The first was the announcement by one of our ladies that she was pregnant. You will be saying to yourselves that this is a common enough goings-on, but in our case never before, since all our ladies are of a mature age – it helps when selling comfort shoes - and the lady in question is in her late forties, so no doubt the event came as something of a surprise, maybe shock, to her and her husband, which of course is none of my business. The fish I had to fry was the regulations governing maternity leave which were a total mystery to me. I went immediately to Google where sure enough there was a government site which promised to tell me all, clicked on it and got Paternity leave, tried again and this time the right site came up, which was all about what the mother-to-be would get, but nothing that I could see about what the employer had to do, or more to the point where the money was going to come from. There was a link for employers, which was unobtainable. I was quietly tearing my hair when I realised that we have a daughter who is actually on maternity leave. She put me on to her boss who was a mine of information, so now I am an expert on the subject.

The absence of the person in question for up to a year, and the possibility that she will not come back, will be a nuisance but not a disaster. I did wonder what it must be like for a two or three person business, or one where the pregnant woman is the lynch-pin of the firm. I am told it is not unusual for mothers to aver they will certainly come back as soon as possible, but then decide to resign when they have got their little bundle of joy in their arms. The uncertainty and the worry must be enough to turn such employer’s hair grey.

The next surprise was a recall notice, something else I have never had before. I see these things in the papers all the time, about toys which could harm toddlers, contaminated foods and so on, but never about shoes. I suppose there must be shoes or with nails sticking up out of the insole or whatever, but I have never met them. What was weird in this case though was the reason for recall. The shoe in question was one of those trainers you can wear for the office (not a bad seller by the way) and the problem was that the laces were too long, which might trip up the unsuspecting wearer. I cast aside the idea that they might have noticed the laces were too long and used a pair of scissors, as we subsequently found one of our customers had done.

My first reaction was to wonder at the mind of whoever had complained and started the recall process in the first place, and then the sheer dumbness of our supplier who could simply have sent out fresh laces or credited the cost of replacing them instead of asking us to send them back. Not wanting the hassle that is exactly what we did. We took shorter laces from stock, threaded them when trade was slack and did not bother to demand payment, suspecting that the sort of outfit that could send out a recall notice over something so trivial could make all sorts of waves, like insisting we send them back because otherwise their computer would have a nervous breakdown or they would be hauled before the European Court or some other nonsense. A vision of the PLC, no longer with us I’m glad to say, that wanted to take me to court me for the £37 they owed me came frighteningly to mind. There is no limit to the damage just one jobsworth can do. Once common sense goes out of the window anything can happen.

Which is what happened in the case of my third brush with officialdom. I am in the habit of carrying a pocket knife.

I like the ones made by Opinel of France. They are cheap and have a simple yet infallible locking mechanism making it superior to a folding penknife which tends to collapse under pressure. It has all sort of uses around the shop and at home from opening cartons to sharpening pencils to peeling oranges and is, in short, almost indispensable.

I lost mine, so last year on holiday in France I bought another. I wanted a size 7 but the shop only had a size 8 which has, surprise, surprise, an 8 cm blade which was my undoing. Without thinking I left it in my pocket when I went up to the big city for a couple of meetings, both in big multi-occupied buildings with security. The first time I handed in the knife and collected it on my way out with nothing said. The second was a horse of a completely different colour. I duly emptied my pockets before going through the metal scanner and as expected, was asked to leave the knife behind. When I came to collect it I found myself being put to the question by a stern gentleman who informed me he was an ex-police officer who wanted know why I was carrying it. My explanation did not satisfy him at all. He said it was illegal because it was one centimetre too long and had a locking mechanism and by rights he should call the police to arrest me.

As it was obvious nothing of the sort was going to happen and I had a train to catch I listened patiently to his lecture and left, meditating on the high quality of the people in the security industry, and worrying about the state of the nation.

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