I'm offering valuable advice. It might stop someone else making a fool of themselves.

(The fact that all my emails have links to my website and a French and Saunders video is neither here not there...)

So what with that and 50 cards and half a dozen DVD in fairly unremarkable circumstances, the business is back on the road - even if the Mini isn't.