After yesterday's fiasco of trying to book cinema tickets, we arrived at the Odeon in Muswell Hill to find the automatic ticket-dispensing machine displaying the following message:

Look at it. Look. “Sorry – I'm Feeling Unwell”. This pathetic attempt to engender some kind of sympathy for a malfunctioning computer cut no ice with me, nor with the milling hordes of people who had swamped the foyer and were missing the start of their films, having arrived a good 20 minutes in advance. Tempers were fraying, and people were pushing. A posh lady in a red coat walked briskly towards me. “Yes, excuse me,” she barked in my direction. “I'm sorry,” I replied brusquely, finding her tone of voice profoundly irritating. “I'm feeling unwell.”

I eventually saw “Sideways”, and I liked it.

Today, a “double-mere” celebration, with both Jenny's mother and my own allowing us to honour them on Mother's Day with a Sunday lunch treat. My sister and father were also in attendance. Try booking a table for 6 people for lunch on Mother's Day: you'll come up against great, great difficulty. If you find a table at all, you'll be asked to pay a ludicrous price per head upfront, despite the fact that the fare on offer is exactly the same as usual. Hendon Hall, in close proximity to Jenny's mother's house, offered the plus-point of being vaguely central for all the attendees, and the minus-point of a notionally “free of charge” Mother's Day gift. I begged them to let us have just a normal Sunday lunch. “No, it's a special Mother's Day menu,” they replied. Jenny told me to tell them that the six of us were meeting to discuss the dissolution of a failing business. They wouldn't budge. OK. Booking made.

Our two delightful families battled through a few undercooked spuds with vigour, and at the end of the meal the question of the Free Mother's Day Gift resurfaced. When I booked, they had asked me how many mothers were going to be coming, and I had refused to tell them. Nevertheless a sweating young man in a suit several sizes too large came to our table, desperate for the information. “How many mothers do we have here, then?” I looked around the table. “It seems that we have two,” I told him. “Two!” he replied. “I thought that there was only one here, no-one else looks old enough!”

Jenny's mother has white hair and is slightly older than my own mother, but not vastly so. Jenny looked at the guy quizzically. He realised that he had said a Wrong Thing, but was too stupid to work out exactly what it was, or how he could make amends. “Er… that was a compliment, wasn't it?” he stammered. Jenny was unconvinced. “It may have been a compliment for a few people around the table, but for one person it certainly wasn't.” He still couldn't muster up an apology, and we sat there in amused, but stunned silence. He went off to get the gifts, which turned out to be a choice of either a box of Ferrero Rocher, or what looked like some children's cake in a blue cardboard box. Both mothers opted for the Ferrero Rocher. Jenny looked at the chap as he handed them over, and made a suggestion. “Maybe, in view of my frail mother's advancing years, you could give her another box for free.” He looked unsure of what to say. “Er, yes?” Jenny gave him a steely glare. “You're an idiot,” she said. She was right.