Left-hand glove theory

On last week's The Danny Baker Show a man rang in with a story about going for a walk and finding a succession of lost gloves, all of them left-handed. This morning on my walk into work I saw three gloves, two left-handed and one unidentified (someone had thought it was amusing to throw it into a tree, so I couldn't see clearly). I have a theory about this.

As the temperature has got much warmer in recent weeks, people have been lulled into a false sense of chilliness. They have left the house with two gloves on but, as they have started walking they have warmed up, and eventually they have become too hot. So they decide to remove their gloves. Most people are right handed and I think that means you would remove your left glove first. No problem there, it is held firmly in your right hand. Then you have to switch that glove to your left hand while you take off your right glove. Now your left hand is your weaker hand, and the task of holding one glove while taking off another might prove difficult. You are more likely to hold the glove you are taking off securely, as that is the one you are paying attention to. The left glove, I think, falls to the ground in a couple of ways:

• during the right glove removal process, or, and I think more likely
• as you are stuffing both gloves into a pocket, the more loosely held glove (the left one) tumbles to the ground and is lost.

Either that or there's a one-armed fugitive out there, unnecessarily buying hundreds of pairs of gloves, and discarding the left one each time.

#weirddreams Alan Titchmarsh and his double

Perhaps Chelsea Flower Show wasn't the best of places to look for somewhere to play five-a-side, but suddenly through the crowd came Alan Titchmarsh, his double, and his bodyguards. It was not unlike this classic picture of Frank Sinatra, his double and bodyguards, taken by Terry O'Neill. However, Alan and his double pushed their way through and passed us without a word. I wondered later why Alan Titchmarsh would have a double, but it seems likely that he would be used on the more dangerous gardening shots - those involving forks and power tools, perhaps. It would be foolish to risk the typing fingers of Mr Titchmarsh, particularly if his tetanus injections aren't up-to-date.

#weirddreams Buying a piano

Went to a house to look at a piano we might possibly buy. The woman was hassled, with three or four children running around. We couldn't see a piano anywhere. "Oh it's there, in those bookshelves," she said. In an alcove in the living room were some red velvet bookshelves. "You just need to spin it round," she told us, and then proceeded to turn a handle on the side. The bookshelves span round and round, faster and faster, until they resembled a red velvet skirt with a tightly drawn waist. The spinning slowed, and now the bookshelves had turned into a cupboard. Opening the doors revealed a typewriter on a pull-out shelf (=a keyboard, nice joke subconscious) and an old-fashioned, although small, organ - a bit like those old-fashioned ones on which uncles played show tunes. We apologised that the size of the keyboard on the organ was too small, and we were looking for something larger. Already on the phone to a friend about something else, she shrugged, directed us to the door, and we left.