“A bad day at the office”.

In recent times the phrase has slid into common use to describe any activity – often unrelated to an office environment, e.g. a professional sporting contest - that has not gone according to plan.

I had one of my own yesterday that was almost literally true … in the sense that, to all intents & purposes, my front room is my office.

With my six months’ driving ban ending next Monday, having already received my new driving licence, my first task had been to re-insure my silver-grey Maserati Granturismo S with effect from the same date.

I had decided to obtain my first quotation from an insurer catering exclusively for the Over-50s. I had long ago curbed my resentment at receiving junk mail aimed at this specific age group for, as one descends into senility, one cannot afford to look a potential gift horse in the mouth. I’m not going to name the organisation concerned, but let’s just say the quest turned into a bit of a saga.

My key problem was that my new driving licence did not contain a list of my motoring convictions over the past five years, information required before the insurer was able offer me a quotation. After eight minutes short of three hours – having rung telephone director of enquiries several times, then different departments within the DLVA (the licensing authority) in Swansea, Salisbury magistrates court, the Metropolitan Police Traffic Offences Unit & even the insurer to check things – I finally had a definitive list of said items and made what I happily (but erroneously) assumed would be the ‘money’ call to the insurer.

Only to be told, by the new operative I was speaking to, that it was company policy not to consider offering insurance to a disqualified driver until at least 12 months had elapsed after he had received his licence back.

In other words, thanks to the incompetence of this organisation, I had just wasted my entire morning on a wild goose chase … a conclusion that was later confirmed to me with bells on when I learned from a different insurer that, as a matter of law, a disqualification automatically ‘wipes the slate clean’ as regards previous offences in any event!

It never rains but it pours. I’d only just taken my (two LSD and one Ecstasy) tablets & first slug of my lunchtime triple Dalwhinnie whisky … and settled down to watch the BBC soap Doctors … when the announcement came through of the England rugby squad to play Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday. I wasn’t in it. To be fair, I wasn’t really expecting to be.

Jonno is a straight-talking guy and known for personally informing both those he’s chosen, & indeed not chosen, of his decisions. Having rung the RFU switchboard on Friday to leave both my home and mobile numbers ‘for his attention’, I’d kind of been on alert over the weekend in case he should try to get hold of me.

Plainly the message wasn’t passed on, or alternatively Jonno has just acquired one of those annoying iPhone contraptions and, with his huge pudgy fingers, cannot quite work out how to ‘drag’ the contents of his Contact section across the screen to in order to make an outgoing call.

The irony was, when I rang the equally-indignant JS, he seemed far more interested in ranting about the conservative, plodding, dull – even dumb – nature of Jonno’s selections at full-back & in the back row than he was in providing me with the expected sympathy & consolation at not being chosen in the pivotal fly-half role. We have decided that, as only a serious reverse will be the necessary catalyst to give England any chance of a successful Rugby World Cup campaign next year, we shall both be cheering for a Scottish victory this weekend.