Six signs everyone thinks you're a f**king terrible driver

DOES anyone getting into your car first ask questions about whether it has working airbags? Then you’re the kind of driver everyone hates being in a car with. These are the signs:

Your passengers hold onto the roof handles for dear life

If your passengers’ knuckles are white with the force they’re exerting holding onto the roof handles, they may not be entirely confident of your motoring.

The question of how many driving tests you took always seems to come up

Cars are meant to be great environments for conversation, but whenever you’re at the wheel it always seems to come back to the subject of your driving tests, how many you took, how the f**k you passed, whether your examiner was legally blind, etc.

They keep interrupting your phone calls

When you’re on the phone for an important call about what Carl said to Sophie about Judy, it’s irritating being interrupted by remarks like ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that truck’s now chasing us’ or ‘Actually this isn’t a dual carriageway’.

Comments like ‘wow, we’re so close to that Audi I know what dealership sold it’ are made

It’s hardly your fault when other cars won’t get out of the way, but passengers seem to think that if you’re close enough to another car to see what the kids in its back seats are watching on their tablets, you’re too close. What happened to intimacy?

Everyone suddenly ‘fancies a walk’

You arrive at traffic lights with a bit of a skid and a screech and suddenly the friends you’re giving a lift to fling the doors wide and jump out, claiming they want to walk home and the fresh air will do them good. Even though they’re six miles from home and head straight to the bus stop.

Passengers begin to pray at the sight of a double roundabout

Double roundabouts can be tricky, and the noise of someone in the front seat commending their immortal soul to the Lord is distracting. Brake suddenly and give the Vs to a taxi driver to turn their mutterings into keening and wailing as they just hope the end will be quick.

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Sending a blank PDF: the deadline-dodging tricks of Boris Johnson

THE EU keeps imposing deadlines like idiots who don’t know they’re up against the most experienced deadline-dodger in politics. Here’s how I mock them:

The old blank PDF trick

Ten to midnight and you’ve completely failed to spot any loophole in level playing field proposals, because the EU are girly swots who check their work? Send a sternly-worded email demanding a response to the attached proposals within 48 hours, then attach blank PDFs. They’ll go mental with their IT.

The tragedy

An oldie but a goodie, this got me out of at least six Eton essays. Simply phone up and say in grave tones that unfortunately the fourth Earl of Barsetshire has passed on, and you are obliged to attend his funeral. They’ll be too intimidated by your connections to follow it up.

Get them pissed

Invite your tutor to a special conference about your dissertation and present them with an expensive bottle of cognac. Get them staggering drunk while waxing lyrical about how brilliant the completed essay will be, then blame them for not remembering the details. Substitute ‘EU’ for ‘tutor’ and ‘trade deal’ for dissertation.

Say you’ve done it

Turn up for a crucial deadline breezily and cheerfully, as if everything’s been settled, then feign incomprehension when challenged. ‘What?’ you reply, shocked, ‘But I’ve given it in. You marked it and gave it back to me. I got an A.’ Sell it right and even Barnier will panic.

Mix-up at HQ

There’s so much of the EU that even they can’t keep track. Tell the European Commission that you gave it to the European Council, the European Council you gave it to the European Parliament, the Parliament that it went to the Commission etc. They’ll never find it and blame themselves.

Steal someone else’s work

When all else fails, steal someone else’s essay and hand it in as your own. Do it late enough and they’ll never have time to check. See, I’ve got a draft free trade deal here from the EU, so I’ll simply write my name on the top and hand it back to them. Suckers.

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