The friendly fire incidents even occur in mainland Britain.

As a prelude to the assault on the Messines Ridge in the First World War the British dug tunnels under the German lines and laid huge mines in chambers. The explosives were detonated just before the assault, the largest controlled explosion to date. However, some of the mines were lost and one of them, the largest unexploded bomb in the world, sits directly under a Belgian farm.

I’m getting the paperwork together to do my tax return. Despite the chaos of my filing (stacking things on the floor or shoving them in boxes) system, I’ve managed to find P45s/P60s for the two periods of temp work I did in 2002-2003 and a bunch of invoices and receipts that are relevant. I have yet to find anything from the unemployment people explaining how much they paid me. I’m guessing they’re incompetent and never sent me anything. I checked my bank account yesterday and found I hadn’t been paid any dole for the Christmas and New Year weeks- the first time since signing on when I haven’t actually done enough freelancing and therefore should have received some money- and when I tried to phone them about this there was no answer.

(I don’t think there is such a thing as a P30, I was just alluding to a song by Bow Wow Wow.)