Cattitude

Just what you need first thing on a Monday morning, to be dispatched into the wilds of Camborne for assertiveness training. This got off to a bad start when we discovered that the Tesco that we'd parked in was the only one in the county not to have a coffee shop. Our gloom deepened when we made our way into the cold and peeling training building, to find that the coffee machine was broken. How one is expected to be assertive without caffeine, I can't imagine. My companion located the staff kitchen (through the door to the gents' loo, so full marks for initiative there) and raided their supply, so we at least had the consolation of Nescafe.

The trainer sounded disconcertingly like Graham Norton which was slightly distracting, as was the fact that when briefing me for the glory that was role play, he only looked me in the eye twice, fleetingly, the rest of the time keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the brooch on my lapel. I wanted to say er, being the assertiveness chap, shouldn't you be maintaining a bit more eye contact? Maybe I just naturally make people nervous...Still, my subsequent stint as "Health Visitor in charge of sex clinic" was fairly well received.